Clef


A clef is a musical symbol used to indicate the pitch of written notes. Placed on a stave, it indicates the name and pitch of the notes on one of the lines. This line serves as a reference point by which the names of the notes on any other line or space of the stave may be determined.
There are three forms of clef used in modern music notation: F, C, and G. Each form assigns its reference note to a line depending on its placement on the stave.
ClefNameNoteNote Location
G-clefG4on the line that passes through the curl of the clef
C-clefC4 on the line that passes through the centre of the clef
F-clefF3on the line that passes between the two dots of the clef

Once one of these clefs has been placed on one of the lines of the stave, the other lines and spaces are read in relation to it.
The use of different clefs makes it possible to write music for all instruments and voices, regardless of differences in tessitura. Because the modern stave has only five lines, it is not possible to represent all pitches playable by the orchestra with only one clef, even with the use of ledger lines. The use of different clefs for various instruments and voices allows each part to be written comfortably on the stave with a minimum of ledger lines. To this end, the G-clef is used for high parts, the C-clef for middle parts, and the F-clef for low parts—with the notable exception of transposing parts, which are written at a pitch different from their sound, often even in a different octave.

Placement on the stave

To facilitate writing for different tessituras, any of the clefs may theoretically be placed on any line of the stave. The further down on the stave a clef is positioned, the higher the tessitura; conversely, the higher the clef is positioned, the lower the tessitura.
Since there are five lines on the stave, and three clefs, it might seem that there would be fifteen possible clefs. Six of these, however, are redundant clefs. That leaves nine possible distinct clefs, all of which have been used historically: the G-clef on the two bottom lines, the F-clef on the three top lines, and the C-clef on any line of the stave except the topmost, earning the name of "movable C-clef".
Each of these clefs has a different name based on the tessitura for which it is best suited.
In modern music, only four clefs are used regularly: treble clef, bass clef, alto clef, and tenor clef. Of these, the treble and bass clefs are by far the most common. The tenor clef is used for the upper register of several instruments that usually use bass clef, while the alto is only used by the viola and a few other instruments.

Individual clefs

Here follows a complete list of the clefs, along with a list of instruments and voice parts notated with them. Each clef is shown in its proper position on the stave, followed by its reference note.

G-clefs

Treble clef

When the G-clef is placed on the second line of the stave, it is called the treble clef. This is the most common clef used today, the first clef that those studying music generally learn, and the only G-clef still in use. For this reason, the terms G-clef and treble clef are often seen as synonymous. The treble clef was historically used to mark a treble, or pre-pubescent, voice part.
Among the instruments that use treble clef are the violin, flute, oboe, bagpipe, cor anglais, all clarinets, all saxophones, horn, trumpet, cornet, vibraphone, xylophone, mandolin, recorder; it is also used for the guitar, which sounds an octave lower than written, as well as the euphonium and baritone horn, both of which sound a major ninth lower. Treble clef is the upper stave of the grand stave used for harp and keyboard instruments. It is also sometimes used, along with tenor clef, for the highest notes played by bass-clef instruments such as the cello, double bass, bassoon, and trombone. The viola also sometimes uses treble clef for very high notes. Treble clef is used for the soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, contralto and tenor voices. When sung, a tenor singer will sing the piece an octave lower, and is often written using an octave clef or double-treble clef.

French violin clef†

†In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a special clef was used for violin music, particularly that published in France. For this reason it is known as the French clef or French violin clef, although it was more commonly used for flute music. The G-clef is placed on the first line of the stave and is identical to the bass clef transposed up two octaves.

F-clefs

Baritone clef†

† When the F-clef is placed on the third line, it is called the baritone clef.
This clef was used for the left hand of keyboard music as well as the baritone part in vocal music.
The baritone clef has the less common variant as a C clef placed on the 5th line which is exactly equivalent.

Bass clef

When the F-clef is placed on the fourth line, it is called the bass clef. This is the only F-clef used today so that the terms "F-clef" and "bass clef" are often regarded as synonymous.
This clef is used for the cello, euphonium, double bass, bass guitar, bassoon, contrabassoon, trombone, baritone horn, tuba, and timpani. It is also used for the lowest notes of the horn, and for the baritone and bass voices. Tenor voice is notated in bass clef when the tenor and bass are written on the same stave. Bass clef is the bottom clef in the grand stave for harp and keyboard instruments. The contrabassoon, double bass, and electric bass sound an octave lower than the written pitch; no notation is usually made of this fact, but some composers/publishers will place an "8" beneath the clef for these instruments on the conductor's full score to differentiate from instruments that naturally sound within the clef.

Sub-bass clef†

† When the F-clef is placed on the fifth line, it is called the sub-bass clef. It is identical to the treble clef transposed down 2 octaves.
This clef was used by Johannes Ockeghem and Heinrich Schütz to write low bass parts, making a late appearance in Bach's Musical Offering.

C-clefs

Alto clef

When the C-clef is placed on the third line of the stave, it is called the alto or viola clef.
This clef is currently used for the viola, viola d'amore, the viola da gamba, the alto trombone, and the mandola. It is also associated with the countertenor voice and therefore called the counter-tenor clef. A vestige of this survives in Sergei Prokofiev's use of the clef for the cor anglais, as in his symphonies. It occasionally turns up in keyboard music to the present day.

Tenor clef

When the C-clef is placed on the fourth line of the stave, it is called the tenor clef.
This clef is used for the upper ranges of the bassoon, cello, euphonium, double bass, and tenor trombone. These instruments use bass clef for their low-to-mid ranges; treble clef is also used for their upper extremes. Where used for the double bass, the sound is an octave lower than the written pitch. The tenor violin parts were also drafted in this clef. Formerly, it was used by the tenor part in vocal music but its use has been largely supplanted either with an octave version of the treble clef where written alone or the bass clef where combined on one stave with the bass part.

Baritone clef†

† When the C-clef is placed on the 5th line of the stave, it is called the baritone clef. It is precisely the equivalent to the other more common form of the baritone clef, an F clef placed on the 3rd line.

Mezzo-soprano clef†

† When the C-clef is placed on the second line of the stave, it is called the mezzo-soprano clef.
The mezzo-soprano clef is very rarely used in modern contexts. It was traditionally used for mezzo-soprano voices in operatic roles, notably by composer Claudio Monteverdi. This clef was also used for certain flute parts during renaissance, especially when doubling vocal lines.

Soprano clef†

† When the C-clef is placed on the first line of the stave, it is called the soprano clef.
This clef was used for the right hand of keyboard music as well as in vocal music for sopranos, and sometimes in high viola da gamba parts alongside the alto clef.

Other clefs

Octave clefs

Starting in the 18th-century treble clef has been used for transposing instruments that sound an octave lower, such as the guitar; it has also been used for the tenor voice. To avoid ambiguity, modified clefs are sometimes used, especially in the context of choral writing; of those shown, the C clef on the third space, easily confused with the tenor clef, is the rarest.
This is most often found in tenor parts in SATB settings, in which a treble clef is written with the numeral 8 below it, indicating that the pitches sound an octave below the written value. As the true tenor clef has fallen into disuse in vocal writings, this "octave-dropped" treble clef is often called the tenor clef. The same clef is sometimes used for the octave mandolin. In some scores, the same concept is construed by using a double clef—two G-clefs overlapping one another.
Tenor banjo is commonly notated in treble clef. However, notation varies between the written pitch sounding an octave lower and music sounding at the written pitch. An attempt has been made to use a treble clef with a diagonal line through the upper half of the clef to indicate octave pitch, but this is not always used.
At the other end of the spectrum, treble clefs with an 8 positioned above the clef may be used for the piccolo, penny whistle, soprano and sopranino recorder, and other high woodwind parts. A treble clef with a 15 above is used for the garklein recorder, whose lowest note is two octaves above middle C.
The F clef can also be notated with an octave marker. The F clef notated to sound an octave lower is used for contrabass instruments such as the double bass and contrabassoon. The F clef notated to sound an octave higher is used for the bass recorder. However, both of these are extremely rare. In Italian scores up to Gioachino Rossini's Overture to William Tell, the cor anglais was written in bass clef an octave lower than sounding. The unmodified bass clef is so common that performers of instruments and voice parts whose ranges lie below the stave simply learn the number of ledger lines for each note through common use, and if a line's true notes lie significantly above the bass clef the composer or publisher will often simply write the part in either the treble clef or notated an octave down under an 8va bracket.
Use of octave-marked clefs appears to have increased as computers have become more important in musical transcription. Performers will normally know the right octave to use with or without the octave marking. However, the appropriate use of octave marking in score editing software ensures that music files generate tones in their proper octaves.

Neutral clef

The neutral or percussion clef is not a clef in the same sense that the F, C, and G clefs are. It is simply a convention that indicates that the lines and spaces of the stave are each assigned to a percussion instrument with no precise pitch. With the exception of some common drum-kit and marching percussion layouts, the keying of lines and spaces to instruments is not standardised, so a legend or indications above the stave are necessary to indicate what is to be played. Percussion instruments with identifiable pitches do not use the neutral clef, and timpani and mallet percussion are usually notated on different staves than unpitched percussion.
Staves with a neutral clef do not always have five lines. Commonly, percussion staves only have one line, although other configurations can be used.
The neutral clef is sometimes used where non-percussion instruments play non-pitched extended techniques, such as hitting the body of a violin, violoncello or acoustic guitar, or where a vocal choir is instructed to clap, stomp, or snap, but more often the rhythms are written with X marks in the instrument's normal stave with a comment placed above as to the appropriate rhythmic action.

Tablature

For guitars and other fretted instruments, it is possible to notate tablature in place of ordinary notes. In this case, a TAB-sign is often written instead of a clef. The number of lines of the stave is not necessarily five: one line is used for each string of the instrument. Numbers on the lines show on which fret the string should be played. This Tab-sign, like the Percussion clef, is not a clef in the true sense, but rather a symbol employed instead of a clef.

History

Originally, instead of a special clef symbol, the reference line of the stave was simply labeled with the name of the note it was intended to bear: F and C and, more rarely, G. These were the most often-used 'clefs', or litterae clavis, in Gregorian chant notation. Over time the shapes of these letters became stylised, leading to their current versions.
Many other clefs were used, particularly in the early period of chant notation, including most of the notes from the low Γ up to the G above middle C, written with a small letter g, and including two forms of lowercase b : round for B, and square for B. In order of frequency of use, these clefs were: F, c, f, C, D, a, g, e, Γ, B, and the round and square b.
In the polyphonic period up to 1600, unusual clefs were occasionally used for parts with extremely high or low written tessituras. For very low bass parts, the Γ clef is found on the middle, fourth, or fifth lines of the stave ; for very high parts, the high-D clef, and the even higher ff clef were used to represent the notes written on the fourth and top lines of the treble clef, respectively.
Varying shapes of different clefs persisted until very recent times. The F-clef was, until as late as the 1980s in some cases, or in British and French publications, written like this:
In printed music from the 16th and 17th centuries, the C clef often assumed a ladder-like form, in which the two horizontal rungs surround the stave line indicated as C: ; this form survived in some printed editions into the 20th century.
The C-clef was formerly written in a more angular way, sometimes still used, or an, even more, simplified K-shape, when writing the clef by hand:
In modern Gregorian chant notation, the C clef is written in the form and the F clef as
The flourish at the top of the G-clef probably derives from a cursive S for "sol", the name for "G" in solfege.
C clefs were formerly used to notate vocal music. Nominally, the soprano voice parts were written in first- or second-line C clef or second-line G clef, the alto or tenor voices in third-line C clef, the tenor voice in fourth-line C clef and the bass voice in third-, fourth- or fifth-line F clef.
Until the 19th century, the most common arrangement for vocal music used the following clefs:
In more modern publications, four-part harmony on parallel staves is usually written more simply as:
This may be reduced to two staves, the soprano/alto stave with a treble clef, and tenor/bass stave marked with the bass clef.

Further uses

Clef combinations played a role in the modal system toward the end of the 16th century, and it has been suggested certain clef combinations in the polyphonic music of 16th-century vocal polyphony are reserved for authentic modes, and others for plagal modes, but the precise implications have been the subject of much scholarly debate.
Music can be transposed at sight if a different clef is mentally substituted for the written one. For example, to play an A-clarinet part, a B-clarinet player may mentally substitute tenor clef for the written treble clef, and concert-pitch music in bass clef can be read on an E instrument as if it were in treble clef, although the keys and octaves of the notes will still need to be adjusted.

Citations