Episode 3: Treble and Bass Clef

Hello everyone,

Today's lesson is on the different clefs, which are Treble Clef and Bass Clef. Treble clef or G clef as it is more commonly called, is the clef that is commonly used today within music. Many instruments use it, such as violin, flute, oboe, clarinet, xylophone, and guitar. There are times where lower instruments, such as cello, bass and trombone, must read this cleft as well but this isn't always true. Those instruments, and many others, use the Bass clef, or F clef as it is more commonly called, to read music naturally. There are more than simply these two clef, but in order to keep everything simple for the lesson we will stick to learning just these two today.

The reason for why treble clef is called G clef is because the loop on the clef is the note G and is the G above middle C. The lowest note on the picture above is middle C, and in this case, the picture is a C major scale. As discussed in the last episode, there are intervals between notes and a Scale is a series of these intervals. C major is C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C, or interval wise, where W is a whole step and H is half step, is W-W-H-W-W-W-H. This interval pattern will work on all major scales, for example G major is G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G, or F major would be F-G-A-Bb-C-D-E-F. You can keep experimenting with any notes on the keyboard to find the scales.

Now, this is the Bass clef, also called an F clef. The reason it is called the F clef, like the G clef, is it circles around the note F. However, the same is not true about middle C, the top of the scale is considered middle C. This is also a C major scale, only an octave lower than the one shown before. An Octave is a set of notes that are played with two different places on the staff than the same one. For example, there is an octave jump from the low C to the high C in the picture above. Similarly, there is an octave jump from the lower C on the treble clef than the higher one. Also note the pattern for the scale is the same as with the treble clef, this being a C major scale.

I will expand of each staff specifically in a few days. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to subscribe and follow me on Twitter or Facebook for more information and suggestions for future ideas, like mini video series and contest!