Clefs.
[5.]—The first actual musical characters to be written are the clefs. Misconception of the function of these is so common, not among practical musicians only, but on the part of elementary theorists, that a few words of explanation are necessary. The commonest fallacies are to suppose that if clefs are the right shape their exact position on the stave does not matter, and that their position varies. Both suppositions are, to quote a delightful Ruskinism, “accurately false.” A clef identifies and originally was used with a single line, and identifies others only by their relationship to this. Hence its precise shape is of less importance than its being on the right line. Indeed, the shape of clefs has varied so much that many able practical musicians do not know that they were originally simple letters, the treble clef a small “g,” the bass clef a small “f.” From this beginning has been evolved so elaborate a sign, sometimes not merely covering all the lines of a stave, but going beyond them, that it is necessary to explain which line a clef is on. Thus the “G,” or treble clef, is on that line which its interior termination is on, and which it curls round, touching it in all four times. The upper part of the treble clef is sometimes kept within the stave, but, as in the present examples, more often rises above the stave. The point is merely a matter of taste.
The C clef is on that line which has an oblique or straight stroke, or pot-hook, above and below.
The F clef is on that line which its interior termination is on, and which it curls round either to the right or the left, and which has a dot above and below.
Fig. 2.
And this position never varies. Whatever line the F clef is on is F, however many or few lines may be above or below it.
In olden days any clef line might be taken with any number of lines above and below. For instance, the F line with two lines below and two above; or three below and one above. This is not now done with treble and bass clefs, which are only used with respectively the top and bottom five lines of the Great Stave of eleven lines. Hence care must be taken to write the treble clef on the second, and the bass clef on the fourth line of its stave. But it is still customary to use the C clef, especially in viola and trombone music, with both two lines above and two below, making the alto stave; and three below and one above, making the tenor stave. These staves are also used in old vocal music, and familiarity with them is absolutely necessary in all advanced theoretical examinations. The C clef, therefore, appears to move, being sometimes on the third and sometimes on the fourth line. Really it is always on the same line, and it is the selection of lines which varies. Hence the misdescription of the treble and bass clefs as “immovable,” the C clef as “movable.”
Note that all clefs are on lines; no clef is in a space. This is because the first attempt to accurately represent music to the eye was by means of a single line with a letter at the beginning. This was what has since become the fourth line, the clef line, of the bass stave.