Grand Staff and Clefs

The Grand Staff and Music Clefs

Music in our "western" culture is written on five lines and four spaces:

This collection of lines and spaces is called a staff. We can refer to each line and each space by its number. A staff doesn't usually have numbers written beside the lines and spaces. We've put them there to show the fact that we number them from the bottom. On the staff we place notes and rests. (You'll find out more about notes and rests in later lessons.) At the beginning of each staff we place an object called a "clef". A clef tells us which notes are which. The two most common clefs are the "treble" clef:

and the bass clef: (bass is pronounced like "base")

A treble clef line and a bass clef line joined together form what is called a "grand staff":

Looks familiar? All piano music is written on a grand staff. A grand staff can also contain as many as 30 or more staves all connected together. However, for choir music, there are usually only six lines--two for the piano are at the bottom of each grand staff and above them, in order, you will find the lines for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voices. If the music is written for a solo voice with the choir, the soloist line will be above the soprano line.

Take a close look at the treble clef: Let's learn how to draw it:

i) Start with the dot at the bottom, and begin to draw the line upward:

ii) Draw the line upward until you pass the top line of the staff by a short distance:

iii) Swoop to the right and head downward, crossing the first line you drew at the 4th staff line:

iv) Continue the line downward, slowly curving to the right, so that it eventually "sits" on the bottom line:

v) Finish your treble clef with a curl that brushes the 3rd line, and then crosses the 2nd line:

Practice drawing some treble clefs:

You can copy this image into a word processing draw document to
practice drawing treble clefs on the staff.

The bass clef is quite a bit easier to draw:

i) Start by drawing a dot on the 4th line, then swoop upward and toward the right, brushing the top line:

ii) Continue downward and to the left until you just graze the 2nd line:

iii) Place two dots that straddle the 4th line, fairly close to the clef:

Practice drawing some bass clefs:

You can copy this image into a word processing draw document to
practice drawing bass clefs on the staff.

Now you are ready to learn about pitches on the bass staff and the treble staff. The plural form of the word staff is "staves". When we talk about more than one staff, they will be referred to as staves.

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