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INTO PITCHES - CLEFS, THE STAVE and READING THE TREBLE CLEF
INTO PITCHES - CLEFS, THE STAVE and READING THE TREBLE CLEF
In this lesson we're going to look at how to really master reading musical notes and move effortlessly from one pitch to another on your instrument. Like rhythmic reading (studied in the previous lesson) the rules for reading pitches are simple to learn, but take many years of practice to really master.
To go from the absolute beginnings, pitches in music are organised on a system of five lines called a STAVE (or STAFF). The higher the note sounds, the higher it is drawn up the stave (See Below)
Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the range of human hearing is way bigger than the notes we can fit on five lines, so we need to use CLEFS to indicate which frequency range (or pitch-range) we are looking at. There are several kinds of clef, each of which are designed to show you where to find ONE specific note on the stave:
The Treble Clef, which most of us are familiar with already, shows us where on the stave we can find the note G4 (the fourth G from the bottom note of a full sized piano). For this reason the treble clef is commonly referred to as the G clef.
The Bass Clef is also commonly used (Basses, Bassoons, Trombones and the pianist's left hand all typically read bass clef). This clef shows us where to find the. note F3 (the third 'F' from the bottom of a piano)
The Alto Clef, Tenor Clef and the Baritone Clef (and several other clefs...) show the musician where to find the note 'Middle C' (or C4). The difference between them is that the are all written in different places on the staff.
The line that the 'koru' shape of the treble clef wraps around is the note G (above middle C). The line in between the two dots of the bass clef if the note F (below middle C), and the line in the middle of the Alto and Tenor Clefs is middle C. So each clef incorporates a slightly different range of notes.
Here is a diagram showing where to find 'Middle C' on each Clef:
These days, alto and tenor clef are rarely used, so we're going to leave them for the time being and focus on the Bass and Treble clefs. Here is how they relate to the piano:
This is a lot of information to take in at once, so lets narrow our focus a little. First, we'll look at the Treble Clef:
Watch this short video, and then Have a go at the worksheet below:
PUTTING IT TO PRACTICE
Let's focus in further and just look at the first five notes: E, F, G, A and B, and actually practice sight reading pitches. (EXERCISE 1) If you put the thumb of your right hand on E, then your other four fingers can rest on F, G, A and B (one finger per note). Set a metronome to a slow tempo (80 bpm is probably a good place to start). Then try reading the exercises below, changing notes every four beats. You might want to practice this exercise several times until it feels easy, and you can change from one note to the other in time (without having to think about it too much). Once it's feeling easy, try changing notes every two beats. Once you've mastered that, try changing notes every beat. (However, it's much more important to aim for accuracy than speed, so keep it slow as long as you can)
THEN you're look at the rest of the notes on the stave. (EXERCISE 2) Move your hand up the keyboard until your thumb is resting on B, and let your other four fingers rest on the notes C, D, E and F. Now you're ready to play exercise 2.
As well as playing these exercises on the piano, try finding them on another instrument as well (it could be your main instrument). One of the hardest instruments to read music on is the guitar. Here are the notes of C major on the fretboard. The E at the bottom of the treble stave is found on the second fret of the D string, F is on the third fret, G is the open G string, with A found on the second fret. Lastly B is also played on the open string.
Now let's try putting it all together, you will need to move your hand up and down the keyboard to cover the whole range of the octave, so this exercise will be more challenging. Set the metronome at a slow tempo, and be patient with yourself - you can do it!
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