SOPP424: I wonder, which other clefs are there besides two G, two C, and one F?

Vidas: Hi guys!  This is Vidas.

Ausra:  And Ausra.

V: Let’s start episode 424 of Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast.  This question was sent by Irineo.  He writes:

Hello back there maestro! Now that was an interesting discussion you had.  But I wonder, which other clefs are there besides two G, two C, and one F?  Those are the ones I’m familiar with.  And while transposing, you mean when you’re writing a score or improvising?  Thank you.  Very truly yours, Irineo

V: Interesting that Irineo knows two G clefs, right, Ausra?

A: Yes, because that other one, old-fashioned G clef is not common nowadays.

V: Mm hmm. We could actually survey all ten clefs, right?

A: Sure.

V: Remind people to take a look at them and pick and choose.  Sometimes they’re useful, right?  Ausra, did you use some clefs today?

A: Yes, I used one of the C clefs today.

V: On what occasion?

A: Well, we were playing Bach’s aria from one of the cantatas.

V: Mm hm.  Mein gläubiges Herze, right?

A: That’s right. And we had to play soprano parts.  So it was written in soprano clef, so.

V: And my part had the bass clef in the left hand and in the right hand bass clef, but somehow it changed constantly between bass clef and tenor clef, I believe.  So, starting with the G clefs, we have to, as Irineo says, the first one is well known violin clef, where G is on the second line. Treble G.

A: That’s right.  And we are always counting the lines from the bottom.

V: Yes. As Ausra said, if you have G on the first line, that’s called an old French clef from the 17th century, for example.

A: That’s right.  And it means that the G note is on the bottom line.

V: Mm hmm.  And it was popular for string music, right?  Violins played from such a clef.  So, it’s actually higher than normal violin clef.  Because the lower the clef, the higher the sound.

A: Yes.  That’s how it works.

V: And clefs are used to avoid ledger lines.

A: That’s right.

V: Mm hmm.

A: So, especially in the old time when paper was very expensive, people wanted to save space, and instead of writing extra lines, we would just change a clef.

V: Then we have the familiar F clef, where on the fourth line, we have, what, tenor F?

A: That’s right.

V. Mm hmm. Which is called bass clef.

A: Yes.  Probably it’s the most common after the treble clef.

V:  Mm hmm.

A: So it’s used quite a lot in music, for the keyboards, and for some of the strings, and for some of the wind instruments.

V:  Mm hmm.  But actually, there are three F clefs, from the history of music.

A: So tell us more about the other two F clefs.

V:  Mm hm.  If you put the F on the fifth line, you have the baritone clef.  So, it’s the same like bass clef, the figure of the clef, but put two lines higher, on the top line.  On the fifth line, right?  So, which means that on the fifth line, you have tenor F.  What else?  If you have the F clef on the third line…

A: Yes, the middle line.

V: Middle line.  Then you have basso profondo clef.  Which is lower than the normal bass clef.  One third lower. Right?  But, strangely, if you look at the similarity between F clef and G clef, imagine you have F on the middle line, then there is no similarity.  But if you have baritone clef on the fifth line, you know you, we have violin clef, second octave F too.  So people can use in their mind, transposition to the violin clef, but very high.  Two octaves higher.  And that would be much easier than reading from the baritone clef.

A: Well, for me I would say it’s fairly enough to have [one] treble clef. One F clef and five C clefs.  It gives me plenty of opportunities to transpose, and to sightread music.

V: What about C clefs?   I talked about G clefs and F clefs.  I give the C clefs to you.

A: Well, I use them every day.

V: Okay.  So, tell us more!

A: Well, there are five C clefs, and each of them marks the note C.  And if we start at the bottom line, we have soprano clef.  And if we go up, we have mezzo soprano clef.  And on the middle line we have alto clef.  Then tenor clef.  And on the upper line is baritone clef.  And it always marks the note of the C of the first octave, of the middle octave.

V: Mm hmm.

A: And these keys are very, you know, fun, and very easy to use to transpose things.

V: So you are saying baritone clef is on the fifth line.

A: That’s right.

V: So I was wrong, actually, when talking about F clef, which was called baritone. In F clef, baritone should be on the middle line, then, right?  I said on the fifth line.

A: Okay.

V: On the fifth line is basso profondo.

A: Basso profondo, yes.

V: So, it’s kind of confusing sometimes, if you don’t use it every day.  But for which occasion those ten clefs can be used?  I would say for two occasions.  If you want to improvise based on the theme transpositions, like maybe a few,  you’d have to constantly change the key of the subject, then you don’t have to remember the subject itself.  You just look at the score and change the clef itself, right? It sounds difficult, but after a few months of work, it’s not that hard.
A: Yes, because I think you have to be quite advanced in order to manage all these clefs very easily.

V: And the second occasion I think is for geeks.  You know what a geek is?

A: Yes, I know what a gig is.

V: Geek.  G-e-e-k. 

A: No, I don’t know that.

V: Computer geek, for example. 

A: I know g-i-g.

V: Yeah.  Computer geek is a guy usually, with very thick glasses, and he knows everything about computers, but nothing about anything else.  Like a connoisseur about certain subjects.  So if you are very deep into early music, for example, and you always prefer to practice and sightread from facsimiles, from old manuscripts and old prints, modernly, in modern times reproduced.  Then you need those clefs because people were writing.

A: Well, and still, even if you know you work on, not exactly like very old music, but in some editions, some nineteenth century editions, of, let’s say Bach.

V: Mm hmm.

A: You can find pieces that are written in clefs.

V: Oh, yes.

A: For example, Peters Edition, I have played myself, you know, the third part of  Clavierübung in Academy of Music when I was studying.  And one of the chorales was, you know, written in C clefs.

V: Mm hm.

A: So what I had to do, I was too lazy to transpose them, I mean, rewrite them down in, you know, like treble and bass clefs.  So I just played in clefs right away.

V: And also, if you study Bach from that Bach Gesellschaft Ausgabe, from the nineteenth century edition which was started with Mendelssohn times, right?  And it was widely used in the nineteenth century, those original clefs, they didn’t change Bach’s clefs.  They used Bach’s notation.  And since Bach used C clefs, Bach gesellschaftausgabe also used same kind of clefs.

A: Plus, if you study music, let’s say Mozart’s requiem, for example, famous piece.  It’s all written, actually he used three C clefs and bass clef.

V: Right.  Soprano, alto, tenor, and bass clef.

A: That’s right.  Because it’s written for four voices.  So, and sometimes it’s good to study old scores.  Compare them to the modern editions.

V:  Yes.  Not only it’s a good exercise in the mind, but you get to know the composer deeper.

A: It’s true.  Plus there are instruments like cello that use C clef constantly, and other instruments, wind instruments for example.

V: Yes.  Orchestral instruments sometimes use C clefs.  And then, for example, if you play Brahms.  Chorale preludes by Brahms. From nineteenth century, right? But because he used polyphonic techniques that he loved from Bach’s times, plus, he added some chromatic harmonies of course.  He used actually, C clefs.  Even in today’s editions, you will find C clefs in Brahms’ compositions.  So you need them.

A: Well, yes.  If you don’t want to be sort of challenged.

V: Clef-challenged.

A: That’s right.

V: Yes.  At first, we all are clef-challenged, and we only know treble clef in the first grade, right?  But somehow, six months later, we manage to play with the bass clef starting.  It’s not that easy, and we struggle for a few years, actually, we struggle with bass clef.

A: Well, it comes easier for some and harder for others.

V: Mm hmm.

A: It’s, you know, a very individual thing.

V: When I was sightreading Art of the Fugue by Bach, original notation, I discovered that you need about one month for each particular clef to be comfortable with it.  So if you have ten clefs, you need ten months.  And that’s it. Plus, if you need combinations of clefs, for two voices, or three or four voices, then you need additional time.  But if you are just sightreading one voice, you can do it in ten months, pretty much, without any struggle.

A: That’s right.  Which is your favorite clef, Vidas?

V: Soprano.

A: Mine, too.  It’s easier.

V:  Mm hm.  But for awhile you didn’t like soprano.

A: I know.  I liked alto.

V: Mm hm.

A: That was my first choice.  But now I think I prefer soprano. And then probably tenor in the third place.

V: Do you think that soprano clef could unlock the doors of our house?

A: I don’t think so.

V: Alto maybe.

A: I don’t think so.  But we can unlock very interesting music for you, very beautiful music. But anyway, Irineo asks, do we need to know transposing using clefs in writing or in improvisation? So,  I would never mean that you would need to write down your transposition.  I don’t see any sense in doing that.

V: As an exercise, you have theory classes, right?

A: Well, but it takes only like one lesson just to try to do it.  Because the most important part is that you could do it live, so you need to do it as a transposition of real music piece by playing it.

V: And plus, there are now computer notations, all those softwares that do automatically for you, everything transposed, and change clefs automatically, so you don’t need that.  But, if you want to play, yes, you do need.

A: And it’s a very useful skill, especially is you are a church musician. And especially if you are working with choirs, and if you are working with your soloists with bass clef figures.  Because you never know what we might want you to play.

V: I remember exactly one wedding when soprano was sort of sick, and she asked me to transpose one third lower.  So I used simply C clef in the right hand part and soprano, and treble clef in the bass, in the left hand.  Soprano and treble, and that’s it.  Very easy.

A: True.

V: Okay. This was Vidas

A: And Ausra.

V: We do hope this was useful discussion.  Please send us more of your questions. We love helping you grow. And remember, when you practice,

​A: Miracles happen.

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