Trebles and Basses and Altos, oh my!

Clefs.

Treble, Bass and Alto

You need to know the first two in Higher, and in order to complete your Composing Skills tasks you will be getting to know the Alto. At Advanced Higher, and for Grade 4 theory, you must know them all.

Let's do that then.

Treble Clef

To know the treble clef is to love the treble clef. You should have really got your head around that one in S1.

A reminder:



The sign at the left of that stave is a Treble Clef. It takes the lines and spaces and gives them each a meaning.

In the case of Treble Clef:

Bass Clef

The big brother of the treble, you learn this next. It is the domain of the boy singers, the bass guitar, the cello, the double bass, and the left hand of the piano.


Careful! Those dots matter. The Bass Clef consists of a curly shape that almost looks like a "9" and two dots that sit in the topmost and second top spaces of the stave. THAT MATTERS!
The notes are here:

Alto Clef

The third biggie you need to get familiar with is the Alto Clef. It looks like this:



It almost looks like a fancy letter "B". The important thing about this shape of clef is where the two curves meet.

They join on the THIRD LINE (B in treble and D in Bass). This is where Middle C lies.