Musical Language
Senior 1 · Music
Musical Language
Lesson 2 of 5
20 min
A bare staff tells you which notes are higher or lower, but not which notes they are. It is like a map with no names on it. A clef is the sign at the start of every staff that gives the lines and spaces their names. Once you know the clef, every note head on the staff has exactly one letter name, and you can play it on a keyboard or sing it in sol-fa.
A clef fixes the name of one line. Every other line and space is then named by counting steps up or down the musical alphabet from that line. The clef you will use most is the treble clef, also called the G clef. Its curl wraps round line 2, and it tells you that a note on line 2 is the G just above middle C.
The treble clef is used for higher sounds: soprano and alto voices in a choir, the right hand on a keyboard, and instruments such as the recorder, flute, trumpet and guitar.
Worked example
Line 2 is G. What is the note in space 2, one step higher? The next letter after G is A, so space 2 is A. What is on line 3, one step higher again? The letter after A is B, so line 3 is B.
Counting like this all the way up the staff gives the names of the five lines and the four spaces:
From the bottom, the lines are E G B D F and the spaces are F A C E. The spaces spell the English word FACE. For the lines, make up a sentence whose words start with E, G, B, D and F, for example "Eat Good Bananas Daily, Friends".
Below the staff the steps carry on: the note hanging just under line 1 is D, and the note on the first ledger line below is C. This C is called middle C, because it sits near the middle of a piano keyboard and halfway between the treble and bass staves. Above the staff, the note sitting on line 5 is G, and the note on the first ledger line above is A.
Choirs in Rwanda very often sing from tonic sol-fa, where each note of the scale has a singing name: doh, ray, me, fah, soh, lah, te, written with their first letters d r m f s l t. When a song is in the key of C, doh is C. (In French the notes are sung do, ré, mi, fa, sol, la, si.)
| Letter | C | D | E | F | G | A | B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sol-fa (in C) | d | r | m | f | s | l | t |
| French name | do | ré | mi | fa | sol | la | si |
The sol-fa names move with the key: in Senior 2 you will see doh placed on notes other than C. For now, every example uses doh = C. The doh an octave higher is written d', and notes an octave lower are written with a comma, such as s,.
Worked example
Read this short melody by Ganzaa. First name each note from its line or space, then give its sol-fa name.
Bar 1 begins on the ledger line below the staff (C, doh), then line 1 (E, me), line 2 (G, soh) and line 1 again (E, me). Sing it slowly on sol-fa, d m s m | f l s | m r d m | r r d, and you have read your first melody.
Tip
Lines and spaces of the treble staff. Spaces spell FACE. Lines: Eat Good Bananas Daily, Friends. If you forget, find G on line 2, where the clef curls, and count from there.
Try each question first, then check the worked solution underneath.
Name the six numbered notes in this diagram.
Solution: 1 is B (line 3, the middle line). 2 is F (line 5). 3 is A (space 2). 4 is E (space 4). 5 is C, middle C, on the first ledger line below. 6 is G, sitting on top of line 5.
Which note is written on line 4 of the treble staff?
Solution: D. The lines from the bottom are E G B D F, so the fourth is D.
Which space of the treble staff holds C?
Solution: Space 3. The spaces are F A C E, so C is the third space.
A note hangs just below line 1 of the treble staff. Name it and give its sol-fa name in C.
Solution: D, sol-fa ray (r). Line 1 is E, and one step below E is D.
Write the letter names for the sol-fa s l s m, with doh = C.
Solution: G A G E. Soh is G, lah is A and me is E.
Remember
Sources and credits
The lesson text, the melody, the notation diagrams, the memory sentence and the practice were written by Ganzaa.
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
