The Bass Clef

Musical notes are written on five horizontal lines which we call the stave. Notes are written on the lines and in the spaces between the lines, and the higher the note on the stave, the higher the pitch is.

However, we need something called a “clef” to tell us which particular notes the lines are referring to (as there are more than 11 notes in total- 5 lines, 4 spaces in between the lines, and two either side of the stave). For the guitar, we use the Treble Clef with a little “8″ written below because the notes we need for guitar are an octave (8 letters) below those of the normal treble clef used for other instruments.

The bass clef is no exception, and we use something called the bass clef with a little 8 below it because, again, the notes we need are an octave below the normal bass clef.

What is the Bass Clef

Essentially, the bass clef is a stylised letter “F”, and it tells us the position on the stave of the F on the 10th fret of the G string of our basses. This is also the same note as the third fret on the D string of a guitar.

Here is a picture of the Bass clef, with the “F” line highlighted in red:

As you can probably tell, most of the range of a bass is actually below (in pitch) the 10th fret of the G string! So this isn’t quite the clef we need to use…

Bass Clef for the Bass

In order for us bassists to get any use out of the bass clef, we need to add that little “8″ underneath the clef. This now means that the “F” line is the F a whole octave lower than the 10th fret on the G string.

See? In the above picture, a note written on the second line down is now the F on the 3rd fret of the D string of the bass (or 1st fret, E string on a guitar). Now most of the notes that you’ll want to play on the bass will actually fit on the stave- instead of what we had before where most of the notes would have to be on ledger lines below the stave!

The open strings of the bass (in standard tuning) can now be written like this:

As with guitar music, sometimes the little “8″ below the clef is missed off- we just assume it’s there if we already know the music is written for the bass.

If you have any questions, please just leave a comment below.
Rob.

October 28, 2011 at 4:05 pm | Bass Lessons, Music Theory | No comments