page_title: Clef
section_title: Octave clefs
hierarchical_section_title: Clef / Other clefs / Octave clefs
caption_attribution_description: English: Diatonic scale on C, transposing clef.
context_page_description: A clef is a musical symbol used to indicate the pitch of written notes. Placed on a stave, it indicates the name and pitch of the notes on one of the lines. This line serves as a reference point by which the names of the notes on any other line or space of the stave may be determined.
  There are three forms of clef used in modern music notation: F, C, and G. Each form assigns its reference note to a line depending on its placement on the stave.
  Once one of these clefs has been placed on one of the lines of the stave, the other lines and spaces are read in relation to it.
  The use of different clefs makes it possible to write music for all instruments and voices, regardless of differences in tessitura. Because the modern stave has only five lines, it is not possible to represent all pitches playable by the orchestra with only one clef, even with the use of ledger lines. The use of different clefs for various instruments and voices allows each part to be written comfortably on the stave with a minimum of ledger lines.
context_section_description: Starting in the 18th-century treble clef has been used for transposing instruments that sound an octave lower, such as the guitar; it has also been used for the tenor voice. To avoid ambiguity, modified clefs are sometimes used, especially in the context of choral writing; of those shown, the C clef on the third space, easily confused with the tenor clef, is the rarest.
  This is most often found in tenor parts in SATB settings, in which a treble clef is written with the numeral 8 below it, indicating that the pitches sound an octave below the written value. As the true tenor clef has fallen into disuse in vocal writings, this "octave-dropped" treble clef is often called the tenor clef. The same clef is sometimes used for the octave mandolin. In some scores, the same concept is construed by using a double clef—two G-clefs overlapping one another.
  Tenor banjo is commonly notated in treble clef. However, notation varies between the written pitch sounding an octave lower (as in guitar music and called octave pitch in most tenor banjo methods) and music sounding at the written pitch (called actual pitch).  An attempt has been made to use a treble clef with a diagonal line through the upper half of the clef to indicate octave pitch, but this is not always used.
  At the other end of the spectrum, treble clefs with an 8 positioned above the clef may be used for the piccolo, penny whistle, soprano and sopranino recorder, and other high woodwind parts. A treble clef with a 15 above (sounding two octaves above the standard treble clef) is used for the garklein (sopranissimo) recorder, whose lowest note is two octaves above middle C.
  The F clef can also be notated with an octave marker. The F clef notated to sound an octave lower is used for contrabass instruments such as the double bass and contrabassoon. The F clef notated to sound an octave higher is used for the bass recorder. However, both of these are extremely rare (and, in fact, the countertenor clef is largely intended to be humorous as with the works of P.D.Q. Bach). In Italian scores up to Gioachino Rossini's Overture to William Tell, the cor anglais was written in bass clef an octave lower than sounding. The unmodified bass clef is so common that performers of instruments and voice parts whose ranges lie below the stave simply learn the number of ledger lines for each note through common use, and if a line's true notes lie significantly above the bass clef the composer or publisher will often simply write the part in either the treble clef or notated an octave down under an 8va bracket.
  Use of octave-marked clefs appears to have increased as computers have become more important in musical transcription. Performers will normally know the right octave to use with or without the octave marking. However, the appropriate use of octave marking in score editing software ensures that music files (such as MIDI files) generate tones in their proper octaves.
caption: Diatonic scale on C, "sopranino" clef. About this soundPlay (help·info) (this is one octave higher than the treble clef without an 8)
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