Bass clef and two hands

In chapter 10 the treble clef carried the tune with ease: the notes between middle C and the top of the staff could be read at a glance. As long as the tune stays up there, all is well. But a keyboard has a left half too. That is where the left hand plays and the bass lives, and the lower a note goes, the more awkward it is to write down.

See for yourself. Below is a single note, G2: about 98 Hz, the thinnest open string of a bass guitar. In the treble clef it hangs under the staff on a ladder of six ledger lines. Press "Higher" and "Lower", switch the views and listen.

Notes on ladders

Six lines below the staff is no longer reading, it is counting. To know the note, the eye counts the little dashes, and then counts again for the second note of a chord. C2 would hang from eight of them. Music for the left hand would be made almost entirely of ladders like these: the bass rarely climbs above middle C, and most of it lives one or two octaves lower.

The way out was found long ago: low notes need a staff of their own, with a landmark of their own. Switch the view to "Bass". The same G2 now sits on the bottom line of the staff, with not a single ledger line. It is the same staff of five lines. Only the sign at the start of the line has changed.

Now climb with "Higher" all the way to the top. The picture is reversed: in the bass clef it is the high notes that have to scramble up ladders. Each clef has its own bank of the river, and the notes near it are easy to read. Further on you will learn to read both banks at once and to cross from one to the other by the bridge, which is middle C.

The F clef

The sign at the start of the lower staff is the bass clef, also called the F clef. The treble clef grew out of the letter G, and its curl wraps round the G line. The bass clef grew out of the letter F. In medieval music a letter was written right at the start of the line to show which line meant what, and over the centuries the letters turned into the signs we use today.

The F clef is easy to read. It has two dots, and the fourth line from the bottom runs between them. That line is F3, four white keys down from middle C. Everything else is counted from it.

The two dots of the clef sit either side of the F line.

Besides F, keep two more landmarks in your head, and almost any note on the bass staff will be a step or two from one of them:

• G2: on the bottom line. The staff starts here.
• C3: in the second space from the bottom. This is the C an octave below the middle of the keyboard.
• F3: between the dots of the clef, on the fourth line.

And one more note that doesn't fit on the staff: middle C (C4) sits on a single ledger line above the bass staff. Remember it. You will need it on the bridge.

Three landmarks and middle C above the staff. Press "Listen": each one is higher than the last.

A step on the staff is the same as in the treble clef: from a line to the space next to it is one white key. Up from G2 on the bottom line: A in the first space, B on the second line, C in the second space. Check the landmarks: play the note on the keyboard or pick its name.

Now the other way round: you are given the name, and you find the place. Tap the staff where the note lives. With a mouse, a faint "ghost" of the note shows you where it would land.

In the bass clef a note sits on the line that runs between the two dots of the clef. Which note is it?

F3, the F below middle C G4, the G above middle C F4, the F above middle C

The dots of the F clef sit either side of the line for F3, four white keys down from middle C. G4 is the note the curl of the treble clef wraps round, and F4 in the bass clef would sit above the staff, on ledger lines.

The mirror around middle C

If you already read the treble clef, it is tempting to learn the bass clef as "the treble clef, shifted". There really is a shift: in the bass clef each place on the staff holds a note two letters further along the alphabet. The bottom line is E in the treble clef and G in the bass. The second line is G and B. The rule works, but it lets you down when you are in a hurry, because every note has to be translated.

There is a neater way. Push the two staves right up against each other, so that middle C falls exactly between them, on an imaginary middle line. Now the bass staff is a mirror image of the treble staff. The curl of the treble clef wraps round G, four white keys up from C. The dots of the bass clef hold F, four white keys down. The top line of the treble staff is F5, the bottom line of the bass staff is G2. Press a white key and look at its reflection.

The mirror has only four pairs of letters: C ↔ C, D ↔ B, E ↔ A, F ↔ G. They are enough to translate any note: D above C reflects into B below C, E into A, and so on. To the ear, though, the mirror is warped. E4 is four semitones above middle C, but its reflection, A3, is only three below it. On the staff the steps are equal, but the white keys are unevenly spaced: you know that from chapter 11. Only the pairs F ↔ G and C ↔ C reflect exactly. G4 and F3 are both exactly seven semitones from middle C: the two clefs face each other as in a real mirror.

Time to read the whole bass staff, with no hints. Play the note or pick its name. If you don't remember it, find the nearest landmark and step from there.

And now the trickiest exercise in the chapter. The note appears sometimes in the treble clef, sometimes in the bass, and often in exactly the same place. An eye used to one clef reads out of habit. Train yourself to look at the clef first and only then at the note.

The grand staff and the bridge

A treble staff and a bass staff joined by a brace make the grand staff. Piano and harp music is written on it (organ music adds a third staff below, for the pedals), and the score editors in DAWs show keyboard parts on it. Usually the upper staff is the right hand and the lower one the left, but that is a habit, not a law: if both hands play high, the lower staff can have a treble clef too.

Here is the same bridge again, this time in the "Grand staff" view. Press "Walk the bridge": the note climbs from G2 to G5, one white key at a time.

The note climbs the bass staff, steps out onto the ledger line above it, and at that very moment finds itself below the treble staff, also on one ledger line. This is middle C, and it has two addresses. One key, one frequency, 261.6 Hz, and it can be written on either staff. It usually goes on the staff of the hand that plays it: on top for the right hand, below for the left.

Switch on the "11 lines" view. The staves have moved right up against each other, and between them an eleventh line has appeared as a dashed line: the very line middle C lives on. A handy way to picture the grand staff is as eleven lines in a row with the middle one taken out, so that the eye doesn't get lost in too wide a grid. Without it, each half is the familiar five lines with a clef as its landmark. In real scores the staves are set further apart, to leave room for ledger lines between them.

The ledger lines around the bridge haven't gone anywhere: you need them when a hand strays briefly onto the other bank. When the left hand takes D4, the note is written above a ledger line on the bass staff, rather than jumping to the treble staff for a single note. When the right hand goes down to B3, the note hangs below a ledger line on the treble staff. Short ladders of one or two rungs are easy to read. Long ones are a sign that it is time to switch staves.

Near the bridge in the bass clef: B above the top line, C on the ledger line, D above it.

On the upper staff a note sits on one ledger line below; on the lower staff a note sits on one ledger line above. Which keys do you press?

The same one: middle C Two different Cs: middle C and the C below it B3 and D4

The ledger line below the treble staff and the ledger line above the bass staff are one and the same: the eleventh line of the grand staff, where middle C lives. B and D sit right next to it, under the line and over it.

Reading notes with ledger lines in the bass clef is the next step up. The range is wider here: down to C2 below the staff and up to E4 above it.

If you want more, the trainers page has the levels "Bass clef: G to C" and "Bass with ledger lines" in "Reading notes", and "Placing notes" has the bass clef too. The trainer remembers which notes give you trouble and shows them more often.

Two hands, two staves

You read the grand staff with both eyes at once: the upper staff for the right hand, the lower for the left, and notes stacked one above the other sound together. At first it feels as strange as writing with both hands at the same time. After a week or two of practice you will see the page as one picture rather than two staves.

Which note lands on which staff is decided by the split point. Score editors work this way: you play a piano part on a MIDI keyboard, the program records the notes in the piano roll, and when it shows them as notation, it divides them by pitch. Whatever falls below the point goes into the bass clef. Play something with both hands or press "Example". Then move the split point and keep an eye on the number of ledger lines.

Put the point too high, and the right hand's tune slides down into the bass staff and sprouts ladders. Put it too low, and the bass rises into the treble staff and dangles below it. Somewhere in the middle there are the fewest ledger lines, and most often that place is middle C. The "Find the best point" button tries every option and picks the one with the fewest lines.

Now play it yourself. On top is the opening of the "Ode to Joy", below it the bass: one note under each note of the tune. Press both notes together. Any tempo will do: the next pair lights up once you have played this one.

The second half of the phrase. Here the right hand comes down to middle C, right onto the bridge, and both hands hold the last note twice as long.

Bass on the left, lead on the right

So far both hands have played with one sound. In a track that hardly ever happens: the bass has a sound of its own, low and dense with a short, springy start, and the tune has another. On a synth you can play both parts on one keyboard if you split it. This is called a keyboard split: the keys below the split point play one sound, the keys above it another.

Turn the split on and play something with your left hand below the point and your right hand above it. The left zone plays the course bass: the "bass" preset from the synth in chapter 2, a saw and a square an octave down, a closed filter and a fast envelope. The right zone plays a sound of your choice: lead (a bright sound for a tune), keys, pad or pluck.

First press "Hear an example": the bass plays on the left, the opening of the "Ode to Joy" on the right, and both zones light up on the keys. Then try three things. Move the split point up to F4: the left hand gets more room, the right hand less. Change "Bass lower by": at zero the bass sounds where its keys are, at one octave it sounds an octave lower. Many synths can shift a zone like this: a small keyboard has few keys on the left, and you want a real bass, down in octave 2 and below. And change the right hand's sound: a pad, long and soft, floats over the bass like a cloud, while a pluck is a short snap.

A split teaches you something important about a track: its parts have different roles. The bass holds down the bottom and sets the pulse together with the kick, and the tune leads from above. They don't get in each other's way, because they sit in different registers: the bass roughly from 40 to 250 Hz, the tune from 250 Hz up. There is more on roles in chapter 20.

A bass under the tune

What should the left hand play if the music gives you only the tune? The simplest answer: one note per bar, the one the harmony of the bar rests on. The part the bass plays is the bass line. The simplest bass line is one main note per bar: in C major most often C, F, G or A. We haven't built chords yet, that comes in chapter 15, but you can already hear whether a note fits or clashes.

Below is the "Ode to Joy" with a bass under it. To begin with, every bar has C. Press "Play" and listen: in which bars does the tune seem to stand on the bass, and in which does it pull away? Change the notes bar by bar until every bar sounds right. If the Notebook already holds a tune of yours, switch to it, and the bass adjusts to its key.

In the "Ode" nearly every other bar wants G: the tune circles around D and G there, and the C underneath clashes with it. Turn on "Check against the tune", and the bars where the bass and the tune clearly disagree turn red: most of the tune's notes are not part of the chord built on the bass note. The check only catches clear clashes. In the "Ode" it turns bar 4 red, while in bars 2 and 6 the C fits exactly half of the tune's notes, and there your ears decide. The "Fit to the tune" button sets the notes for you, but try it yourself first.

Now change the rhythm of the bass. Whole notes sound like an organ. Half notes already walk. Quarters give a pulse, and "octaves", a note and the same note an octave up in eighths, are a hallmark of late-1970s disco and the dance music that followed. Switch the kick on and off: without it the bass floats, with it the bass lands on the beat. The kick and the bass almost always work as a pair: together they are the bottom end of a track.

Play a line like that yourself, in time. Bass only, left hand only: C and G, two half notes each. First a bar of count-in, then play along with the clicks.

When you like the bass, press "Save the bass to the Notebook". It goes in as the second track, a bass under the tune. If the Notebook was empty, the "Ode" tune goes in along with it, so that the bass has something to play with.

How is bass guitar written?

A bass guitar part is written in the bass clef, but it sounds an octave lower than written. The lowest open string of a four-string bass is E1, about 41 Hz. Written where it sounds, it would hang from four ledger lines below the bass staff. So the convention is to write everything an octave higher: the open E is written as E2, on one ledger line below the staff. Guitar in the treble clef works the same way. A DAW's piano roll has no such rule: there a note sits where it sounds.

What's next

You can now read both clefs: the treble by its landmarks, the bass by its own and by the mirror around middle C. To you the grand staff is two hands and one picture, and middle C is a bridge with two addresses. You can split a keyboard the way a synth does and put a bass of main notes under a tune.

So far we have been reading what to play, note by note. But you don't recognise a tune by its notes: you recognise it starting from any note, as in the introduction. So the ear must remember something else: the distances between the notes. How they sound and how to recognise them is the subject of the next chapter.

The Notebook now has a second track: the bass. You can record it from the keyboard, draw it in the piano roll or take it from the "A bass under the tune" widget; below, it also appears as notes in the bass clef. In the next chapter the Notebook starts counting the intervals in your tune.