Lesson 1: Staff, names of notes, treble clef

- [Tutor] In our section on Note Values, we discussed whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, sometimes with dots, all different note values. Now let's place these notes, so they can represent a pitch, a pitch is a sound determined by the speed of a vibration from the source of the sound, a source means in our case, musical instrument and these vibrations create a pitch, the thinner the vibration, the faster the vibration, the higher the pitch, the slower the vibration, the lower the pitch. We begin with a staff or a stave, which has five parallel lines, any one of our notes can be placed on one of these five lines or four spaces. Let's work with a whole note. Now, the next element to identifying a pitch is added, that's called a clef, there are many clefs, but let's start working with the treble clef, each note placed on the treble clef has a name, corresponding to the first seven letters of the alphabet, starting with A and ending with G, these seven note names are repeated indefinitely. On the staff with a treble clef, A is on the second space, continuing up, the next note is B, that'll be on the third line, then the third space is C, the fourth line is D, the fourth space, E, the fifth line, F and above the staff, a G. Now we can see the succession of notes from A to G on the treble clef staff. If we place a note below or lower than the second space A on the second line, it is a G, remember the alphabet goes from A to G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and if we go down, we reverse the alphabet, so that line, second line becomes a G, the first space, an F, the lowest line an E and below the staff a D. As the notes ascend, the pitch becomes higher, when the notes descend, the pitch becomes lower, this is true of all traditional music notation. The treble clef is sometimes called a G clef, because it circles the G on the second line, this clef is used for treble instruments and voices or the highest pitched instruments and voices, the soprano voice and instruments like flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, horn, violin and the upper part of the piano, often played with the right hand.