Rudiments of Music - a music-theory overview
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Chapter 2a - Staff and Notes
The staff, (sometimes called the stave), is the basis for written music notation. It is a set of parallel lines and the spaces between, set out like rungs on a ladder.
The relative pitch of sounds is shown on the staff: the higher that notes are written on the staff, the higher (or acuter) is their pitch and, vice versa, the lower their position, the lower (or graver) their pitch.
A staff that includes the combined range (compass) of male and female voices is called the Great Staff. It has eleven lines and the spaces above and below them:
The first seven letters of the alphabet, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, are commonly
used to name sounds; these letters repeat at a higher or lower pitch.
So, starting from “Middle C” the sounds in alphabetical succession upwards
are
- 1st space above “ Middle C ” - D
- 1st line above “ Middle C ” - E
- 2nd space above “ Middle C ” - F
- 2nd line above “ Middle C ” - G
- 3rd space above “ Middle C ” - A
- etc
Similarly, below “ Middle C,” the sounds go down:
- 1st space below “ Middle C ” -- B
- 1st line below “ Middle C ” - A
- 2nd space below “ Middle C ” - G
- 2nd line below “ Middle C ” - F
- Etc
So a staff with notes looks like this:
Notice that the same letter-name occurs more than once, at a different pitch.
Each repetition of a given letter at a higher pitch represents the note which is called an octave
above. Similarly, each repetition at a lower pitch gives the note which is an octave below.
Any two sounds that are an octave apart have a strong a resemblance to one another, even though they are at a higher or lower pitch. The similarity is so strong that they almost seem like one sound in the hearer's mind. This is explained by physics, in which sound is measured in vibrations: The number of vibrations in any sound is always twice that of the corresponding sound an octave below it.
Short staffs
A staff of eleven lines, would be very inconvenient to read from. And the entire range of any single human voice lies within the limits of far fewer lines and spaces. So a selection of a different set of lines for each separate voice is made, like this:
A short staff is thus formed in each case, made up of five lines and the spaces above and below them, like this
In theory, a stave of three or four, could be used - and they were in the past. Today, however only the the four-line staff is regularly used, and this is only for certain music used in some churches.
