- Hi.
In this video we're going
to see how we get on
reading a handful of
notes in the tenor clef.
And the tenor clef
may well be something that
never needs to trouble you
because if you play
the piano, for example,
you never have to read
music in the tenor clef.
However, there are some
instruments, of course,
that do use the tenor clef.
So if you're a cellist,
you might well have
quite a lot of notes to deal with
in the tenor clef.
If you're a bassoonist,
you'll have some notes to deal with
in the tenor clef.
If you're a trombonist,
you might be asked to deal
with some tenor clef reading.
So there are various people
who use the tenor clef.
If you're one of the people
who doesn't need to be troubled by it,
well you could either switch off now
and do something else,
or you could take the view
that you might be wanting
to write something
if you're a composer or an arranger
for somebody who's
going to need to read it
in the tenor clef.
You might even be accompanying somebody
who's reading in the tenor clef,
or trying to read an orchestral score
where you've got some players
dealing with the tenor clef.
So it's sort of useful to know about,
and certainly if you're ever needing
to take a theory exam,
there'll come a point,
quite often at grade five,
when you need to know
about the tenor clef.
If you want to do even more on it,
have a look at the film and
video resources we've got
on the website for grade five theory
and you'll find some extra work
on the tenor clef.
Anyway, let's have a look at it.
It's sometimes called the C clef,
just like the alto clef,
which is also called a C clef,
because the middle of
the clef is the note C.
And furthermore, the middle of the clef
is the note middle C.
So we can see that this fourth line up
is middle C.
So this first note that I've written
is middle C.
Notice how the clef is drawn.
There are different ways to
draw the clef, by the way.
But the clef will always
start on this second line up
and go to a sort of imaginary ledger line
above the stave,
and you must always have
the middle of the clef
around that fourth line up
so we're crystal clear
that this note is middle C.
Now at one level,
this is then quite easy to deal with
because if you know that
this note is middle C
well you can count down and count up
and find the notes you need.
So I could go, well that's C,
B,
A,
G,
F,
E.
That's one way of doing it.
I could do that a little bit quicker
by jumping down the lines.
C,
A,
F,
E.
Another way of doing it is to think, well,
what would this be in the treble clef?
Well, in the treble clef that would be D,
take it down one, it's C,
but don't forget then
you'll have to take it down an octave.
So that looks like this
D in the treble clef,
take it down one to C,
but then drop an octave.
Because one of the most
common things that goes wrong
when dealing with the C clefs
is that people end up writing music
or reading it in the wrong octave
because they're kind of
relating it to the treble clef.
So you see what we're doing.
If you want to do it that way,
you just think, "That's
D in the treble clef,
"take it down one,
"but then drop an octave
so it's middle C."
So obviously if we're now
going down to this one,
I could take this down
from what would be F in the
treble clef and call it E,
but it's going to be E below middle C.
So it's all the way down here.
It seems incredibly low
if you're sort of relating
it to treble clef.
But that's why these C clefs exist
so that players can play sort of notes
that belong to the bass
and the treble clefs
and the notes in between
in a clef where it all ends up
in the middle of the
clef most of the time.
Okay, what's the third note?
Well if this one is C,
you can just hop up a line and think,
"Well, that's E,
"so it must be E-sharp."
Or you can think, "Well
it would be F-sharp
"in the the treble clef,
"but it would be this
F-sharp wouldn't it?"
So take it down one so you've got E-sharp
and then drop down on a octave
and you've got your E-sharp.
Okay, let's look at this one.
Well you could start to relate this
to earlier notes.
So we said that this was E, didn't we?
You remember, C, A, F, E.
So this looks like a
sort of skip down there,
a third from there.
So this one must be C.
The other way you can see that it's C
is that that's the same note as this one
down an octave, isn't it?
So if this is middle C,
this is C down here.
An octave below middle C.
Let's look at the next one.
If this is C,
I'm going C, E, G.
So it's G
above middle C
or I can say, "Oh, this is
this A in the treble clef,
"so go down one to G,
"jump down the octave."
Either of these ways will work for you.
Okay, and what's the last one.
If this is C,
this is A, this is F,
so it must be F-flat
below middle C.
Or I can say, "Well, it's
G-flat in the treble clef,
"so I'm going to call it F-flat"
because I've gone down one,
"then I'm going to drop an octave."
So there we are,
just a handful of notes
in the tenor clef
just to kind of get you
thinking about these things
so that if you need to
read in the tenor clef
or need to write in the
tenor clef for anybody,
you've got a way of doing it.
So have fun with the tenor clef.
