TromboneChat

What do we call this clef that identifies a space, not a line?



from the context of the original Britannica article, the parallelogram in this clef is on a D above middle C, creating the same result as a proper alto clef.

It's showing treble clef down an octave. I've seen it in choral music. It's also how I read non-transposing treble clef.

Of course, the E# is a bit of an anomaly.

Technically that is a C clef, just like tenor and alto clef. The “space” (as the OP calls it) designates the third space as pitch “C” (middle C on the piano). As Bruce stated, it easier just to think of it as treble clef, but down an octave. The clef is used by the tenors in a choral groups, but it is not very common with modern publishers.

The more typical clef that tenors use is a treble clef with an “8” directly underneath it, indicating that the pitches are down an octave. When I was much younger, I sang tenor in every choral group that was within 50 miles of me. Thus, I easily sang thousands of choral works. If my memory serves me correctly, I think I saw that type of a C clef about 15-20 times.

I do remember the first time I saw that notation when I was in high school and I asked the conductor about it. Fortunately, the conductor was very knowledgeable and even knew which publishers had commonly used it. The conductor was Gail Poch, who was conducting the Reading (PA) Choral Society in the early 1980s. He was also director of choral groups at Temple University at the time……what a great conductor he was! Sorry about the tangent at the end.

Yeah, I remember seeing some placements of the C clef on spaces or different lines than we are accustomed to. In school we saw those occasionally in ear training classes. Some people like to think of a moveable C clef as a way to transpose into different keys. The other surprise that I remember from those classes was discovering that the G (treble) and F (bass) clefs could also be moved to a different location on the staff (the circle at the second line in treble clef could be higher/lower to show where G was, and the 2 dots that surround the 4th line F in bass clef could be elsewhere). Some of this dates back to early music notation when the 5 line staff and the clefs we recognize were still becoming established.

I've also seen treble down the octave for choral tenor lines where they had a small 8 attached to the bottom of the G clef to indicate the octave down.

Jim Scott

When I said it was pointing to a D... I meant D.

D not C.

It is not pointing to a C in this 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica article.




The written arpeggio is a D arpeggio, per the text.

The author is familiar with conventional C and F clefs and uses them as expected in other portions of the article...

It wouldn't be the first time a publisher made a mistake. That symbol is normally interpreted as C at the center of the parallelogram. Not "pointing at it"

Yeah that's very odd. If I saw this without context I would assume an early out-dated way to notate "octave treble" for tenors. You do see in old prints also a treble-tenor clef hybrid that is a G clef on G with C clef wings around the third space.

Or that its meant to be a C clef and was printed half a line off.

But indeed its clear with the context here that the encyclopedia really treats this as a "D clef". I don't think I've seen that elsewhere, and not sure I understand the point of using it, when you could just use a C clef on the line.

Unless it IS a purposefully older-looking C Clef that got printed slightly off...

Now I'm curious, what does the article give for the bass?

Hmm? If Encyclopedia Brittanica is claiming that it is a D clef, it does make sense for a couple of reasons:

*The parallelogram does have a shape similar to a letter D.

*The D-sharp makes more sense than an E-sharp in the original example.

I wish I could find an example of the choral music that had the C clef for the tenors. I threw out hundreds of choral scores to clear out my file cabinets about 3 or 4 years ago. This is the 2nd or 3rd time those scores could have come in handy as a reference.

I am thinking that the tenor voice C-clef (that some of us are speaking of) might have a slightly different shape in that third space. There must be someone out there who has choral scores with the C clef.

Thanks to Rob for introducing a very interesting topic!

LeTromboniste wrote: ↑Sun Sep 18, 2022 2:13 am Now I'm curious, what does the article give for the bass?

For Praetorius's bass? I regret it doesn't have such a chart.

the whole Britannica "Trombone" article can be perused here...

https://archive.org/details/encyclopaed ... 2/mode/2up


I looked up the original Praetorius Syntagma Musicum. His diagrams are models of awkwardly dense medieval information design. The portion on Tromboni seems to have several different purposes going on at once.

I can't find anything that is a convincing Britannica-style "D Clef" in the Praetorius. He uses a fairly normal pointing-at-C clef.

This would suggest the Britannica clef being a mistake but that is still odd since the writer clearly knows clefs and the graphic appears to be specially prepared for the article.

robcat2075 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 18, 2022 8:21 am

LeTromboniste wrote: ↑Sun Sep 18, 2022 2:13 am Now I'm curious, what does the article give for the bass?

For Praetorius's bass? I regret it doesn't have such a chart.

the whole Britannica "Trombone" article can be perused here...

https://archive.org/details/encyclopaed ... 2/mode/2up


I looked up the original Praetorius Syntagma Musicum. His diagrams are models of awkwardly dense medieval information design. The portion on Tromboni seems to have several different purposes going on at once.

PraetTrombones.jpg


I can't find anything that is a convincing Britannica-style "D Clef" in the Praetorius. He uses a fairly normal pointing-at-C clef.

This would suggest the Britannica clef being a mistake but that is still odd since the writer clearly knows clefs and the graphic appears to be specially prepared for the article.

Ah I was just curious how the Britannica article author interpreted the pitch of the bass after Praetorius. Praetorius doesn't describe a bass in E, only in D.

The diagram from Praetorius you quoted looks a bit confusing at first but it's actually pretty straightforward, it just shows the bottom and top limits of the normal expected range for each instrument, with black notes for extensions of the range (for instance for the tenor in A, the low D and C are falset tones and the A is a pedal note, high G and A is totally normal, higher is possible with a good player but not necessarily common).
Regarding your question marks, on the left, the middle C is in black for the contrabass because it's considered very high for that instrument, but is in white for the bass trombone because it's part of the standard high range and very commonly asked. D and higher are indeed considered quite high for the long D bass. For alto on the right, he gives no extended range, only the normal expected range with B or Bb as the lowest note, I assume because you wouldn't want to an alto trombone if the range was outside of that (any higher and you might as well just use a cornetto).

LeTromboniste wrote: ↑Sun Sep 18, 2022 8:54 am The diagram from Praetorius you quoted looks a bit confusing at first but it's actually pretty straightforward, it just shows the bottom and top limits of the normal expected range for each instrument...

So this diagram is not trying to show what fundamental pitch the horns are built in, but just the extremes of their range?

Then it's probably not the inspiration for the Britannica graphic.

robcat2075 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 18, 2022 9:39 am

LeTromboniste wrote: ↑Sun Sep 18, 2022 8:54 am The diagram from Praetorius you quoted looks a bit confusing at first but it's actually pretty straightforward, it just shows the bottom and top limits of the normal expected range for each instrument...

So this diagram is not trying to show what fundamental pitch the horns are built in, but just the extremes of their range?

Then it's probably not the inspiration for the Britannica graphic.

No it's not based on that diagram, but the info is indeed at least partly from the body of the text in Praetorius. The arpeggio with the 1st position pitches reminds me more of Speer

Aside... on the Praetorius chart... what's the deal with that "F" missing its middle stem that indicates a G line?

He uses a proper "G" on that line elsewhere.

That's the Greek letter Gamma. That's the lowest note of the "Gamut" , or compass of all (vocal) musical notes, in the old Guidonian system (names after that note, Gamma Ut). The Gamut was essentially the entire range of a trained male voice, particular for use in Gregorian chant, from G at the bottom of the bass clef staff to E on top of the soprano clef staff. By the time of Praetorius it's not really considered the lowest note of anything (as this chart shows, he would expect any bass singer to sing down to low C, and some down to F below that!), but it was still a reference point.

You can occasionally find parts (very low contrabass instrument parts) were the clef is Gamma 3rd line, which is the next lowest clef after contrabass clef (F 5th line). Rare, but does exist.