Why bass cliff?

[Rigel42]

I’m trying to kick my Bass Tab habit and read notation, and I’d be fluent if it wasn’t for bass cliff.
Why isn’t the Music staff standard? All this aggravation for just one more staff line isn’t worth it. I’m trying, but I can’t look at an E and processes it as a G. 2 + 2 = 4, an E is an E. Why not transpose like Eb sax or a Bb trumpet? Or just add one more line to the staff?

What’s the reason for it?

[Tampabass]

clef
...although reading highly complex music does sometimes feel like going over the cliff...

[BigOldHarry]

I think what you mean to say is "Bass Clef".

And this is one of those many questions in music that is rather not worth asking. Why are there only 12 tones? Why is the flat a little 'b' and sharp is the pound sign???

Do like the rest of us and suck it up. Those old Europeans back in the 12th century couldn't have been wrong... Could they?

[xzzy]

Notation is standard. The only real problem is that learning the language (and it is a language) requires time as well as effort. Millions (billions?) of musicians over the course of history have been able to learn and use it just fine.

Perhaps you should take a keyboarding class. It'll illustrate to you quite quickly why there's a bass and a treble clef. ;)

[Ric5]

I need a bass cliff ... I want to throw basses off the cliff and watch them hit the ground ... actually pavement would be better ... and I want to throw hollow body basses.

seroiusly ...

Actually the bass clef is the F clef. The 2 dots show where the F note is. If bass was written the treble or G clef then we would always be adding extra lines to the bottom of the scale.

[Tampabass]

Originally Posted by xzzy

Notation is standard. The only real problem is that learning the language (and it is a language) requires time as well as effort. Millions (billions?) of musicians over the course of history have been able to learn and use it just fine.

Perhaps you should take a keyboarding class. It'll illustrate to you quite quickly why there's a bass and a treble clef.

+1 - learning piano is the (second-)best thing you can do to become a better bassist, and highly recommended for anyone who wants to do anything in music.

[CapnSev]

Originally Posted by Rigel42

I’m trying to kick my Bass Tab habit and read notation, and I’d be fluent if it wasn’t for bass cliff.
Why isn’t the Music staff standard? All this aggravation for just one more staff line isn’t worth it. I’m trying, but I can’t look at an E and processes it as a G. 2 + 2 = 4, an E is an E. Why not transpose like Eb sax or a Bb trumpet? Or just add one more line to the staff?

What’s the reason for it?

The bass isn't a Bb or Eb instrument like a trumpet or sax, and it's already transposed an entire octave up from regular piano music. Just learn to read it.

[lousybassplayer]

I have the opposite problem. I learned to read music playing the trombone (yuk it up i dont care) and bass clef is all I understand. It's a pain, but like anything you can learn to overcome it, or no one would be able to play piano.

[ilovethesechord]

+1 to leaning piano, very very helpful.

The Grand Staff was built of the piano - "middle C" is the center of the piano, and the center of the Staff... i think...

It taught me the difference between minor and major type harmonies - knowledge that is invaluable when writing an interesting bass line.

[JTE]

Look at the grand staff. The bass clef is the low notes, C is right in the middle (duh, that's why it's called "middle C"), and the treble clef is up above it. So, if the top line is A, which it has to be so C can be the first ledger line above bass clef AND the first ledger line below treble clef, then the rest of the notes follow. This stuff ain't aribtrary as it seems. Besides, the clef sign tells you what it is. That bass clef sign is a stylized "F", and the two dots tell you where the F is. The treble clef sign is a stylized G, and the curves cross the G line.

Just adapt. Beside if you're really into reading you'll start reading intervals not individual notes. So, once you figure out that the first space is A, then you'll find the third that's on the second space...

John

[totallyfrozen]

Originally Posted by Rigel42

I’m trying to kick my Bass Tab habit and read notation, and I’d be fluent if it wasn’t for bass cliff.
Why isn’t the Music staff standard?...

My friend, if you think that you would be fluent at reading music if there were no bass clef then I'm afraid you're farther from being fluent at reading music than you think. In other words, there is so much that you don't know yet that you don't even know how much you don't know.
Written music IS standard. Part of your problem is that you are looking at the 2 parts of the grand staff as being equal individual parts. You see a treble clef and a bass clef and ask "what's the point".

Why have a bass clef?
Well, why have legs? Why can't you just have arms above your waist and arms below your waist? This is the same question as yours. Once you see written music as all being on the continuum of the grand staff you'll see the "arms" and "legs" (the upper and lower parts) and you'll understand it better.

The reality is that there is ONE "grand staff" (this is why people are recommending piano lessons for you...you'd learn all this in piano classes). The grand staff includes BOTH the bass and treble clefs. The grand staff is a continuum. In practice, it's not an infinite continuum; it's limited--but it would be good for you to grasp the idea that it is a continuum.

If you understand the notes on the treble clef, just extend the notes down to the bass clef. Remember, in the grand staff there is really only ONE ledger line between the two clefs. So below the treble clef you have a D, then on the ledger line you have middle C. Below that you have B--and that is where you start seeing the bass clef (that B is actually part of the notes of the bass clef). Right below that B is the TOP line of the bass clef. It's all one continuous set of lines (the grand staff). It really makes sense once you know how to see it.

To make it easier to read, we put ALOT of space between the treble and bass clefs and when you are reading the clefs independently (e.g. saxophone music which will only show a treble clef) we see several ledger lines between the clefs. Piano music uses the grand staff and makes it much easier to understand just how close all these notes are. Even the ledger line for middle C is only included to make reading the grand staff easy on the eyes. You could, I suppose, write all the music together on one massive staff. It would not be incorrect but it would be a pain in butt to try to read it. Eleven lines covered in tiny dots!

So the music staff IS standard. You just didn't understand how to look at it.

The people who devised this system centuries ago were well educated and scientific. There is a reason for this system and it works.

[lousybassplayer]

OP, sorry you asked yet?

[RCCollins]

"why bass cliff?"

is that something hetfield asked him?

[lousybassplayer]

Clifton just didn't sound good.

[EADG mx]

Originally Posted by Rigel42

I’m trying to kick my Bass Tab habit and read notation

Good for you.

Originally Posted by Rigel42

All this aggravation for just one more staff line isn’t worth it.

When you become proficient with notation you'll understand it's (endless) benefits.

Originally Posted by Rigel42

I’m trying, but I can’t look at an E and processes it as a G. 2 + 2 = 4, an E is an E. Why not transpose like Eb sax or a Bb trumpet? Or just add one more line to the staff?

What’s the reason for it?

The first thing I would do is throw all of that tab out the window. You need to stop thinking of the staff as an alteration of tab - it doesn't work that way. It's an entirely different system.

The bass does transpose - up an octave from concert pitch, and it fits quite nicely on the bass clef.

The grand staff is suited nicely for piano. Other instruments adjust the best they can (although due to the tessitura of the instruments, most have to make some sacrifice in the form of ledger lines or transposition).

[two fingers]

I think that the reason bass clef was positioned in the way that is was was because the note located inside the staff are kind of the "center" of the bass notes. If it had been two notes in the other direction, we would have to use ledger lines more. Just a guess though. Suck it up. You CAN do this! And music on the staff gives you SOOOOOO much more to go by than TAB does. Good luck!

[Rigel42]

O'ya, I'll suck it up and get it down. I'm just venting.

It's just stuff like, why is C a C and not an A? Wouldn't it be easier to grasp octaves if the natural music root was labled A?

[lousybassplayer]

oh, now you're in for it

[wildhorse]

Reading? I'm still trying to figure out the Nashville Number System.
Thank Goodness for those Jordanaires! I know what I don't know and some of you guys responses are giving me a headache. I think I'll just go play.

[lousybassplayer]

wildhorse I like your style. I subscribe to the "which fret and string is the guitar player on" school of bass playing.