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Understanding early music and use of clefs

Tenor Viol

Tenor Viol

Full of frets in Cumbria
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Penrith, Cumbria, UK
As those of you who have known me a while, my handle on here comes from the fact that I play the viola da gamba (aka viol) and I play both tenor and bass. The standard clef for the tenor is 'alto' C3 clef and it goes up to use octave treble G2 clef (sounds octave lower than written). The bass uses bass clef (F4) and alto (C3).
I play cello, which uses bass (F4), tenor (C4), and treble (G2) at pitch.

Saxophones all use treble G2, but are transposed.

I thought you might like this video which gives some of the challenges in understanding early music and use of clefs... which makes you realise a)life is now simpler for most of us, b)if all you play is an instrument that uses one clef, lucky you...

View: https://youtu.be/qBmBuMsiIt0
 
Kudos to you! I love the sound of the viola da gamba and most of the music that's written for it. I can only begin to imagine the work and training it takes to master the instrument and play such complex music. Do you have any recordings?
 
Wade Cornell said:
Kudos to you! I love the sound of the viola da gamba and most of the music that's written for it. I can only begin to imagine the work and training it takes to master the instrument and play such complex music. Do you have any recordings?
Click to expand...
Of me playing? No... I've transposed some viol music for the Café Sax Ensemble... A rare picture of me playing tenor viol in a consort with a lutenist. Pre-beard... picture from around 2007 or 2008 or so... on an early music summer school...
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Really enjoyed the clip you've posted.

I presume you have seen "Tous les matins du monde"
The music from this film is amazing! The wonderful Jordi Saval plays. He's recently toured Australia and New Zealand with his group Hespèrion XX I . He's getting kind of old for touring, but hey, I'm not complaining! I have a number of their recordings and some special ones with Montserrat Figueras, who is sadly no longer with us. Hopefully his kids who are in Hespèrion XX I will be taking over and keeping this music alive.
 
Yes, I have quite a few Hespèrion XXI CDs. I think Tous les matins due mode features French viol music by Marais and Ste. Coulombe. Marias wrote some fiendishly difficult viol music for solo bass (the bass viol is the solo instrument of the viol family). Unlike the more modern violin family (i.e. cello) you can play chords more readily on viols... Should add that French bass viols typically have 7 rather than 6 strings, and have a low A below the usual D.

View: https://youtu.be/bTd0q4y6ln8
 
NB Edited to extend some points.

Made the mistake of reading some of the comments under that Youtube video.... Some people really don't understand their musical history....

Quick summary: a group of fretted stringed instruments loosely tuned in 4ths (with the odd 3rd) came into Europe via Spain probably from North Africa during the Crusades. In Spain they were referred to as 'vihuela'. Originally they were plucked and known as the vihuela da mano. By around 1400 the plucked version was becoming the guitar and a bowed version evolved which was played with a bow and either sat on the lap or between the legs for the larger ones. This gets the Italian name 'viola da gamba' with 'viola' being the Italian derivative from 'vihuela' and 'da gamba' because it was played 'on the leg'. The violin is 'da braccio' or 'on the arm'.

Viol is the English name and viols were very popular instruments played at home in a group or consort, or with other instruments (as in a 'broken consort'). It was common for wealthier families to have a 'chest' of viols - literally a large box containing 6 viols - 2 trebles, 2 tenors, 2 basses. There is a 'double bass' viol: that is in fact the ancestor of the modern double bass - which is why a)it has sloping shoulders, and b)it is tuned in 4ths not 5ths. If a double bass has 'square' shoulders, then it is a bass violin. There are various other sizes of viol including a higher pitched pardessus and an alto. The baroque era standardised on treble, tenor and bass. The treble and bass were tuned DGCEAD an octave apart, and the tenor GCFADG a 4th above the bass (pardessus an octave above that and the violine an octave below).

Unlike the violin family, the viols are properly sized for their pitch, which is why the tenor viol is the size of a guitar and not a viola. It sounds a 4th lower (low G) than a viola (C in the 2nd space bass clef) but the viola is woefully under-size for its pitch which is wy it sounds congested. The standard bass viol is about the size of a cello and goes to the D below bass clef (cello is a tone lower at C). The treble is one octave higher than the bass. The violine is one octave lower than the tenor.

French bass viols often had a 7th string - low A - and virtuosic bass solo music was a feature of French viol music.

The bass has always been the solo member of the family and English composers such as Christopher Simpson also wrote virtuoso music for bass.

There is a smaller bass viol called the Lyra Viol. It is designed to be able to make it easier to play chords and is typically played from music notated in lute tablature rather than staff notation. I have some...

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I'm so glad this thread was started!
As a Christmas gift, I received an 1892 Columbia's Pride vocal music instruction book printed by the Echo Music Co. of LaFayette, Indiana. I won't be able to use the book for my saxophone playing, as far as I can tell.
However, I found some interesting information as to what characters for clefs were used by the authors, notably for tenor and alto. Their attempt at introducing the use of a capital A for alto seemed to go nowhere, and it appears that what was used for tenor must have fallen into disuse.
I've included the page explaining the various characters used in the book and an example piece. I've also included a link to a website called My Music Theory which shows the modern characters.
Has anyone some further insight into these? I've never seen any other clefs other than bass and treble until now.
Thank you!
 

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What they call the tenor clef is still in use. It is also called the C clef, and indicates what line of the staff is middle C.
1703991681801.jpg

The tenor clef as above is sometimes used by cellos when playing high in their range. Also bassoons, and maybe (I’m not too sure about this) French horns.

The same clef is used by violas as the alto clef. Middle C is thus on the middle line.
1703992031849.jpg

As far as I know, this clef is never centered on a space.
 
ESJohn said:
I'm so glad this thread was started!
As a Christmas gift, I received an 1892 Columbia's Pride vocal music instruction book printed by the Echo Music Co. of LaFayette, Indiana. I won't be able to use the book for my saxophone playing, as far as I can tell.
However, I found some interesting information as to what characters for clefs were used by the authors, notably for tenor and alto. Their attempt at introducing the use of a capital A for alto seemed to go nowhere, and it appears that what was used for tenor must have fallen into disuse.
I've included the page explaining the various characters used in the book and an example piece. I've also included a link to a website called My Music Theory which shows the modern characters.
Has anyone some further insight into these? I've never seen any other clefs other than bass and treble until now.
Thank you!
Click to expand...
The A clef isn't the only non-standard usage there. Their usage of the C clef to indicate the third space is as a C is unusual to say the least. The A clef they "introduce" is indicating exactly the same positions for notes as their C clef for tenor. Both of them are the same as a treble clef but an octave lower. This wasn't normal even in 1892.

What you call "the modern characters" have been the only two instances of the C clef in common use since around 1700. Before that it was used on other lines as well I believe.
 
The use of the various clefs was to avoid writing/printing too many leger lines. This is why we had things like the French violin clef, the soprano clef, baritone clef etc. As printing costs reduced, the need to save paper fell away to some extent and most of the more unusual variations fell into desuetude. This leaves us (mostly) with the F4 bass clef, C4 tenor clef, C3 alto clef, and G2 treble clef. I read and use all four: cello uses three of them (bass, tenor, treble) and viol adds alto (bass viol uses bass and alto, and tenor viol uses alto and treble).

Some clefs duplicate e.g F2 is the same as C4
 
This is very educational!
The first thing that I want to see in a new piece of music is how many sharps and/ or flats that I need to conquer. A clef is something that has received little attention from me.
I'm curious as to why the author was "introducing" the A clef, as though they had invented the notion. Was/is their tenor clef character a common one for the time? Were these characters only for vocal?
If the tenor clef had been around since the 1700's, I wonder why they would have used a different one. One would think that they would have known.
I think that I need to take some online music theory lessons!
 
ESJohn said:
I found this information online today.
A hearty "Amen!" to the mention of clefs being invisible, except that I don't consider myself to be a seasoned musician.
www.classicfm.com

What are the clefs in music and how many actually are there?

We see clefs at the start of all musical scores and staves. But what are they telling us and why do they look the way that they do?
www.classicfm.com www.classicfm.com
Click to expand...
Is the beginning of that really true, these days?

A clef helps to indicate what key a piece of music is in.
Click to expand...
Sure, if you had a ♭ On the middle line and changed the clef, the meaning would change, but does anyone do that? In my limited experience (basic piano) the base clef just shifts the key signature from the treble clef.
 
ESJohn said:
I found this information online today.
A hearty "Amen!" to the mention of clefs being invisible, except that I don't consider myself to be a seasoned musician.
www.classicfm.com

What are the clefs in music and how many actually are there?

We see clefs at the start of all musical scores and staves. But what are they telling us and why do they look the way that they do?
www.classicfm.com www.classicfm.com
Click to expand...
I read that article yesterday and I didn't think it was very well written. It's wrong in one place and it lacks a lot of detail.

The various clefs were widely used but by the time we get into the C18th - certainly by about 1750 - we are down to the 4 clefs we now use. Composers used to choose a clef to avoid leger lines. Most players of treble instruments don't realise how fortunate they are in not having to be familiar with at least two clefs. If saxes didn't transpose, baritone sax for example is the same pitch as my cello and so could be written to use bass and tenor clefs. But saxes do transpose to keep the fingerings the same.
 

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