The C Staff
The C Staff is a symmetrical music notation staff that is easy to learn and uses all traditional music notation concepts.
Before reading through this tutorial please view the "Grand Staff" page that explains issues associated with the traditional grand staff and note recognition.
C Staff Tutorial
The C Staff is based on traditional music notation and uses all common notation systems.
1. Alphabetic staff with line and space vertical pitch placement.
2. Note spelling systems (i.e. natural, sharp and flat).
3. Note and rest rhythm notation.
4. Meter symbols.
5. Key signatures.
6. Form symbols.
7. Dynamics symbols.
The C Staff uses three lines to display one octave of notes.
The diagram below displays the first five notes on the C Staff.
The doted line is ALWAYS a "C" note.
The “A” note is on top of the staff.
The “B” note is on the next 1/2 space above the “A” note with no ledger line.
The C Staff does not use ledger lines.
One octave C Staff.
The C Staff is symmetrical and can be stacked with as many staves as needed.
Two octave C Staff.
The C Staff can be scaled for higher and lower notes just like the ledger line system in the grand staff. But with the C Music Staff there are two ways to do this and it is much easier to identify the notes as the visual staff relationships remains recognizable.
The “C Clef” designates which octave the dotted “C” note staff line represents.
The C Clef is a very flexible symbol.
A small C Clef can be place by a single note to specify an octave of a single note.
A small C Clef with a bracket can be used to specify an alternate octave for a group of notes.
The C Staff key signatures look very close to traditional music notation.
Here's the key of Bb.
The piano uses treble and bass clefs on separated staves to specify (Right Hand) and (Left Hand) assignments.
The C Staff uses the brace "{ }" symbols to specify hand assignments.
All staves below the Left Hand brace symbol { are to be played with the left hand unless specified differently.
All staves above the Right Hand brace symbol } are to be played with the right hand unless specified differently.
The brace symbols can be placed anywhere, on or across any staff or measure.
A double bar staff line can also be used to give the appearance of separated staves for hand assignments.
Moveable Do.
The dotted line of the C Staff can be reassigned to be the the tonic in any key. This concept is very useful in choral music as well as instrumental music depending on the instrument.
Since the lowest note of the C Staff is always the dotted line the transposition will always be higher in relation the octave specified in the octave clef.
Notice that the key signature is still based on the notes of the C Staff without transposition.
The C Staff overview:
The 5 line grand staff is replaced with the visually symmetrical C Staff.
Treble and Bass Clefs are replaced with the octave based C Clef.
Added the { } bracket symbols for piano players left and right hand assignments.
C Staff Applications and Goals:
A universal system to serve as a common ground notation system between all instruments.
Used in education as the first staff for anyone reading music for the first time.
The C Staff calls attention to the main difficulty people have with the grand staff. This awareness is very important and is an encouraging part of the learning process. My hope is that the C Staff will make playing music more accessible and promote learning of the widely accepted grand staff.