Last month, this column addressed one of the functions of those markings on sheet music called notes. Specifically, we covered the length of time a note is to be held. There is a second major function that notes fulfill. This involves how high or low the note sounds. In effect, it fleshes out the melody and harmony parts.
However, the flesh needs a skeleton to cling to. That skeleton is called a staff. I know that you've seen some of these. Looking at a sheet of music, you will spot a set of five parallel lines above the lyrics. There's another one below the lyrics. In barbershop music, there are too many things going on at one time to put them all on one staff, so we use the top one (treble staff) for the leads and tenors, and the bottom one (bass staff) for the basses and baritones. They are almost the same, but the differences are enough to drive the beginner absolutely bonkers. For that reason, we'll start by tackling just one, the treble staff.
Ignore the funny symbols at the beginning of each staff, and also ignore the vertical lines you see scattered throughout. We will get to them next month. For the time being, just look at the five lines. Between them you will see four spaces. The spaces are necessary. Without the spaces, the five lines would look just like one big thick line. As it stands, we wind up with nine lines and spaces.
Once in a great while, common sense and reality meet. That's the case here. The lowest line represents the lowest sounding note of the staff, while the highest line indicates the highest sounding note. As you might guess, those lines and spaces in between have notes that lie between the low and high ends. For the present, ignore any note that lies beyond these limits.
If you look at a piano, you will see a bunch of white keys. There are also black keys, but like so many other things, they come later. Right now, we are dealing with the simplest model. The lines and spaces you see on the music have a direct correspondence to the white keys. The lowest line represents the note E. Anybody with a grain of common sense knows that alphabetic things start with A. Music notation and common sense don't meet here.
The first space you see represents the note F, with a G being the note of the second line up. Now at this critical junction, we must forget what our mommies taught us about our ABC's. The next note is an A, not an H. Don't argue about it; just take it on faith. Continuing upwards we encounter B, C, D, and then another E and F. The second E and F are higher sounding versions of the ones we encountered at the bottom of the staff. Don't be confused by having different notes that carry the same name.
For the fully technical, there is more to each note than just the simple letter given here. However, in barbershop, we do try to keep it simple. Just consider that we are using familiar "first names" here. As a parallel example, in the chapter, we may encounter two different guys named Jim. Most of us have little trouble telling the two Jims apart. Same thing with note names.
Many folks say that remembering that the spaces spell FACE provides the key to keeping track of the notes on this staff. Let's jump back to those note symbols for a moment. Remember that beautiful oval we referred to last month? The center part of the oval must lie on the space or line to represent that particular note.
Now we'll touch upon the bass staff for just a moment. It operates the same as the treble staff, except that the bottom note is G, followed by A, B, C, D, E, F, G and A. You may have noticed that the spaces on this staff spell, ACEG. While you may be able to pronounce this, it doesn't mean anything. However, people who have associated the letters with the phrase, "All Cows Eat Grass," say that it helps.
Next month, we'll be looking into most of those silly looking symbols you see at the beginning of the staff. Some may also appear throughout the music, but, as you've already heard a few times, "That comes later." Meanwhile, you have a whole month to fix the lines and spaces of each staff in your head. Regardless of your voice part, try to learn both staffs.