Bass clef

The two dots of the bass clef sit on either side of the F line, the F below middle C.

The F clef

Low voices and instruments need their own clef, or almost every note would hang far below the treble staff. The bass clef is used by cello, bassoon, trombone, tuba, bass guitar, bass singers and the left hand of piano music. It begins with a dot on the second line from the top, curves round like a backwards C, and finishes with two small dots placed in the spaces above and below that same line. The line between the dots is F3, the F below middle C, so the bass clef is also called the F clef.

Lines and spaces in bass clef

From the bottom, the bass lines are G B D F A and the spaces are A C E G. The bottom line is G2, two octaves below the G that the treble clef marks. The top line is A3, and the space above it is B3, the note just under middle C. Open Music Theory offers "Good Bikes Don't Fall Apart" for the lines and "All Cows Eat Grass" for the spaces. Many teachers use "Good Boys Do Fine Always" instead. Again, these are memory aids for the first few weeks, not part of the notation.

Why bass clef feels shifted

If you learned treble clef first, bass clef can feel like the same staff with everything shifted. That feeling is accurate: the same position on the staff names a letter two steps higher in bass clef than in treble. The bottom line is E in treble but G in bass; the middle line is B in treble but D in bass. Some players use this as a quick check, but it is better to learn bass clef on its own terms, with its own landmarks, because the sound is far lower and the "shift" trick adds a step of thinking to every note.

Good landmarks in bass clef are the F line marked by the dots, the middle line D3, the bottom line G2 and the top line A3. Bass parts often move by larger jumps than melodies do, so being able to recognise a line or space instantly matters more here. Try the quiz below with the sound on: the widget plays each note after you answer, and you will hear how low these notes are compared with the treble notes of the last unit.

You can check bass clef notes against the keyboard. C3, in the second space, is exactly one octave below middle C. The third space of the treble staff is also a C, C5, so those two spaces are two octaves apart. G2 on the bottom line is two octaves below the G that the treble clef marks. Linking a few bass notes to keys you already know from treble clef makes the low staff feel much less foreign.