Quote:
Originally Posted by Huskyman
I had no clue as to where to put this so if it needs to be moved, please move.
Somewhere I have heard that sheet music written for guitar has the melody written a full octave higher than it really is. I have had a hard time understanding this. So when I pull out my Beatles song book and I am looking at the vocal line and I see a few notes that are played on guitar as high e string open does that mean that the note is actually being sung an octave lower which would be the e note on the 2nd fret of the D string?
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Both guitar music and vocals are typically written an octave higher than "concert pitch". Or, conversely, the staff is lowered.
I.e., it's not about what the notes "actually are", just about certain notation conventions.
"Concert pitch" means middle C is written on the ledger line below treble clef, or the ledger line above bass clef.
"Middle C" is so-called for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's clearly right in the middle of piano double-stave notation. Secondly, it's the C nearest the centre of the piano keyboard (not the exact centre of a full 88-note keyboard, which is the E above, but C is considered a more important note). Middle C is also roughly central in human vocal ranges. In fact, the whole reason we select the range of musical pitches we do (represented by the piano's 88 keys) is because of our frequency sensitivity. We can distinguish different pitches most easily around the frequencies of our voices - and then beyond that by around 2-3 octaves below and above.
Guitar is a mid-range instrument. In fact its range exactly encompasses all the classical vocal ranges, from bottom of bass (open 6th string) to top of soprano (C, fret 20 on 1st string).
But when we notate guitar, we only use one staff. Concert treble clef is too high - most of what we play would be off the bottom of the staff. So we lower the treble cleff until it straddles middle C. Middle C is written in the 3rd space up.
This is the same for vocals, and for the same reason. Most male vocals could actually be written in concert bass clef, quite well. Tenors would need several ledger lines above the staff, but baritones and basses (i.e., the majority of men) would be fine.
But the vocal tradition is to use treble clef. So, again, we lower the staff so middle C appears in the 3rd space. Male vocals may then sometimes need ledger lines below, and female vocals need ledger lines above, but generally it averages out pretty well.
So - in short! - the E on top space of vocal notation is the same E as top space on guitar notation. The open 1st string, a major 3rd above middle C.
BTW - technical jargon point (if you're interested!) - "treble" means high register, so strictly speaking only refers to that staff in concert pitch. When we lower the staff by an octave for guitar and voice, it becomes a "tenor" staff. The clef itself is actually a "G" clef, because it marks the 2nd line up as G. (And bass clef is an F clef.) In concert, the G clef is a "treble" clef (piano right hand, violin, flute, mandolin, etc etc). An octave lower it's a "tenor G clef" (or "octave G clef"), and sometimes you see this marked by a little "8" attached to the bottom of the clef - but it isn't strictly necessary, because we know to assume that transposition anyway.