RE: MusicXML Clefs

>...The clefs always point to lines and never to spaces.

>Paul Lombardi, Ph.D.

 

Bravo!   This is important.   One sometimes (thankfully rarely) sees a C-clef on the next-to-top space.  (See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clef#Tenor_clef – section on - ughh - ‘octave clefs’.)  

There is absolutely nothing so irritating as someone trying to tell me that middle C is in a space!   I don’t know who invented this silly idea, but I suspect this one is down to someone who was so upset that his treble clef tenor voice parts were like music for one of those awful transposing instruments, that he had to re-invent the C clef and put middle C in a space.  

(My understanding is that historically staves had more or less as many lines as you liked, and when you drew only 5 of them, the clef was invented to tell you which 5 they were.   So you marked the lines with middle C, the G above or the F below with a C, G, or F clef as appropriate.   You never moved middle C into a space!)

Dave



David Webber
Mozart Music Software
http://www.mozart.co.uk