• Are there contrabass/subcontrabass clefs?
    3 replies, posted
Musical question here. So, as far as I know, the lowest clef there is is the subbass. However, names for octaves that're even lower than that exist, so are there clefs for those?
There aren't any "clefs" like that per say. There are only three clefs: a G-Clef (treble), an F-Clef (bass), and a C-clef (alto/tenor). Now, wherever you place that clef on a 5-line staff becomes the note the clef references, or you can put a multiple of 8 above or below a clef to signify an octave shift/transposition. Most instruments just use treble or bass disregarding octaves for simplicities sake; liu bassoon, cello, violin, and tenor/alto singers, who also commonly use tenor/alto clef. Wikipedia has this picture of clefs and their names for where they're placed, but most of these aren't in wide practice: [img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/All_clefs.svg/800px-All_clefs.svg.png[/img] There's also a "neutral clef" that looks like || which is just a general sign for non-pitched percussion.
its almost incredible how in depth you can go with slamming on a piece of goat skin with a stick
Subbass is lowest but I've never actually seen it used. When writing for double bass, it sounds one octave lower than written. Otherwise for tuba or very low piano parts, 8vb or 15vb markings are used to avoid excessive leger lines. The only time lower pitches are used would be in electronic music.
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