When my students are first working with the Grand Staff, they are often confused about the placement of the various clefs.
In piano music, we generally use only the G-clef (Treble clef – not “trouble clef” as some think!) and the F-clef (Bass clef) I try to show students how the curvy part of the G-clef wraps around the G above middle C and the F-clef looks sort of like an F marking the F below middle C. I draw out G and F on the staff to show how these could have looked.
Originally, instead of a special clef symbol, the reference line of the staff was simply labeled with the name of the note it was intended to bear: F and C and, more rarely, G. These were the most often-used ‘clefs’ in Gregorian chant notation. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions.
Over time the shapes of these letters became stylized, leading to their current versions.
• 1922 ~ Lukas Foss, German-born American pianist, conductor and composer
• 1925 ~ Oscar Peterson, Canadian Jazz pianist, jazz trios, solos, played with all jazz greats, composer. He achieved international fame with the touring “Jazz at the Philharmonic”. His biography is Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing
• 1925 ~ Bill Pinkney, Musician, bass with The Drifters
• 1933 ~ Bobby Helms, Singer
• 1941 ~ Don Rich, Country musician, songwriter, one of Buck Owens’ Buckaroos
• 1941 ~ Au Revoir, Pleasant Dreams was recorded by Ben Bernie and his orchestra.
• 1942 ~ Peter York, Musician, drums with Spencer Davis Group
• 1965 ~ 55,600 people attended a Beatles concert at Shea Stadium, New York, creating world attendance and revenue records for a pop concert.
• 1969 ~ The first day of the most famous musical event of 1969, Woodstock. It was originally called The Woodstock Music and Arts Fair and it began in Bethel, New York.
• 1969 ~ Three Dog Night (Danny Hutton, Cory Wells and Chuck Negron) were awarded a gold record for the album, Three Dog Night. Where’d the name of the group come from? In Australia, the aborigine tribes of several regions slept outside all year. As the temperatures got colder, the tribesmen would sleep with a dog to keep warm. In colder weather, they would huddle with two dogs. It must have been an extremely cold night when the group was formed!
• 1981 ~ Lionel Richie and Diana Ross hit number one on the pop music charts with their beautiful duet, Endless Love. It was a huge success for the two singers. Endless Love was number one for 9 weeks.
• 1989 ~ Many groups who had been to Woodstock had a twentieth-anniversary celebration.
