Ledger line
The origin of the word is uncertain, but may have been borrowed attributively from the term for a horizontal timber in a scaffolding, lying parallel to the face of the building and supporting the putlogs.There is no basis to support the often-found claim that the word originates from the French léger, meaning "light" or "slight" (OED 2005).Vocal music employed a variety of different clefs to keep the range of the part on the staff as much as possible; in keyboard notation a common way of avoiding ledger lines was the use of open score on four staves with different clefs (Godwin 1974, 16–17).Except for woodwind players, who prefer ledger lines to 8va notation because they associate fingerings with staff positions (Shatzkin 1993, 48), notes that use at least four ledger lines make music more difficult to read.(The rare double whole rest is suspended between two ledger lines in this situation.)