What connects the treble and bass staves in a grand staff?

• A. A brace connecting treble and bass staves; used to show they belong to the same instrument or system.
• B. A bracket used for page layout.
• C. A vertical line connecting staves for alignment.
• D. A dotted line.

Answer: (A)

The connection is a brace on the left side—the curly bracket that groups the two staves together as one instrument or system. This mark signals that the upper and lower staves are read as a unit, with hands coordinating to produce the full music. Other marks you might see serve different purposes, like layout brackets or vertical barlines, but they don’t indicate that the staves belong to the same instrument.