Reading the Sheet

In this section we will take a look at the basic structure of sheet music.

This section covers:

The Stave
The Clef
Notes

The Stave

Music is comprised of notes arranged on a staff or stave.

A stave is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch.

The Clef

Bass Clef

Treble Clef

A clef is a musical symbol used to indicate the pitch of written notes.

There are three types of clef used in modern music notation: F, C, and G. Each type of clef assigns a different reference note to the line (and the space) on which it is placed. (G and F clefs are placed as treble and bass clefs, respectively, in the vast majority of modern music.)

The lines on the Treble Clef are E, G, B, D, and F; the spaces are F, A, C, and E.

The lines on the Bass Clef are G, B, D, F, and A; the spaces are A, C, E, and G.

Notes

Named-pitches are also called notes. Each note represents a frequency that can be vocalized through an instrument or device.

When reading sheet music you won't see the name of the note, you will instead see a slightly angled oval that is either filled in or empty, with or without a stem. These symbols give the performer information about what pitch (note) to play, how long to play it (beat) and if it has any special modifiers or accents.

Whole Note

Half Note

Quarter Notes (with and without fancy tails)

Sharp

Sometimes to give a section of music more variety or add tension a note will have to be played slightly higher or lower than it is normally. These are called accidentals and are represented as sharps or flats.

If you see the sharp or flat symbol after the Treble or Bass Clef symbol you know there are special instructions to how to play the music (this also identifies the key).

Flat