Notes on the staff

The five lines of the staff show pitch. Higher on the staff means higher on the keyboard.

Lines and spaces

Written music places notes on a staff of five lines and the four spaces between them. Every line and every space stands for one white key. Moving up one step, from a line to the space just above or from a space to the line just above, means the next white key to the right. Notes that sit too high or too low for the staff get short extra lines of their own, called ledger lines.

The symbol at the start of the staff, the clef, tells you which line is which note. The treble clef is also called the G clef: its curl wraps around the second line from the bottom, and that line is G4. With the treble clef, the bottom line is E4. Middle C sits on a short ledger line just below the staff.

Line notes from the bottom: E G B D F ("Every Good Boy Does Fine"). Space notes: F A C E, which spells a word. Learn these two sets as landmarks, the same way C and F are landmarks on the keyboard, and count from them to anything nearby.

Reading by steps and skips

Fluent readers rarely name every note from scratch. They look at the distance from the last note. If the next note is on the neighbouring line or space, it is a step: move one key. If it jumps from a line to the next line, or a space to the next space, it is a skip: move two white keys and miss one out. Bigger jumps can be counted the same way. Reading the shape of a melody like this is much faster than spelling out each note by name.

Lines for pitch are an old idea. Guido of Arezzo, the same 11th-century monk behind do re mi, is credited with developing staff notation, in which lines fix the height of each note, so singers could learn a melody they had never heard.

The bass clef

Piano music uses two staves joined by a brace, called the grand staff. The top one usually has the treble clef for the right hand. The bottom one has the bass clef, also called the F clef, for the left hand. Its two dots sit on either side of the fourth line from the bottom, and that line is F3. Middle C sits on a ledger line just above the bass staff, so the same note links the two staves.

Try it

Name each note shown on the staff. Start with the first set, which stays between middle C and C5; the second set adds the higher notes up to F5 at the top line. Every answer also plays the note, so your ear learns the height while your eyes learn the place.