Reading and Understanding Staff Notation

Reading music off the page

Written music is a code that lets one person play exactly what another wrote, even if they never hear it first. It is written on a stave, which is five lines. At the start of the stave a clef shows the pitch range: the treble clef for higher sounds and the bass clef for lower ones. Each note has a shape that shows how long it lasts, from a semibreve down through a minim, a crotchet and a quaver, and rests show silences of the same lengths. A time signature at the start tells you how many beats are in each bar. Signs called sharps, flats and naturals raise, lower or restore the pitch of a note. This module covers the stave and clefs, note values and beats, time signatures, and the accidentals, so you can read a line of music with confidence.

Notation words

Learn these terms before the notes are matched to their lengths. They name how music is written down.

Match each note to its length

The treble clef against the bass clef

The clef at the start of the stave changes what every line and space means, so it is the first thing to read.

How long is this note?

A crotchet lasts one beat. How many beats does a semibreve last?

• Four beats
• One beat
• Half a beat
• Two beats

Read the clef, then the pitch, then the length

Reading a note is not guessing; it is following steps in the same order every time. First check the clef, because the same line means a different pitch in the treble clef than in the bass clef. Then read the position on the five lines and four spaces to find the pitch. Then look at the shape to find the length, from a semibreve down to a quaver. Finally, watch for any sharp, flat or natural sign, and for the key signature at the start, which changes certain notes all the way through. Do these in that order and any written note gives up both its pitch and its length. With a little practice the steps become automatic, and a line of music that once looked like dots on lines turns into sound you can hear in your head.

Pick what you can read from written music

Select everything you can actually read from a piece of written music.

• The pitch of a note
• How long a note lasts
• Whether to play loudly or softly
• The price of the concert ticket
• The age of the composer

Order these notes from longest to shortest

Put these note values in order from the longest to the shortest.

• a semibreve, lasting four beats
• a minim, lasting two beats
• a crotchet, lasting one beat
• a quaver, lasting half a beat
• a semiquaver, lasting a quarter of a beat

Complete the notation facts

The five lines music is written on are the _____. The sign showing the pitch range is the _____. A note lasting one beat is a _____. A sign that raises the pitch of a note is a _____.

Count the beats

In four-four time there are four crotchet beats in one bar. How many crotchet beats are there in two full bars? Multiply the beats in one bar by the number of bars.

A shared code both can read

Imagine you compose a tune in your head and want a friend on the other side of the country to play it exactly as you meant. You cannot hand them the sound, so you need a code you both understand. Written music is that code. A few lines, a sign at the start, and shapes along the way carry the pitch and the length of every note, so that someone who has never heard the tune can reproduce it faithfully. That is the power of writing music down: it turns a fleeting sound into a set of instructions anyone trained can follow, across any distance and any stretch of time. Learning to read it is learning to unlock that code, and it opens up every piece ever written.

Tap the two note values

Tap the TWO words that are note values, telling you how long a note lasts.

• minim
• quaver
• treble
• forte

Read each notation clue

Read each situation and choose the best answer.

• You see a single note that fills a whole bar of four-four time. What note value is it?
• You need to read the notes for a low instrument. Which clef will you most likely use?
• A sharp sign appears before a note. What does it do?

Build a notation sentence

Choose the word for each gap to complete one point about reading music.

Explain how music is written down

A friend can play by ear but cannot read music and thinks notation is pointless. Using what you have learned, explain how music is written down and why reading it is useful.

• Explain what the stave and the clefs are
• Explain note values and how long each lasts
• Explain what a time signature tells you
• Explain what sharps, flats and naturals do
• Explain why reading written notation is useful