How to Read Music Notes

There are always seven notes in the musical alphabet:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G

These notes corruspond to the seven white keys on a piano keyboard.

While the white keys never change, how these seven notes are written does change...

A "clef" is a symbol at the beginning of music which tells you which pitches are used. The most common clef for most instruments is the treble clef.

With the piano, the treble clef is usually played with the right hand. Other instruments, like the violin, might tend to use a different clef.

When using the treble clef, the notes on the 5 lines (from bottom to top) are E, G, B, D, and F. A common way to remember this is the phrase "Every Good Boy Does Fine."

Notice that we have skipped notes. That's because the spaces between the lines also count as notes! In the treble clef, these are the missing letters F, A, C, and E (or "Face").

In the following image, you can see both the treble clef (on top) and the bass clef (on the bottom).

Middle C is our "home base." You'll usually put your right thumb on the piano's middle C.

With the treble clef, the middle C is on the line below the staff. On the bass clef, it is on the line above the staff.

You'll frequently see additional lines added to a staff. These simply continue the pattern. For example, in the treble clef, we can count two steps down from the bottom line (E) to get to C.

The other essential clef to know is the bass clef. For pianists, the bass clef is usually played with the left hand (since it's lower, or further to the left on the keyboard).

Unfortunately, the notes on the staff do not match those of the treble clef. Not only are they lower, but they represent different letters!

You already learned that the line above the bass clef is middle C. Counting down two steps from there, you can guess that the top line of the bass clef is A. If you keep counting and put it all together, then the letters (from bottom to top) are G, B, D, F, A. A common way to remember this is the phrase "Good Boys Do Fine Always." Likewise, the spaces are A, C, E and G (or "All Cows Eat Grass").

Remember to read these letters from bottom to top!

The shape of the note tells you the duration relative to other notes. In other words...

• A half note is half the duration of a whole note
• A quarter note is half a half note (a quarter whole note)
• ... and so on ...

One last thing: there are also rests, which tell you not to play anything. They follow the same pattern of whole, half, quarter, etc. (but use different symbols).

Exactly how long does a note last?

The answer to that question depends on two things:

1. The time signature
2. The tempo, aka beats per minute (BPM)

First, the time signature tells you what exactly a "beat" is. Each time signature consists of two numbers (a numerator and denominator). The second number defines a "beat." For example, in the two most common times (4/4 time signature and 2/4 time signature), a quarter note is a beat (because both have a 4 on the bottom).

The top number tells you how many beats are in a measure. So in the common 4/4 time signature, there are 4 beats per measure, and each beat is a quarter note... so a measure fits exactly one whole note. In the 2/4 time signature, there are only 2 beats per measure... so each measure only fits a half note.

With just the time signature, the music will sound relatively correct, but it might be faster or slower than the composer intended. That's where the BPM (beats per minute) comes in.

Often, the composer will write the intended BPM at the top of the score. For example, if they write 60 bpm that means there is one beat per second. In the case of the 4/4 time signature, this means each quarter note (a beat) gets 1 second.