## Staff

The staff is the set of five horizontal lines that piano music is written on. A note's vertical position on those lines and the spaces between them tells you which pitch to play.

Higher on the staff means higher in pitch. Five lines and four spaces give you nine positions, and a clef at the left-hand end tells you which nine pitches they are. Everything else in notation is decoration on top of that one idea.


## How To Spot Staff

It is the thing the music is written on — five lines running the width of the page. Piano music uses two staves at once, joined by a brace on the left.


## Find It In Thirty Seconds

Count the lines on the top staff of any piece: five, always. Then find a note sitting *on* a line and one sitting *in* a space, and say which is higher.

Open any piece of sheet music on this site and do it now. Reading is a recognition skill, and recognition is built by finding things, not by reading about them.