Music Reading 101
The slides: Music Reading 101 (PDF). Practice: Note Reading Practice.
The Staff
Five lines. Notes sit on the lines and in the spaces between them.
- Notes move in alphabetical order: A B C D E F G, then back to A.
- Low notes are at the bottom. High notes are at the top.
The Clef
Five bare lines tell you nothing. A clef locks one specific note to one specific line; everything else is counted from there. You are learning two:
| Clef | Also called | Locks down |
|---|---|---|
| G clef | Treble clef | Where G is |
| F clef | Bass clef | Where F is |
The Grand Staff
Treble clef on top, bass clef underneath: the grand staff, which is what piano music looks like. They meet at middle C, which sits on its own short ledger line — one below the treble staff, one above the bass staff. Same note either way.
The Piano Keyboard
The black keys come in groups of two and three, repeating forever. Memorize four landmarks:
| Note | How to find it |
|---|---|
| D | In “duh” middle of the pair of black keys |
| E | Just right of the group of two |
| F | In “front” of the group of three |
| B | “Behind” the group of three |
Octaves
Dozens of keys, only seven note names, so the names repeat every eight notes. The distance from one C to the next C is an octave; both keys are C, one sounds higher.
Whole Steps and Half Steps
- A half step is the distance to the very next key, black keys included.
- A whole step has exactly one key in between.
Only two pairs of neighboring white keys are a half step apart: B–C and E–F (no black key between them). Every other white-key pair is a whole step. Those two exceptions are why scales work the way they do.
Note Values
In 4/4, one measure holds four beats. Each value is half of the one above it.
| Note | Beats | Looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Whole note | 4 | Hollow oval, no stem |
| Half note | 2 | Hollow oval with a stem |
| Quarter note | 1 | Filled oval with a stem |
| Eighth note | ½ | Filled oval with a stem and a flag |
| Sixteenth note | ¼ | Two flags |
A dot adds half the note’s value back on. A dotted quarter is 1 + ½ = 1½ beats.
Rests
Every note value has a matching rest worth the same amount of time. A rest is not nothing — it is silence you counted on purpose.
The Time Signature
4/4 is two pieces of information. The top number is how many beats are in a measure (four). The bottom number is which note gets one beat (four means the quarter note).
Counting
- Quarter notes: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4
- Eighth notes: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &
This is also why quantizing works the way it does: a hi-hat playing eighth notes needs a 1/8 grid. See Beat Making.