Learn Guitar: How to read music- Basics

As any other language, there is syntax for writing music on paper. Music is written on a grid of five horizontal lines called the staff. The staff looks like the one given below.

The notes are placed on this staff and they represent relative highness or lowness of pitches.

Each of the lines represents a note name. The note names are always arranged in an alphabetical order as given: A B C D E F G (This is in a cyclic manner of course). The positions of the notes are decided by the clef that is present at the beginning of the staff. There are three types of clef. The ‘F’ clef, the ‘G’ clef and the ‘C’ clef. The F clef is also known as the bass clef and it fixes the position of the F note on the staff. After that we can follow the order of notes to know the position of other notes. Similarly the G clef also known as the treble clef fixes the position of G note on the staff and the C clef fixes the position of C note on the staff. The following images will clarify everything.

The F clef

The G clef

G and the F clef shown together

The C clef

When the bass clef and the treble clef are combined together we get the staff known as the grand staff or the great staff. Below is an example image of a grand staff.

The grand staff

Now what if we want to write notes which have higher or lower pitches than the staff can contain? In that case we draw extra small horizontal lines above or below the staff lines as the requirement may be. Below is an example image for the same. These extra lines are called leger lines.

Notice that if you want to add a note which is directly above a staff line or leger line, you do not require additional line to place that note.

Now you may be thinking that there are twelve notes in total and the staff shows only the natural notes. What about the accidental notes? How to place them on the staff? Well there is a very simple way to do this. A sharp (#) or a flat (b) is added just before the note to make it sharp or flat respectively. But when we write‘#’ or a ‘b’ on any staff line, it continues to affect all the notes ahead placed on that line. So what if we want a C note after a C#? We must know how to cancel the effect of this sharp. For this we have a special symbol which is called natural. The following image will clear everything.

When we need to make a note raise or lower by two half steps, we need to add a double flat or double sharp.

A double flatted note

One more thing that you must notice is that we have five different kind of accidentals. They are double flat, flat, natural, sharp and double sharp.

Well there are certain rules regarding the accidentals as far as the staff is concerned. They are as follows:

A natural will cancel the effect of a flat or sharp or a double flat or double sharp.

Similarly, a single sharp or flat will cancel the effect of a double sharp or double flat respectively.

To raise a note which has already been sharpened or flatted, you need to use a double sharp or double flat respectively.

Accidental only affects the specific note in that octave in that clef.

Now let me tell you how to easily know the key just by looking at the staff. You may notice that just after the clef, various sharps or flats are added in a SPECIFIC ORDER. If it is in flat key, the key will be represented by the second last flat on the staff. If it is in a sharp key, the key will be represented by the note half step above the last sharp. Refer to the images for better understanding.