The Staff, Repeat Signs, and Multiple Endings
Before you can begin learning to read notes of music, you need to become familiar with the parts of the Staff.

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The Staff

Each staff consists of five lines and four spaces as you can see in figure 1-1.  The type of staff used varies with country and time of origin.  However, we will teach you the basics of understanding the two most universally used staffs.  The higher a note appears on a staff (be it on a line or space), the higher Pitch that note will have.  Please observe that there are only seven pitches (named A through G alphabetically) that repeat throughout the staffs.

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Figure 1-1

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You will notice there is a "" symbol on the upper staff and a "" symbol on the lower staff.

The "" symbol is commonly referred to as the Treble Clef or G Clef.  The treble clef establishes the note G on the second line of the treble staff.  The treble clef is used for higher pitched notes than those of the bass clef and therefore appears above it.

The "" symbol is commonly referred to as the Bass Clef or F Clef.  The bass clef establishes the note F on the fourth line of the bass staff.  The bass staff is used for lower pitched notes than those of the treble staff and therefore appears below it.

Since each clef establishes a certain note at a specific place on each staff, all the other notes are placed in sequence around those.  The lines of the treble clef (from bottom to top) read E G B D F (Every Good Boy Does Fine).  The spaces (from bottom to top) spell out the word "F A C E."  The lines of the bass clef are G B D F A, and the spaces are A C E G (All Cows Eat Grass).

Together the bass and treble staffs comprise the Grand Staff.  The grand staff is signified with a bracket ( { ) on the left hand side.

In figure 1-1 you will notice that the C note found between the treble and bass staffs does not lie on a line.  In fact, it has a line of its own.  This line is known as a Leger Line.  Leger lines can be found above or below any staff to indicate a note's position in relation to the staff.

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Repeat Signs and Multiple Endings

You will notice that at the end of the staff in figure 1-2, there is a thick vertical bar with two dots preceding it on the treble and bass staffs.  This is called a Repeat Sign.  Repeat signs are used to signify a section of music that needs to be repeated at least once before moving on to the next section.  Without the two dots preceding the bar, this is simply called a Double Bar Line which signifies the end of a song.

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Figure 1-2

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Sometimes you will encounter a repeat sign in the middle of a song.  In this instance you will usually notice a small bar over the few measures preceeding the sign, and a small number (usually a 1) directly under the bar.  See figure 1-2.  The measure immediately following the repeat sign should also have a bar and another number (usually a 2). This simply tells you to (1) play the measures directly under the first bar marked "1", then (2) return to either the beginning of the song or an earlier repeat sign and play back to where the "1" bar begins, and (3) skip the measures beneath the "1" bar and then proceed directly to the measures under the "2" bar.

Many times publishers of music like to use a type of "shorthand" for songs with many repetitive sections.  Sometimes these types of shorthand symbols vary with the publisher, but we are going to show you some that are widely used.

The first of these methods is the notation of D.C. al Fine.  This indicates that a song is to be repeated from the beginning and ended at the place indicated by the word Fine.

A second notation that is commonly used is that of D.S. al Coda.  This term usually appears toward the end of a piece of music and instructs the musician to return to either the beginning or an earlier part of the music that was noted by the symbol "".  This part is repeated either until the end of the piece or until the symbol "" (and possibly the words "to coda").  If there is no "" symbol, then the song simply ends at the end.  If there is a "" symbol, then after the section of the song between the "" and "" symbols is repeated, another part is skipped and the song begins again where it is marked with a "" (and usually the word "Coda").  It then ends at the double bar lines.  See how easy that is?  Luckily, this type of shorthand is usually found in pop music, so you will probably already be fairly familiar with the layout of the song.

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