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The Musical Staff
Sometimes, music is played solely by ear, talent, and experience. Oftentimes, however, you may want to either play a
piece of pre-composed music or write your own piece. As such, a knowledge of the musical staff as well as other
rudiments of music reading is essential to any musician, jazz or otherwise.
A common musical staff is represented by two sets of 5 lines, stacked vertically. The top set, or treble clef,
represents the higher (or treble) notes. The lower set represents lower notes (or bass notes) and is called the
bass clef). Some instruments will only use one clef, for example a stand up bass would likely only use the bass
clef, because it can’t play notes in the treble clef.
Here is what a typical staff looks like. Note the symbols which denote the treble and the bass clefs.
In the next lesson and the lessons to follow, we’ll look at how the notes one the staff are actually read, as well
as other symbols which fall on the scale and influence the music.
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Continue to Lesson 3
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