How to read music

Clefs

    Clefs are the symbol at the beginning of a piece of music that tells you weather it is for treble or bass instruments. They look like this:

Bass  

Treble

Time signatures

        Time signatures tell you how to break up the measures for counting.

        Some examples of common time signatures are as follows:

             , , , , and

The bottom numbers are what type of note to count in your head 4= quarter note  and 8= eighth note.

The top number is how many of the notes there are in a measure.

The time signature is placed after the clef mark.

The notes

    The most common notes are as follows:

* Whole note		4 counts per 4/4 measure
*Half note		2 counts per 4/4 measure
*Quarter note		1 count per 4/4 measure
*Eighth note		1/2 count per 4/4 measure
*Sixteenth note		1/4 count per 4/4 measure

Sharps, flats, and naturals

  Accidentals                                                                                     Key signature

                      These last until the end of the measure                                  These last throughout the piece unless otherwise noted

                                                                                                                                By an accidental or a key change only

A sharp is the note indicated but is one half step higher. #

A flat is the note indicated but is one half step lower. b

A natural cancels any sharp or flat, it still follows the rules of the accidentals and the key signature.

If there are two flats or sharps then you play two half steps (or a whole step) lower or higher.

There are never two naturals for any note.

All graphics on this page were created by Matt.

For more information on reading music visit this page.