Reading Music: Notes on the Staff

Just like words are written with letters, music is written with notes. Notes live on a set of five lines called the STAFF. The higher a note sits on the staff, the higher it sounds — written music is really a picture of up and down!

At the start of the staff sits a fancy swirl called the TREBLE CLEF. Its curl wraps right around the line where the note G lives — that's why it's also called the G clef. Once you know where G is, you can count your way to every other note.

Notes can sit ON a line or IN a space between lines. From bottom to top, the five LINE notes are E, G, B, D, F. The four SPACE notes are E, A, C, F — and look, they spell a word: FACE!