How to Read Sheet Music

Learning to read music is a valuable asset for a musician. This knowledge makes it so much easier for other musicians to work with you. It will also give you an important edge over other musicians when being evaluated for jobs. Learning to read music notation is very easy. We will start with the basics.

Reading the treble clef:

Look at a sheet of music paper. You will see four lines and four spaces. Each of these lines and spaces represent a note. The spaces, starting from the bottom, are F A C E. That's right, it spells face. That is how we remember the notes for the spaces in treble clef, we think of FACE. The lines, starting from the bottom, are E G B D F. We remember these notes by this little rhyme:

Every

Good

Boy

Does

Fine

Now that you know where all the notes are, you need to learn about timing. The way a note is shaped tells you how much time is attributed to the note. We will start with the common 4/4 timing. 4/4 timing means that each measure has four beats in it. You will find in music notation whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eight notes, sixteenth notes and so on. The more complicated notes will be tackled once we've got the basics down. A whole note is shaped like a circle and is not filled at all. Its value is 4 beats. So, one whole note equals one measure in 4/4 time. A half note is drawn just like a whole note; accept an upward pointing staff is added to the circle. The half note, like its name, is half the value of a whole note. A half note has a value of two beats or 1 half of a measure. Draw a half note and fill the circle in, and you have a quarter note. A quarter note is equal to one beat, which means there are four quarter notes to a measure. The eighth note looks like a quarter note, accept there is a tail added to the top of its staff. An eighth note is half the value of a quarter note. There are eight eighth notes to a measure. Add one more tail to the staff of your eighth note, now you have a sixteenth note. There are sixteen sixteenth notes in a measure.

Do you see the pattern? Keep adding tails to the staff and you will get more notes, each note with half the value of the one before it. It is all simple math.

Sharps and Flats;

A sharp note is one half step higher then a natural note. A flat note is one half step below the natural note. A sharp sign looks like this "#" and a flat sign is written like this "b". If you see a sharp sign written on the space or line of a note, it means that this note will be sharp or flat through out the whole song.

There is a lot more that I have not covered yet in this article. This is meant to get you started. Take what you've learned and practice it. Get some sheet music and start reading slowly. Try to figure out each note and its value.