Sheet music is older than most realize. Archeologists discovered the oldest piece of musical notation on a stone tablet in Syria. It dates as far back as 1,400 B.C.!

Sheet music, or musical notation, allows you to play any music you’ve heard exactly as the creator intended it. Without it, we wouldn’t have some of the greatest pieces of classical music ever written. There’s just one problem: it’s a bit daunting at first glance.

How do you read sheet music to start playing instruments? In this guide, we teach you the language of music, the easy way.

How Do You Read Sheet Music?

Thankfully, sheet music has been standardized. Once you learn it, you can play any popular songs. The only limiting factor will be what instrument you have, such as a higher-pitched song that requires a violin.

To begin, let’s take a look at the basic symbols you must familiarize yourself with.

Staff

The staff appears on every piece of sheet music. It’s simple: five lines, four spaces. Each line and space represents a single letter/note.

There are twelve notes in total. On sheet music, they move in alphabetical order up the staff from A to G. A note will only sit on a staff line or in a space in between.

For notes that go high above or below the register, you will see extra lines to indicate which note they are. It’s not uncommon in more complex songs to see multiple notes above or below the staff.

Treble Clef

The trouble clef is that Disney-logo-like G-shape. You’ll see it on the left-hand side of the staff. It denotes music with a higher pitch and sits above the bass clef.

If you’re having trouble memorizing the notes on the treble clef, then use this mnemonic (a memorization tool). The line notes – EGBDF – stand for “Every Good Boy Does Fine.” The space notes – FACE – you can memorize as, well, face.

Bass Clef

The bass clef denotes music that’s much lower in pitch. This is that seashell-shaped symbol with a colon after it. It sits below the treble clef for musical instruments that can play its deeper notes.

You’ll need to memorize a different mnemonic for the notes here. The line notes – GBDFA – stand for “Good Boys Do Fine Always.” Spaces – ACEG – stand for “All Cows Eat Grass.”

Once you memorize the notes on both clefs, you can play simple songs.

Types of Notes

That’s the easy part. Now, things start to get interesting. To tell you how long to play notes, or how fast to play them, notes will take on different shapes and forms.

Notes come in three parts:

  • Note head
  • Stem
  • Flag

The head is the circular part, either open (white) or filled-in (black). The stem is that line that goes above or below the note’s head. Flags look like, well, flags, and trail off the end of a stem to indicate the note’s duration.

Open and Closed Notes

Let’s start simple. A closed note, one that is black and filled in (without a flag), is a quarter note. You play it as one quick beat.

An open note, the one that’s a circle, gets two beats. You hold it for the same time you’d play two closed notes. If the note doesn’t have a stem (and is still open) then it’s a whole note and plays for a full four beats.

There are ways to make notes play even longer. If you see a dot next to the note’s head, that means it adds on half of its duration. So, an open note with a dot is as if you combined an open note and a closed note, a “one-and-a-half” note so to speak.

Ties are another note-extension method. Two notes with a little loop connecting them at the bottom (a tie) hold for the combined length of both.

Flags and Beams

There are ways to shorten the time you play notes, rather than holding them. We usually achieve this with flags and beams.

A flag, the flag-like shape trailing off the note’s stem, cuts the note’s length in half. Two flags on a single stem cut the note in half twice.

Beams are for a series of notes that you play together in quick succession. These connect the stems at the top with a single or double beam. It makes it easier to organize and read a series of similar notes.

Rest Notes

Of course, there will be times when you aren’t playing any music at all. In that case, you can use a rest. There are five different types of rests that serve as a counterpart of equal-length notes:

  • Whole rest
  • Half rest
  • Quarter rest
  • Eighth rest
  • Sixteenth rest

Rest notes come in all shapes and sizes. Some look like hats, others look like an inverted note. Memorize each type of rest to know how long to wait until you play the next bar.

Time Signature

Not all songs play at the same tempo. Each will have its own meter, known as a time signature. Time signature will be one number stacked on top of another, denoting beats per measure.

So, for 4/4 time, that means for every bar, there are four beats. The second 4 means each quarter note gets its own beat. 3/4 would mean there are 3 beats per bar, but still a full quarter note for each beat.

Next Steps

Congrats! You’ve now got all the basics for reading sheet music. There’s a lot more to it, but this information should be enough to jumpstart your understanding of sheet music.

It’s important to get lessons to learn how to actually play the music you’re reading. A professional instructor can help you understand further complexities with notes and anything that doesn’t make sense.

Get Lessons at MACSA

How do you read sheet music? As long as you understand the types of notes and the time signature, you can learn to read any song out there. Make sure you get a competent instructor to guide you through playing it.

MACSA kicks off your music journey with lessons for aspiring singers and instrument players. If you’re interested in lessons, fill out our form and we’ll be in touch ASAP.