HEY PIANO 4UHow to Read Piano Notes: A Beginner’s Guide to the Staff
Reading music looks like a secret code, but it is built from a handful of simple ideas. This guide shows how a written note tells you which key to press, so you can read the notes in any beginner song.
The staff
Music is written on a staff: five horizontal lines with four spaces between them. A note sits either on a line or in a space. The higher the note sits on the staff, the higher the sound, and the further to the right on the piano keyboard.
Two clefs for two hands
Piano music uses two staffs joined together. The upper one has a treble clef (the curly symbol that circles the second line from the bottom, the line for G) and is usually played by the right hand. The lower one has a bass clef (the symbol with two dots around the second line from the top, the line for F) and is usually played by the left hand.
Note names
Notes use the first seven letters of the alphabet, A to G. On the treble staff the lines, from the bottom up, are E, G, B, D and F, and the spaces are F, A, C and E. On the bass staff the lines are G, B, D, F and A, and the spaces are A, C, E and G. Many people remember the treble lines with “Every Good Boy Does Fine” and the spaces by the word FACE.
| Staff | Lines (bottom to top) | Spaces (bottom to top) |
|---|---|---|
| Treble | E G B D F | F A C E |
| Bass | G B D F A | A C E G |
Middle C and ledger lines
Middle C sits between the two staffs. It is written on a short extra line called a ledger line: just below the treble staff, or just above the bass staff. It is the anchor note: find middle C on your keyboard and every other note can be counted from it. Our guide to the keyboard layout shows how to find it.
Sharps, flats and naturals
A sharp sign (♯) before a note raises it by one half step, to the next key to the right, which is often black. A flat sign (♭) lowers it by a half step. A natural sign cancels an earlier sharp or flat. Sharps and flats at the start of a line, called the key signature, apply to every note of that name.
Note lengths
The shape of each note tells you how long to hold it. A whole note is four beats in 4/4 time, a half note is two, a quarter note is one and an eighth note is half a beat. See rhythm and note lengths for how to count them.
Learn by following the keys
You do not have to read before you start. In Hey Piano 4U, the falling bars show note names, and each lit key shows where to press. As you play a song, look at the note name and the key it lights. Over a few weeks, the pattern becomes familiar and the written staff starts to make sense.
A short practice routine
- Find middle C on the keyboard and say its name out loud.
- Play C, D, E, F, G slowly and name each one.
- Choose Mary Had a Little Lamb and say each note name as the key lights.
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