Reading music can look like a code at first, but it is built from a few simple ideas. There are only seven letter names. The keyboard repeats the same pattern over and over. And written music is a picture of the keyboard turned on its side: higher on the page means higher on the piano. This guide goes through those ideas in order, from the keys themselves to notes on the staff.
The musical alphabet
Notes are named with the first seven letters of the alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F and G. After G, the letters start again at A. That is the whole musical alphabet.
On the piano, the white keys are named with these letters in order from left to right. Going right, the sound gets higher. Going left, it gets lower. The same seven names repeat all the way along the keyboard, and each repeat is called an octave. Two keys with the same name sound alike, one higher and one lower.
Finding notes with the black keys
You don't need to count from the end of the keyboard to find a note. The black keys do the job for you. They come in groups of two and groups of three, alternating along the whole keyboard.
- C is the white key just to the left of each group of two black keys.
- D is in the middle of the group of two.
- E is just to the right of the group of two.
- F is just to the left of each group of three black keys.
- G and A are inside the group of three.
- B is just to the right of the group of three.
Practise this away from any book. Play every C on the keyboard from bottom to top, then every F, then every E. Say the name aloud each time. After a few days you will see the groups of black keys without thinking about it.
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Middle C
Middle C is the C nearest the middle of the keyboard. On an 88-key piano it is the fourth C from the left, and in the most common naming system it is written C4. The C below it is C3 and the C above it is C5. Middle C is the meeting point between the two hands and between the two clefs, so it is the most useful note to find first.
The staff
Music is written on a staff (also called a stave): five horizontal lines with four spaces between them. Each line and each space stands for one white key. A note's position tells you its pitch. The higher the note sits on the staff, the higher it sounds.
Moving from a line to the very next space, or a space to the very next line, is moving to the next letter of the alphabet. So the staff runs line, space, line, space, just like the white keys run C, D, E, F.
The treble clef
A clef at the start of the staff says which notes the lines and spaces stand for. The treble clef is used for higher notes, usually played by the right hand. It is also called the G clef: its curl wraps around the second line from the bottom, marking that line as the G above middle C.
From the bottom up, the treble lines are E, G, B, D and F. The spaces spell F, A, C, E.
The bass clef
The bass clef is used for lower notes, usually played by the left hand. It is also called the F clef: its two dots sit either side of the fourth line from the bottom, marking that line as the F below middle C.
From the bottom up, the bass lines are G, B, D, F and A. The spaces are A, C, E and G. Notice that this is not the same as the treble clef. The same position on the staff gives a different note in each clef, which is the most common source of reading mistakes at the start.
The grand staff and ledger lines
Piano music joins a treble staff and a bass staff with a brace. This is the grand staff. The right hand usually reads the top staff and the left hand reads the bottom one.
Middle C sits between the two staves, on a short line of its own called a ledger line. Ledger lines extend the staff for notes that are too high or too low to fit. Middle C can be written on a ledger line just below the treble staff or just above the bass staff. It is the same key either way. Further ledger lines add more notes above and below, counted line, space, line, space as usual: the A above the treble staff sits on one ledger line, and the C above that on two.
Landmark notes: the method that lasts
Rhymes are a popular way to remember the lines and spaces. In the treble clef, Every Good Boy Deserves Football gives the lines E G B D F, and the spaces spell FACE. In the bass clef, Good Boys Deserve Football Always gives the lines and All Cows Eat Grass the spaces.
These are fine for checking a note, but reading a tune by reciting a sentence for every note is slow. Fluent readers work differently. They know a handful of landmark notes on sight, and read everything else as a distance from the nearest landmark or from the previous note.
Three landmarks come straight from the clefs: middle C on its ledger line, treble G on the line the treble clef curls around, and bass F on the line between the bass clef's two dots. Two more are easy to add: high C in the third space of the treble staff, and low C in the second space of the bass staff.
Steps and skips
Once you have a landmark, the next note is usually close by, and you read it by its distance:
- A step goes from a line to the next space, or a space to the next line. On the keyboard it is the next white key. Steps are the commonest move in melodies.
- A skip goes from a line to the next line, or a space to the next space. On the keyboard it jumps over one white key.
- Bigger leaps are read the same way: count the lines and spaces in between.
Reading by distance is more powerful than it looks. You don't need to name every note to play it. Find the first note by its landmark, put your hand there, then let the shape on the page guide your fingers: up a step, down a skip, the same note again.
Sharps, flats and naturals
The black keys are named after their white neighbours. A sharp (♯) means play the very next key to the right, a half step higher. A flat (♭) means play the very next key to the left, a half step lower. So the black key between F and G is F sharp, and it is also G flat. A natural (♮) cancels a sharp or flat and returns to the white key.
In music, a sharp or flat written in front of a note is called an accidental. It applies to that note for the rest of the bar, then the barline cancels it. When a piece uses the same sharps or flats all the way through, they are written once at the start of each line instead, as a key signature. A piece in G major, for example, has one sharp, F sharp, in its key signature: every F is played as F sharp unless a natural sign says otherwise.
A practice routine for reading
- Pick one landmark per day and find it on both the staff and the keyboard.
- Write five notes on a scrap of manuscript, each a step or a skip from that landmark. Name them by counting from the landmark, then play them.
- Read one short piece a day that is easy for you to play. Easy reading builds fluency faster than struggling through hard music.
- Keep your eyes on the music as much as you can. Feel for the keys rather than looking down after every note.
Try it in Pianuvo
Unit 2: Reading landmark notes teaches the grand staff from middle C, treble G and bass F, then has you read steps and skips and play them on the keyboard while the app checks each note. Sharps and key signatures come later, in Unit 5: Sharps, scales and G major. For the timing side of reading, read Note lengths and rhythm.