TERRYTRILLA · MUSIC NOTATION
Music notation: read the treble and bass clef on guitar and piano
Every note here is shown three times at once: on the staff, on the piano keyboard and on the guitar fretboard. Pick a note and you see where it lives — that is the part a textbook cannot do.
Treble clef and bass clef
The clef tells you which line is which note. In the treble clef the curl wraps around the G line; in the bass clef the two dots sit either side of the F line. Guitar music is written in the treble clef and sounds an octave lower than printed; piano uses both clefs at once — right hand above, left hand below.
Note values and rests
A note's shape tells you how long it lasts, not how high it sounds. Whole, half, quarter, eighth — each step halves the one before. A dot after the note adds half of its value again, and every note has a rest of the same length: silence is written as carefully as sound.
Time signature and counting beats
Two numbers at the start of the staff: the top one counts beats in a bar, the bottom one says which note value takes one beat. In 4/4 you count one-two-three-four to a quarter note; in 3/4 the bar is a waltz. Change the bottom number and the same melody walks at a different pace.
Sharps, flats and key signatures
A sharp raises the note a semitone, a flat lowers it, a natural cancels both. Put those signs right after the clef and they hold for the whole piece — that is the key signature, and it tells you the key at a glance. Which sharps and in what order is decided by the circle of fifths.
Reading piano sheet music
Piano music runs on two staves joined by a brace: the upper one in the treble clef for the right hand, the lower one in the bass clef for the left. Middle C sits between them — one ledger line below the treble staff and one above the bass. Find that note on the keyboard below and the rest falls into place around it.
Guitar: sheet music or tab
Tab tells you where to put your fingers; notation tells you what the music is. Tab is faster to start with and says nothing about rhythm or key; notation takes longer and travels — the same page works for a singer, a pianist and a horn player. On the guitar one written note can be played in four places, and that is exactly what the fretboard below shows.
Where to go next
The key signature you have just read comes from the circle of fifths. The chords built on those notes live in the chord library, and the scales they belong to — in the scale library.
Write your own sheet music online
Reading and writing are one skill. Open the studio, drop a melody on the staff and hear the chords it asks for — the notes you have just learned to read start working immediately.