Note names

Five lines, four spaces

A staff is five lines with four spaces between them. A note is either sitting on a line — the line runs through the middle of it — or sitting in a space, tucked between two lines. That is nine positions, and naming a note starts with deciding which one you are looking at.

Count lines from the bottom. Line 1 is the lowest, line 5 is the highest. Everyone forgets this at least once.

Seven letters, then start over

Music uses seven letter names: A B C D E F G. There is no H. After G you go back to A and keep climbing.

On the staff those letters run straight up the nine positions in order — line, space, line, space — one letter per step. So if you know any one position, you can count to any other.

The treble clef names one line

A clef is not decoration. It is a marker that says this particular line is this particular note, and every other name on the staff is measured from it.

The treble clef's curl wraps around the second line from the bottom. That line is G — which is why it is also called the G clef. Find the curl, find G.

From there you count. One step up from G is A, the space above it. One step down is F, the space below. Nothing else needs memorizing to get an answer; the memory sentences below just make it faster.

Treble lines, bottom to top

E G B D F — Every Good Band Does Fine

Treble spaces, bottom to top

F A C E — it spells a word, which is why everyone remembers this one first

The bass clef names one line too

Same idea, different line. The bass clef's two dots sit either side of the fourth line from the bottom — the second one down from the top. That line is F, which is why it is also called the F clef. The dots are pointing at it.

Bass lines, bottom to top

G B D F A — Good Burritos Don't Fall Apartor: Good Bands Do Fine Always

Bass spaces, bottom to top

A C E G — All Cows Eat Grass

These are classroom favourites, not rules. Any sentence works. If your band already uses a different one, keep it — the letters are what matter.

Same letters, new homes

Both staves use the same seven letters. What changes is where they live. The bottom line of a treble staff is E; the bottom line of a bass staff is G. Read a bass staff as though it were treble and every answer is wrong by two letters — consistently, confidently wrong, which is the hardest kind of mistake to catch.

So the first thing you read is never the note. It is the clef.

Middle C is the seam

Middle C is one note, and it can be written on either staff. Below the treble staff it needs one short ledger line of its own. Above the bass staff it needs the same. Same pitch, same key on a keyboard, two spellings.

That shared note is what joins the two staves into a grand staff, and it is the reason a keyboard player reads both.

Where you will use this

• Keyboards live in treble. Bells, xylophone, vibraphone and most marimba parts are written on the treble staff.
• Timpani lives in bass. So does the low end of a five-octave marimba, which is why marimba players end up reading both.
• Octave numbers — the 4 in C4 — say which C you mean. Treble staff notes run E4 to F5; bass staff notes run G2 to A3. You do not need them to name a note, only to say exactly which one.