How To Read Sheet Music: A Step-by-Step Guide

Have you ever heard a song on the radio and thought, “Hey, it’d be really cool to know how to play that,
I wonder what the music notes are?” Do you have friends who play musical instruments, and you want
to join in on the fun? Do you want to expand your general artistic knowledge? Well, learning the basics
of how to read sheet music can help you achieve all of these, and in a shorter amount of time than you
might think!

At its very simplest, music is a language just like you’d read aloud from a book. The symbols you see
on pages of sheet music have been used for hundreds of years. They represent the pitch, speed, and
rhythm of the song they convey, as well as expression and techniques used by a musician to play the
piece. Think of the notes as the letters, the measures as the words, the phrases as the sentences, and
so on. Learning how to read music really does open up a whole new world to explore!

Follow our step-by-step introduction to reading music and, with a little practice, you’ll be playing
along in no time. Keep reading to the end for some free tools and sheet music arrangements to help
you learn.

How to Read Music

Step 1: Learn the Basic Symbols of Musical Notation

Music is made up of a variety of symbols, the most basic of which are the sta , the clefs, and the
notes. All music contains these fundamental components, and to learn how to read music, you must
first familiarize yourself with these basics.

The Sta

The sta consists of five lines and four spaces. Each of those lines and each of those spaces
represents a di erent letter, which in turn represents a note. Sheet music notes, represented by lines
and spaces, are named A-G, and the note sequence moves alphabetically up the sta .

Treble Clef

There are two main clefs with which to familiarize yourself; the first is a treble clef. The treble clef has
the ornamental letter G on the far left side. The G’s inner swoop encircles the “G” line on the sta . The
treble clef notates the higher registers of music, so if your instrument has a higher pitch, such as a
flute, violin, or saxophone, your sheet music is written in the treble clef. Higher notes on a keyboard
also are notated on the treble clef.
We use common mnemonics to remember the note names for the lines and spaces of the treble clef.
For lines, we remember EGBDF by the word cue “Every Good Boy Does Fine.” Similarly, for the spaces,
FACE is just like the word “face.”

Bass Clef

The line between the two bass clef dots is the “F” line on the bass clef sta , and it’s also referred to as
the F clef. The bass clef notates the lower registers of music, so if your instrument has a lower pitch,
such as a bassoon, tuba, or cello, your sheet music is written in the bass clef. Lower notes on your
keyboard also are notated in the bass clef.

A common mnemonic to remember note names for the lines of the bass clef is: GBDFA “Good Boys
Do Fine Always.” And for the spaces: ACEG, “All Cows Eat Grass.”

Sheet Music Symbols and Notes on a Sta

Notes placed on the sta tell us which note letter to play on our instrument and how long to play it.
There are three parts of eac

h note,
the note head, the stem, and the flag.

All music notes have a note head, either filled (black) or open (white). Where the note head sits on the
sta (either on a line or space) determines which note you will play. Sometimes, note heads will sit
above or below the five lines and four spaces of a sta . In that case, a line (known as a ledger line) is
drawn through the note, above the note or below the note head, to indicate the note letter to play, as
in the B and C notes above.
The note stem is a thin line that extends either up or down from the note head. The line extends from
the right if pointing upward or from the left if pointing downward. The direction of the line doesn’t
a ect how you play the note but serves to make the notes easier to read while allowing them to fit
neatly on the sta . As a rule, any notes at or above the “B” line on the sta have downward pointing
stems, those notes below the “B” line have upward pointing stems.

The note flag is a curvy mark to the right of the note stem. Its purpose is to tell you how long to hold a
note. We’ll see below how a single flag shortens the note’s duration, while multiple flags can make it
shorter still.

Now that you know the parts to each note, we’ll take a closer look at those filled and open note heads
discussed above. Whether a note head is filled or open shows us the note’s value, or how long that
note should be held. Start with a closed note head with a stem. That’s our quarter note, and it gets
one beat. An open note head with a stem is a half note, and it gets two beats. An open note that looks
like an “o” without a stem is a whole note, and it gets held for four beats.

There are other ways to extend the length of a note. A dot after the note head, for example, adds
another half of that note’s duration to it. So, a half note with a dot would equal a half note and a
quarter note; a quarter note with a dot equals a quarter plus an eighth note. A tie may also be used to
extend a note. Two notes tied together should be held as long as the value of both of those notes
together, and ties are commonly used to signify held notes that cross measures or bars.
The opposite may also happen. We can shorten the amount of time a note should be held, relative to
the quarter note. Faster notes are signified with either flags, like the ones discussed above, or
with beams between the notes. Each flag halves the value of a note, so a single flag signifies 1/2 of a
quarter note, a double flag halves that to 1/4 of a quarter note, et cetera. Beams do the same while
allowing us to read the music more clearly and keep the notation less cluttered. As you can see,
there’s no di erence in how you count the eighth and 16th notes above. Follow along with the sheet
music for “Alouette” to see how beams organize notes!

But what happens when there isn’t a note taking up each beat? It’s easy, we take a rest! A rest, just
like a note, shows us how long it should be held based on its shape. See how whole and quarter rests
are used in the song “Here We Go Looby-Loo.”

Step 2: Pick Up the Beat

To play music, you need to know its meter, the beat you use when dancing, clapping, or tapping your
foot along with a song. When reading music, the meter is presented similar to a fraction, with a top
number and a bottom number. We call this the song’s time signature. The top number tells you how
many beats are in a measure, the space between each vertical line (called a bar). The bottom number
tells you the note value (the length) of each beat.
In the example above, the time signature is 4/4, meaning there are four beats per bar and that every
quarter note gets one beat. Click here to listen to sheet music written in 4/4 time, and try counting
along 1,2,3,4 – 1,2,3,4 with the beat numbers above.

In the example below, the time signature is 3/4, meaning there are three beats per bar and that every
quarter note gets one beat. Click here to listen to sheet music written in 3/4 time, try counting the
beats, 1,2,3 – 1,2,3.

Let’s look again at the above examples. Notice that even though the 4/4 time signature in “Twinkle,
Twinkle Little Star” calls for four beats per bar, there aren’t four notes in the second bar. That’s
because you have two quarter notes and one half note, which added together equal four beats.

In addition to your note values and time signature, the last piece to feeling the rhythm is knowing
your tempo, defined by the beats per minute. Tempo tells you how fast or slow a piece is intended to
be played, and often is shown at the top of a piece of sheet music. For example, a tempo of 60 BPM
(beats per minute) means you play 60 of the signified notes every minute or a single note every
second. Likewise, a tempo of 120 doubles the speed to two notes every second. You may also see
Italian words like “Largo,” “Allegro,” or “Presto” at the top of your sheet music, which signifies common
tempos. Musicians use a tool called a metronome to help them keep tempo while practicing a new
piece. Click here to see an online metronome tool and click on the circles next to the BPM values to
see how a tempo can speed up and slow down.
Step 3: Play a Melody

Congratulations, you’re almost on your way to reading sheet music! Next, let’s look at scales. A scale
is made of eight consecutive notes. For example, the C major scale is composed of C, D, E, F, G, A, B,
C. The interval between the first note of the C major scale and the last is an example of an octave. We
recommend practicing the C major scale as much as possible, since knowing it makes it easier to
learn the other major scales. Each of the notes of the C major scale corresponds with a white key on
your keyboard. Here’s how the C major scale looks on a sta and how that corresponds to the keys on
your keyboard:

Notice that as the notes ascend the sta , and move to the right on your keyboard, the pitch of the
notes become higher. But what about the black keys? Musically, whole tones, or whole steps
between the note letters, would limit the sounds we’re able to produce on our instruments. Let’s
consider the C major scale you just learned to play. The distance between the C and the D keys in the
C scale is a whole step. However, the distance between the E and the F keys in the C scale is a half-
step. Do you see the di erence? The E and the F keys don’t have a black key in between them, thus
they’re just a half step away from one another. Every major scale has the same pattern: whole-whole-
half-whole-whole-whole-half. There are many other types of scales, each with unique sounds, like
minor scales, modal scales, and more that you’ll come across later. For now, let’s focus only on major
scales and the major scale pattern. Look at the C major scale again on the keyboard below.

Semitones, or half-steps on the keyboard, allow us to write an infinite variety of sounds into music.
A sharp, denoted by the ♯ symbol, means that note is a semitone (or half step) higher than the note
head to its right on sheet music. Conversely, a flat, denoted by a ♭ symbol, means the note is a
semitone lower than the note head to its right. Notice on the keyboard picture and notated sta
below, showing each half step between the C and the E notes, that whether you use the sharp or the
flat of a note depends on whether you’re moving up or down the keyboard.

There’s one more symbol to learn regarding semitones, and that’s the natural, denoted by a ♮. If a note
is sharp or flat, that sharp or flat extends throughout the measure, unless there’s a natural symbol. A
natural cancels a sharp or flat within a measure or a song. Here’s what playing C to E would look like
with natural symbols.

The last key to learning how to read music is understanding key signatures. As an example, the C
major scale you learned above was in the key of C. Scales are named after their tonic, the preeminent
note within the scale, and the tonic determines what key you play in. You can start a major scale on
any note, so long as you follow the whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half pattern. Following that
pattern in keys other than the key of C will require you to use sharps and flats. Since that’s the case,
we place the sharps or flats for your song’s key signature right before the meter, after the clef, on your
sheet music. That tells you to maintain those sharps or flats throughout the music unless there’s a
natural symbol to override it. You will begin to recognize the key signatures of pieces based on which
sharps or flats are shown. Here’s a quick glimpse at some key signatures using sharps and flats:
Step 4: Free Tools to Help You Learn

The steps above are a great place to start as you learn to read music. To help you along on your
musical journey, we’ve also created a few free tools to begin practicing with.

First, download a free arrangement of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Just add the song to your cart and
proceed through checkout. For more variety, check out the rest of our sheet music for beginners, all of
which you’ll be able to play using the steps above. Play popular hits like the Star Wars Theme, “Let It
Go” from ‘Frozen’, “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen, and more. We’re adding new Beginner Notes daily,
so be sure to check back often and learn to play all your favorite songs!

We’ve also created a helpful guide for lettering the keys on your keyboard or piano. Download your
Keyboard Note Guide here to print, fold, and place on your keyboard. Once you become familiar with
the keys, you can easily remove it and continue to strengthen your note-reading skills.Finally, don’t
forget to download the free Musicnotes app! Enjoy instant access to all your Musicnotes sheet music
files, plus tools and features created by musicians, for musicians. As you progress and learn how to
read sheet music, your collection of arrangements will grow. Our app makes it easy to keep everything
organized on the go. If you have any additional questions or need help finding songs to practice, reach
out to our team of experts and we’ll be happy to help. Good luck and, most importantly, have fun!