The staff · Notes and the staff · Music theory
Notes are written on the staff: five lines and the four spaces between them, counted from the bottom up (the first line is the lowest). Each line and each…
The staff
Notes are written on the staff: five lines and the four spaces between them, counted from the bottom up (the first line is the lowest). Each line and each space is a note: moving from a line to the space above it means going up to the next note.
Which note each line stands for is set by the clef, at the beginning of the staff. In these examples, the treble clef, which puts G4 on the second line; all the clefs, in the next lesson.
How a note is written
The five-line staff was not always the same: Guido of Arezzo spread a system of lines a third apart, and Gregorian chant is still written on four. Five took over later, because they span a voice’s range with hardly any ledger lines.
There is a simple rule for writing a note. Notes below the third line have the stem up, on the right of the head; those on the third line or above, down, on the left. Noteheads are drawn slightly tilted and the stem is about an octave long.