Reading Music – Part 1
 The musical ‘Stave’ (or ‘staff’) consists of five lines with four gaps in between.
Each line and gap represents a certain note. The higher the note is on the stave,
the higher the pitch.
 In order to remember the notes we can use some simple mnemonic devices.
These devices make it much easier to remember.
 The notes that occur in the spaces can be thought of simply as the word ‘FACE’.
Nice and easy to remember.
 The notes that occur on the line (E G B D F) can be thought of as Every Good Boy
Deserves Food. This is just one idea; feel free to come up with you own.
 You may have noticed the odd shape that occurs at the beginning of the stave.
This is called the ‘Treble Clef’ and it signifies what pitch the notes represent.
Guitar players play mainly of this clef due to the pitch range of the instrument.
Bass players and other instruments that use lower pitch tones tend to mainly use
another clef known as the ‘Bass Clef’. The piano has a very large range and uses
both clefs.
All
Cows
Eat
Grass
Good Burritos Dont Fall Apart
1of2
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 The next step is to apply the notes of the guitar to the stave. Study the diagram
below which shows where our open position ‘natural notes’ (notes that are not
sharp or flat) occur.
E
F G A B C
D E
F G A B
C
D
E F
 Notice that some of the notes are below the stave. We use ‘ledger lines’ to extend
our note range. We can apply these below and above. The same ascending and
descending pattern of notes apply. Below we see the natural notes of a bass
guitar on the bass clef.
E
F G
A
B
C D E
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F
G A