How to Read Piano Sheet Music

To play a specific piece of music, a piano player (or any other musician) must know three crucial pieces of information about it: pitch, duration, and expression.

• Pitch: The precise notes that the player should play
• Duration: The number of beats (counts) for which the player should play those notes
• Tempo, dynamics, and articulation: The speed, volume, and style the player should use to play the music

Written musical language—called music notation or standard notation—conveys all the pitch, duration, and expression information that a pianist needs in order to interpret and perform a piece of music. Music notation provides this information by transcribing a num­ber of symbols onto a set of five horizontal lines called a musical staff. The musical staff that transcribes piano music is called the grand staff.

The Piano’s Grand Staff

The grand staff contains a treble staff, which shows notes played with the right hand, and a bass staff, which shows notes played with the left hand. The symbols used to identify each staff are known as clefs. Each staff is split up into divisions called measures, which are bounded by vertical bar lines. The end of a piece of music is marked by a double bar line. A blank grand staff looks like this:

Pitch

Standard notation represents musical notes as symbols placed at precise locations on the staff. The lines that make up the treble and bass staffs—and the spaces between those lines—each represent a specific key on the piano keyboard. A note’s location on the staff relative to these lines and spaces indicates the precise key that the pianist should play on the piano keyboard. Notes whose pitches are higher than the highest line or lower than the lowest line appear above or below the staff. Composers use ledger lines (short, horizontal lines) to represent where these notes occur above or below the staff. The four octaves of notes that appear on the grand staff (and the piano keys they correspond to) look like this:

The notes in the colored box in the diagram above appear in both the treble and bass clef because some overlap exists in the range of notes (and keys) that the two clefs can represent. The three notes within the colored box (and their respective sharp or flat versions) can be notated in the bass clef or in the treble clef. Either way, each member of the pair represents the same exact key on the piano keyboard.

How to Remember the Notes on the Grand Staff

Pianists rely on a few well-known mnemonic devices, or memory aids, to help them memorize the notes represented by each line and space on the grand staff. Each of these mnemonic devices is an acronym that proceeds from the bottom line or space up to the top line or space.

• Treble staff lines: Every Good Boy Does Fine
• Treble staff spaces: FACE
• Bass staff lines: Great Big Dogs Flight Animals
• Bass staff spaces: All Cows Eat Grass

Chords

A chord consists of three or more notes written as a single unit and played simultaneously. In written music, notes of chords are shown in vertical stacks on the staff, as in this sample chord progression, or series of chords:

Key Signatures

Composers use key signatures to indicate the key in which a piece of music is written, such as G major (or its equivalent, E minor). The key signature appears immediately after the clef symbol and consists of one or more sharp or flat symbols located on the staff at the line or space that corresponds to the notes they represent. For example, in the G major key signature below, one sharp appears on the line of the treble and bass staves that represent the F note, since the key of G major contains just one sharp: F#.

The key signature above indicates that every F in the piece should be played as F#. If a piece seems to have no key signature, it’s written in C major (or A minor). C major (and A minor) contains no sharps or flats, so the key signature appears to be blank, or missing.

How to Decipher Key Signatures

The unique number of sharps or flats in the key signature corresponds to the key of the piece. For example, the key signature in the image above indicates that the piece is written in either G major or its minor equivalent, E minor, since G major and E minor are the only keys that contain just one sharp (see Piano Keys and Scales).

Telling a Major Key from Its Relative Minor

Equivalent major and minor keys have the same key signature. The most effective way to tell whether a piece is in a major or minor key is to look at the piece’s first note or chord. For example, a piece written in G major will most often begin with a G note or a G chord, but if it’s in E minor, it will usually begin with an E or an E minor chord.

Exceptions to the Key Signature Rule

Sometimes, a composer might want a piece to contain a natural (not sharp or flat) version of a note in a piece whose key signature requires that note to be flat or sharp. A composer may conversely wish to include sharp or flat versions of notes that should be played naturally according to the key signature.

If a piece calls for an exception to the key signature, it will contain a sharp, flat, or natural sign just before the exceptional note. These symbols are called accidentals. For example, if the key signature requires F’s to be played as F#’s, a natural sign before an F means that F, not F#, should be played. The natural, flat, or sharp sign applies to the rest of the measure in which the sign first appears.

Duration

Standard notation allows composers to specify a note’s duration, or how long the note should be played. Duration is expressed in beats (counts). To specify duration, composers use specific types of notes and time signatures to tell players the number of beats for which to play each note:

Types of Notes

Written musical notes vary in appearance. For instance:

• Some are hollow ovals with no stems (lines extending upward or downward).
• Others are solid black ovals with stems that have one or more flags (curved lines extending downward from the stem).

The appearance of a note tells musicians the duration of that note relative to that of the other notes in the piece. The five most common types of notes are whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes. A whole note has the longest duration, and every other note represents a precise division of a whole note—two half notes equal one whole note, for instance. The image below shows the appearance and relative duration of each note.

Combining Pitch and Duration

Once you know how to interpret the pitches and duration of each note on the staff, you can begin to read and play music. For example, to play the two notes below:

1. Play the E just above middle C.
2. Play the E again for half as long as the previous note.

Time Signatures

The different note symbols show how the notes in a piece of music relate to one another in duration, but they don’t indicate how long each type of note should last. The specific duration of each type of note in a piece of music is defined by the piece’s time signature. A time signature is a symbol that consists of a pair of stacked numbers and appears after the clef and key signature on the staff:

• The top number: Indicates the number of beats that each measure should contain
• The bottom number: Indicates which type of note, such as a quarter note, should be played for one beat

The 4 on top of the time signature above indicates that each measure has four beats, whereas the 4 on the bottom of the signature indicates that each quarter note should be played for one beat. Each measure in a piece of music with this time signature must contain four quarter notes, or an equivalent combination of notes, such as one whole note or two half notes.

Common Time

The most popular time signature, 4/4 (see above), is known as common time. Some pieces use a graphical symbol “C” (for common) in place of the numbers to indicate that a piece should be played in common time. The table below shows how many beats whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes get in common time.

		Note Type		Beats Note Gets in Common Time
		Whole note		4
		Half note		2
		Quarter note
		Eighth note		1/2
		Sixteenth note		1/4

Dotted Notes

A dot added to a note indicates that the note should be played for one-and-a-half times its usual duration. For example, a half note in common time has two beats, so a dotted half note will have three beats.

Rests

Written music also includes rests, which represent silent beats. Rests are named in the same way as notes and have the same duration as the notes they represent.

Dots are also used to change the number of beats in rest symbols. Like dotted notes, dotted rests increase the duration of the rest by one-half.

Ties

A curved line that joins two notes of the same pitch is called a tie. When a pianist sees a tie, he or she should hold the note for the combined value of the notes (and not sound each note independently). Ties often join a note at the end of a measure with the first note of the next measure.

Tempo, Dynamics, and Articulation

In addition to pitch and duration, standard notation allows composers to specify the technique that a pianist should use in performing a piece of music. Technique consists of tempo, dynamics, and articulation.

Tempo

Tempo refers to the pace of a piece of music, or how fast or slowly you should play the beats in each measure, which are indicated by the time signature. Piano music may indicate the tempo in one of two ways:

• BPM numbers: Some pieces include a specific number to specify the piece’s exact tempo, expressed in beats per minute (BPM). For example, a piece with a tempo of 60 BPM requires the pianist to play whichever type of note gets one beat (according to the piece’s time signature) for one second each. Musicians use metronomes (see How to Practice Piano) to play music according to BPM numbers.
• Tempo terms: Tempo terms are English or Italian words that appear above the staff at the beginning of a piece. Rather than give exact beats per minute, tempo terms give the piano player a general sense of what the tempo should be. The tempo moderato (moderate) is about the speed of a heartbeat, so players can use the pace of their heartbeats as a rough point of reference when adjusting tempos. Though approximate BPM numbers can be assigned to each tempo term, these should be used only as a rough guideline when determining the tempo for a piece. The table below lists the most common tempo terms.

Italian		English		BPM Range
Lento / largo		Very slow		40–60
Adagio		Slow		60–76
Andante		Walking pace		76–108
Moderato		Moderate		108–120
Allegro / vivace		Fast / lively		120–168
Presto / molto allegro		Very fast		168–208

Dynamics

Dynamics refers to the volume, or loudness, of notes. Pianists control dynamics by varying the touch, or force, with which they strike the keys. Written music indicates dynamic changes through terms and symbols that appear above the staff throughout a piece of music.

		Italian Term		English Translation
		Pianississimo		As soft as possible
		Pianissimo		Very soft
		Piano		Soft
		Mezzo piano		Medium soft
		Mezzo forte		Medium loud
		Forte		Loud
		Fortissimo		Very loud
		Fortississimo		As loud as possible
		Piu forte		Louder
		Fortepiano		Move from loud to soft
		Crescendo		Gradually louder (appears over a series of notes)
		Decrescendo		Gradually softer (appears over a series of notes)

Like tempo indications, dynamics guidelines are not absolute. For example, the symbol mp indicates only that music marked as mp should be played a little louder than music marked p and a little quieter than music marked mf.

Articulation

The specific manner or style in which notes should be played is called articulation. Articulation gives players guidelines on how to express specific notes or passages of a piece in order to make them distinct from the music that surrounds them. The symbols in the table below appear directly above the notes, or series of notes, that should be played with each specific type of articulation.

		Name		Instructions
		Accent		Play with more attack (force).
		Marcato		A stronger version of Accent.
		Staccato		Play crisply and distinctly (the opposite of legato).
		Slur		Play legato (smoothly, the opposite of staccato).
		Fermata		Hold the note somewhat longer than its usual value.

Navigational Symbols in Written Music

Composers use a combination of words and symbols, known as navigational symbols, to indicate when to repeat, skip, and move among sections of a piece of music. The symbols and words used to convey these directions appear just above the staff. Not every piece includes these directions, but many beginner pieces include the repeat and coda symbols. The four most common directions are:

• Repeat: Play the entire piece once through, then play it again up to the end of the measure that ends with the repeat symbol.
• Da capo al coda (D.C. al coda): Play the entire piece, return to the beginning, play to where the words to coda appear above the staff, then jump to the coda symbol and play from there to finish the piece.
• Dal segno a coda (D.S. al coda): Play the entire piece, repeat from the segno symbol, play to where the words to coda appear above the staff, then jump to the coda symbol and play from there to finish the piece.
• Dal capo al fine (D.C. al fine): Play the entire piece, return to the beginning, and play up to the fine symbol.
• Dal segno a fine: Play the entire piece, return to the segno symbol, then play to the fine symbol.