How to read sheet music
The staff is not memorised, it is matched. Every line, every space and every ledger line below can be clicked: it plays the note, lights the key on the piano, and names the position next to it. Treble and bass clefs, middle C, note durations, sharps and flats — all learned by clicking.
Every position on the staff is clickable
Five lines, four spaces, plus the ledger lines above and below — 19 positions in total. Further right sits higher on the staff and sounds higher: click any column and watch which key lights up.
Click any notehead on the staff
One note at a time, climbing — this is how "higher on the page means higher in the ear" becomes reflex.
Middle C: one key, two spellings
The marked C4 in the middle of the keyboard sits on the first ledger line below a treble staff and on the first ledger line above a bass staff. Click either one: the clef switches, the key lights up — same pitch, written twice.
A notehead's shape is its length
The metronome is at 96 BPM, so every row below really sounds that long at that tempo. Listen first, and the shapes gain a sense of time.
A dot after the notehead adds half its length: a quarter note is 1 beat, a dotted quarter is 1.5.
Other symbols that change what you hear
Knowing which line the notehead sits on is only half of it; these marks decide the pitch you actually hear. The three with a listen button play a pair: original first, altered second.
- Sharp ♯
- Raises the note by a semitone — the very next black key to the right. It applies to that staff position for the rest of the bar.
- Flat ♭
- Lowers the note by a semitone — the next black key to the left.
- Natural ♮
- Cancels an earlier sharp or flat and puts the note back where it belongs, for the rest of the bar.
- Dot ·
- Written after the notehead and adds half its duration. The "hear a dot" button above plays it.
- Bar line |
- Cuts the music into bars with a fixed number of beats each. Counting bars is what keeps you from falling apart halfway through.
- Final barline ‖
- A thin line and a thick one: the piece really ends here.
- Repeat sign :|
- Reach it, and go back to the matching repeat sign to play that section again.
- Time signature (e.g. 4/4)
- The lower number says which note gets one beat, the upper one says how many beats per bar. 4/4 is four beats, quarter note = one beat.
Practice: find the key from the note
A notehead appears on the mini staff; play that note on the keys below — mouse, computer keyboard or a connected MIDI keyboard all count. A wrong answer costs nothing, it just tells you how many staff positions you were off.
While the drill runs the four sections above are muted, so clicking around can't hand you the answer.