One of our most popular YouTube videos of all time is “How to Read Notes.” Which means lots of people want to learn how to read piano notes!
Knowing how to read sheet music is an extremely useful skill. It’s like knowing another language. If you know how to read music, as long as you have the necessary sheet music, you can play whatever you want!
But learning how to read music can be intimidating for beginners. Which is why we’ve put together this easy-to-understand article on how to master reading music for good.
Table of Contents:
Part 1: How to Read Piano Notes
Part 2: Read Piano Notes Faster
If you prefer to watch a video, take a look at “How to Read Notes” Part 1 and Part 2. And if you prefer a more hands-on approach, check out our free course Sight Reading Made Simple.
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The first thing you need to know is that each note has a name and that notes are ordered like the English alphabet. We name notes from A to G and then repeat from A again. These are the names of all the white keys:
The black keys have names too. Actually, there are two possible names for them, but don’t worry too much about the black keys for now—focus on the white keys first. (The “♯” symbol means “ sharp ” and the “♭” symbol means “flat.”)
So, there are 12 notes on a piano:
These 12 notes just repeat over and over again on the keyboard.
If you’re new to the piano, here is a quick way to remember where notes are:
Next, let’s get to know the treble clef and the bass clef.
First, let’s look at the beautiful swirl that is the treble clef, which is also called the G-clef. Usually (but not always!), seeing a treble clef means you play that section of music with your right hand. Treble clefs organize high notes (treble = high voice).
Next, let’s look at the bass clef, which looks like half a heart with two dots. Usually (but not always!), seeing a bass clef means you play that section of music with your left hand. Bass clefs are associated with low notes (bass = low voice).
The treble and bass clef sit on five lines with spaces between them. The five lines are called a staff.
In piano music, the treble and bass clef are joined together by a brace. This is called the grand staff:
These lines and spaces are where our notes will sit. Notes that sit on higher lines and spaces are higher pitched than notes that sit on lower lines and spaces.
Going from a line to a space is a “step,” while going from line to line or space to space is a “skip.” Here are how the notes from the keyboard we saw above correspond to notes on lines and spaces:
The first note most piano students learn to read is Middle C. Middle C sits between the treble and bass clefs. It has a line through it—this is called a ledger line. Ledger lines anchor notes that sit outside the five lines of the staff.
If you struggle with reading music, you’re not alone! Did you know you can play hundreds of songs without standard notation? We’ll show you the secrets traditional lessons won’t teach in a 100% free webinar. It’s open to all ages and ability levels. Just show up and have fun!
Two things tell you how many beats a note should be played for: the time signature and the note value.
Let’s focus on note values first. The “biggest” note is the whole note. One whole note can be divided into two half notes, and one half note divides into two quarter notes. We can keep dividing notes like this:
Eighth notes and sixteenth notes have flags that can be joined together. This groups the notes to make reading them easier:
Eighth Notes
16th Notes
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If you’ve taken music lessons before, you may have learned that whole notes are worth four beats and quarter notes are worth one. This isn’t always true because how many beats a note is worth depends on the time signature.
The time signature is located at the beginning of music right after the clef. The top number tells you how many beats will be in each measure (measure = a unit of music separated by bar lines). The bottom number tells you what type of note is worth 1 beat.
As a beginner, you’ll encounter common time or 4/4 most often. In common time, each measure has four beats and a quarter note is worth 1 beat.
Want another example? Take cut time or 2/2. In cut time, each measure has two beats and a half note is worth 1 beat. Therefore, to count quarter notes, we divvy up the beats and use “and” or a plus sign to count them.
You can learn more about cut time here.
