Write a list of the musicians who will be performing the piece of music you are notating. For example, your list may include a solo singer and an accompanying pianist, or the two violins, viola and violoncello of the standard string quartet.
Label each musician's stave, or staves, on a blank sheet of manuscript paper. This is done by writing the name of the instrument, or an abbreviation, to the left of the stave on which you will write that instrument's part. For example, you would label the violin stave "Violin" or "vln." The piano part typically has two staves bracketed together. It is conventional to group like instruments together -- for example, all the string instruments would be notated on adjacent staves -- and the highest-pitched instrument on a stave above a lower-pitched instrument of the same family.
Draw the appropriate clef at the far left edge of each instrument's designated stave. The most common clefs are treble and bass. Higher-pitched instruments such as the violin, trumpet and soprano voice typically use the treble clef; the double bass and other low-pitched instruments use bass clef. Piano parts typically have one stave of treble clef and one of bass clef. Other clefs include the tenor clef, used for some trombone parts, and the drum or neutral clef, used for unpitched percussion notation.
Draw a key signature immediately to the right of each clef, if you are writing tonal music in a particular key or mode. For example, for the key of D major you would write a key signature of F# and C# -- drawing the "#" symbol on the lines or spaces representing the pitches F and C in each stave. Some instruments transpose -- for example, when a trumpet plays in its notated key of C, the heard pitches are actually in the key of Bb. When writing out a chart, you will need to decide whether to notate keys and pitches as they will be heard, or as they will be read by musicians playing transposing instruments.
To the right of the key signature, write a time signature. This will tell the musician the number of beats per measure, and the type of beats. For example, the time signature 4/4 means 4 even beats that are subdivided in multiples of 2. The time signature 12/8 represents 4 even beats which are subdivided in multiples of 3.
Write the pitches and rhythms each instrument will play. When you reach the end of the piece, draw a double line at the end of the last measure on each instrument's part.