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Meanings of the Symbols on Keyboard Sheet Music

Understanding sheet music is crucial to playing the piano effectively. Yet when beginners glance at the page, it can seem like random lines and dots. In actuality, the system of written music is calculated and organized in a fashion that over time becomes simple to read. Each symbol and note has a place and purpose and with practice, makes a lot sense.
  1. Treble Clef

    • The treble clef starts a staff and alerts musicians to the scale.

      Treble clef or G-Clef is found on the upper staff of sheet music, and the notes are played on the right side of the piano's keyboard. The staff is the series of lines in which notes are placed, and the treble clef is found at the left of the music. It tells the musician that the notes on lines, from the first line up, read as follows: E, G, B, D, F. Notes on the spaces read, from the first space up: F, A, C, E.

    Bass Clef

    • The bass clef is on the bottom staff, and is shaped like an exaggerated comma with a colon after.

      The bass clef begins the lower notes or left side of the piano's keyboard. The lettered notes are the same as with the treble clef, but are in the lower register and in a different order. The bass clef is found on the lower staff of keyboard sheet music, and alerts the musician that order of the notes on the line are: G, B, D, F, A. The space notes are: A, C, E, G.

    Sharps, Flats and Naturals

    • This sheet of music shows flats, sharps and naturals throughout the piece.

      Sharps are identified by a pound sign on sheet music. When a note is sharp it is played a half step higher. Flats are delineated by what looks like a narrow lowercase b. At the beginning of a music piece, there will be a symbol over the note's location on the staff next to the treble or bass clef. This notifies the musician of any flats or sharps within a piece of music. An accidental is when these symbols are used within the music that don't fall into the given key or weren't placed at the start of the music. Following the use of an accidental, the natural symbol is used so the musician knows to cancel the accidental. The symbol looks like a slightly tilted square with lines that extend up and down, from the right and left sides.

    Rest Symbols

    • This line of music shows an 8th rest followed by a quarter rest.

      There are various kinds of rest symbols used in music. The most common in basic music is the quarter rest. It means that when a musician sees the symbol they need to stop playing for one beat. Quarter rests can look like squiggly lines that are perpendicular to the staff or a backwards seven. Whole rests (rests for whole measures) are long rectangles located below the middle line and half rests (rests for half measure) are rectangles above the line. The 8th, 16th, 32nd, and 64th rests are held for amount of time listed. For example, an 8th rest is held for an eighth of a beat. These rests look like little sevens with rounded tips and are stacked as the numeric value of the rest increases.

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