The musical staff is the basic music sign from which all music is build upon. It consists of five stacked lines. All other music notes and signs are written on the staff.
Accidentals are a series of signs that instruct the musician on whether the note is played as a flat, sharp or natural. They appear either in the key signature before the music notation starts or next to the individual notes. A sharp looks like a number sign found on a telephone. A flat resembles a lower-case "b." A natural sign resembles a square with one line extending from the top, left corner and another line extending from the bottom, right corner.
Articulation signs appear in written music to show how the specific note should be played. A fermata is a music sign that most often occurs at the end of a music piece, which means that the note should be held longer than its typical value. A fermata looks like an upward-facing arch with a dot in the middle. Staccato is a musical term that means a note is played short and abrupt. It's notated by a dot above or below the note. The opposite of this would be a slur, which calls for the notes to be played as though they are tied together. A slur looks like an upside-down arch between two notes. In music written for wind or brass instruments, breath signs may appear in the music. These are notated by an apostrophe mark places above the note on the staff.
Dynamic signs are found under the staff and tell the musician how loud or soft a section of the piece should be played. The most common dynamic markings, in order from softest to loudest, are pianissimo, piano, mezzo piano, mezzo forte, forte and fortissimo. When listed in music, they are abbreviated by the following letter signs: pp, p, mp, mf, f and ff. Two other common dynamic signs are the crescendo and decrescendo. Both are placed below the staff. A crescendo tells the musician to gradually increase the volume of a section of music. It looks like this: <. A decrescendo tells the musician to gradually decrease the volume.