Purchase a basic music theory guide to keep handy as you practice reading and writing music notes. You can find a basic book or theory guide in a music or book store. There are also a number of free guides online (see Resources). The basics of music notation and how it conveys musical ideas is easy to understand, but to be able to practice what you learn, you will need to work at it on a regular basis.
Familiarize yourself with the way sheet music is laid out. Music staff paper, known as sheet music paper, consists of a series of five lines and four spaces. The lines and spaces indicate note names and pitches. The note names for the lines are E-G-B-D-F. The spaces are F-A-C-E. Add lines and spaces above the music staff to write notes higher in pitch than those indicated by the standard five lines and spaces Lower notes are written on lines and spaces below the staff.
The bass clef works the same as the treble clef, but the names of the lines and spaces are different. The lines are G-B-D-F-A and the spaces are A-C-E-G.
The clef sign (bass or treble) appears at the beginning of the sheet music, followed by the key signature and the time signature. The time signature indicates how many beats there are per bar of music and what note constitutes a beat. Common time, or 4/4, means that it takes four quarter note beats to fill a bar of music. Bars are indicated by placing a horizontal line from the top line of the music staff to the bottom. This bar line separates music into bars. Take a look at any piece of sheet music and you will see all of these elements.
Study your basic music notation book to get familiar with the elements of music notes. There are note heads, stems and tails. All music notes have a note head. The addition of, or absence of, stems and tails tells you duration of music notes. A whole note is an oval with a slight downward slant, uncolored. A half note looks the same as a whole note, except it has a stem attached to the note head. A quarter note as a dark oval note head and an stem. An eighth note has a dark oval head, a stem, and a tail at the end of the stem. A sixteenth note looks like the eighth note, but it has two tails at the end of the stem. Eighth notes and sixteenth notes can be attached when there is more than one. To do this, omit the tail and attach the notes with a horizontal line that connects the notes. These notes indicate duration, or how long a note is played. Understanding the way they look is the first step to understanding how they work.
Set up a blank piece of sheet music paper with a treble clef, a key signature with no sharps or flats (which indicates the key of C) and a 4/4 to indicate a time signature of four quarter note beats per bar of music. The beats can be any combination of note durations that equal four. A whole note is worth four beats and takes up an entire bar of music. A half note is worth two beats, so it takes two of them to fill a bar of music. A quarter note is worth one beat, so there will be four of them in a bar of music. An eighth note lasts for half a beat, so it will take eight of them to fill a bar of music. In 4/4 time, you could use one half note and two quarter notes to fill a bar of music, or three quarter notes and two eighth notes. You might just have one whole note. The combination of these notes indicates rhythm in music. Try writing a few combinations on your blank music paper and separate the combinations with a bar line when you reach four beats per bar.
Place your notes on different lines and spaces on your blank music paper to indicate the pitch of the notes. This is how music is composed. The type of note indicates rhythm and where the note falls on the music staff indicates the name of the note and it's pitch.