Pick up a sheet of violin music and count the lines on one staff. Each line indicates a note, and there should be five lines. In music, notes are represented by letters of the alphabet: A through G, and they repeat themselves as they go higher and higher in a grouping known as an "octave". In other words, you will never see an "H" note above a G, only another A through G grouping.
Count the spaces between the lines on one staff. Each space indicates a note, and there should be four spaces between the lines. The space below the lowest line and above the highest line also indicates a note. When playing notes that are lower or higher than the basic staff, extra lines can be drawn to indicate this.
All notes on the staff correspond to a note that you can play on the violin's four strings. The lowest string is tuned to a "G", which appears lower than the basic staff. The second-lowest string on a violin is a "D", the next string is an "A", and the highest string is an "E".
Learn the mnemonic device to learn the notes on each line. From bottom to top, the lines on the staff indicate and E, G, B, D, and F note. A mnemonic device helps you remember the order of the notes: Every Good Boy Does Fine is a common one.
Learn the acronym that will help you remember each note in the spaces. From bottom to top, the four notes are: F, A, C, and E. This spells out "FACE."
Write out the notes for the lines, then the spaces, on an empty space in the staff paper.
Learn where the open strings on a violin appear on sheet music. The G string appears below the staff, as does the D string. The open A and open E are the top two spaces on the staff.
Look for any markings on the violin sheet music that are next to a note. One may look like a number sign, which is known as a "sharp", and another may look like a lowercase "b", which is known as a "flat". There's one more note, which looks like the image next to this section. It's known as a "natural."
Notes on a staff only indicate the full step between one note and the next, but there are also half steps, which can give music a bright and cheery major sound, or a sad or scary minor sound. Flats, sharps, and naturals help to indicate this, by telling you to hit a note between the space and the line on the staff. Sharp tells you to go higher, flat tells you to go lower, and natural tells you to ignore the key signature you're in and go back to the basic key signature, which has no flats or sharps in it.