Where the Notes Fall on Staves

Each clef has a stave. Staves are made up of five lines and four spaces. Each line and space represents where a particular note will fall.

The treble stave. Starting from bottom to top, the lines on the treble stave read: E, G, B, D, F (one note for each line). A well-known way of remembering this is to say "Every Good Boy Does Fine" or "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge," depending on if you're into chocolate or not. The spaces in between the lines follow the same order, and the notes are F, A, C, E, respectively.

Note how the treble clef, also called a G clef, encircles the G line. This is a good way to remember where notes fall, too.

The bass stave. Starting from bottom to top, the bass stave is: A, C, E, G (one note for each space rather than each line). A popular way to remember this is to say "All Cars Eat Gas" or "All Cows Eat Grass." The corresponding lines from bottom to top are G, B, D, F, A, respectively.

Note that the bass clef, also called the F clef, has dots surrounding the F line.

In most written music, the treble and bass staves appear concurrently on the page, with the treble stave above the bass stave, separated by an open space (like the illustration in Notes and Clefs).

This is because the treble and bass lines are played simultaneously but written separately. On a keyboard, for example, the bass line is played with the left hand and the treble is played with the right.

Short lines that appear with notes written above or below a stave are called ledger lines. For example, middle C (the key that falls approximately in the center of a piano) appears on the first ledger line below a treble stave, or the first ledger line above a bass stave (see the two diagrams above). Ledger lines correspond with the main stave lines. The higher a note falls on a stave (or above), the higher its pitch will be.

When two or more notes are written and played as a single unit, they're called chords.