Reading the staff
The lines and spaces of the treble clef, ledger lines, and why the guitar sounds an octave lower than written.
Applied
Content under musical review. It may contain inaccuracies.
Loading…
The lines and spaces of the treble clef, ledger lines, and why the guitar sounds an octave lower than written.
Applied
The staff is five horizontal lines on which notes are written. The higher a note sits, the higher it sounds. Unlike tab, the staff shows exact pitch and rhythm, but it doesn't tell you which string to play.
The notes on the five lines of the treble clef, bottom to top, as they sound on guitar:
And the four spaces:
The treble clef (G clef) curls around the second line and names it G. From there you can work out every other note:
| Position | Written note |
|---|---|
| Lines, bottom to top | E, G, B, D, F |
| Spaces, bottom to top | F, A, C, E |
Lower or higher notes use ledger lines, short dashes above or below the staff. Guitar uses them a lot below: the open sixth string hangs under the third ledger line.
The open strings in written notation:
| String | Written | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 6th | E3 | under the third ledger line below |
| 5th | A3 | on the second ledger line below |
| 4th | D4 | in the space just under the staff |
| 3rd | G4 | on the second line |
| 2nd | B4 | on the third line |
| 1st | E5 | in the fourth space |
The line and space notes all fall in the first position. Find them between frets 0 and 3:
String 6, Open: E2 · 3 · Third
Combining staff and tab is the most practical option: the staff gives you rhythm and pitch, the tab tells you where to play.
You don't need to name every note. If two notes sit on neighbouring lines, they're a third apart; from a line to the next space, a second. Reading by distance is faster and links straight to fretboard shapes. Practise five minutes a day with simple first-position melodies.
The bass clef (used by bass and the piano's left hand) puts F on the fourth line. If guitar were written at its real pitch, it would need both bass and treble clefs, like piano. By convention it uses only the treble clef, transposed an octave. Gardner Read describes these octave clefs and their use for octave-transposing instruments.
Accidentals written inside a bar only affect that pitch until the barline; the key signature, by contrast, applies to every octave.