Page 18 - Fretband Vol.1

Reading The

Music!

The horizontal lines on a piece of music make up the staff. This is the most basic of all musical
symbols. The staff is an arrangement of five parallel lines, and the spaces between them. Both lines
and spaces are numbered for reference purposes, and are always counted from lowest (bottom of
the staff) to highest (top of the staff).

Lines Spaces
5
4 4
3 3
2 1 2
1

Treble Clef
The crazy looking symbol at the beginning of the staff is called the treble clef. Instruments that
are higher in pitch, including our guitar, uses this clef. Alternatively a bass clef is used for lower
pitched instruments. A piano uses both. For now we will only focus on this clef.

Each line and space on the staff represents a unique note. In order to sight read music we must
memorize each of these note names.

Fine E
Does C
Boy A
G ood F
E very

A common mnemonics to remember the note names for the lines and spaces of the treble
clef is to remember EGBDF by the word cue “Every Good Boy Does Fine.” Similarly for the
spaces, FACE is just like the word “face.”