The staff

The staff — called the stave in British usage; the two words are interchangeable — is five horizontal lines with four spaces between them.

Notes sit either on a line, with the line running through the notehead, or in a space. Higher on the staff means higher in pitch. That gives nine positions before you need to go outside it.

Lines and spaces are counted from the bottom

The bottom line is the first line. The bottom space is the first space. This catches people out because most other things are read top-down.

A staff means nothing without a clef

Five lines on their own carry no information. A clef at the left fixes one line to one specific pitch, and everything else follows from it.

• The treble clef curls around the second line up and names it G. It is also called the G clef.
• The bass clef puts two dots either side of the fourth line and names it F. It is also called the F clef.

The same position means different notes under different clefs. The bottom line is E in treble and G in bass — which is exactly why reading bass clef by converting from treble never gets fast.

The grand staff

Piano and harp music uses two staves joined by a brace: treble above, bass below. This is the grand staff, and it exists because a keyboard spans more range than one staff can show without a forest of ledger lines.

Middle C sits between the two — one ledger line below the treble staff, one above the bass. Same key on the piano, written whichever way needs fewer ledger lines.

What else lives on the staff

The staff carries more than pitch:

• Bar lines divide it into measures.
• A key signature just after the clef declares which notes are sharp or flat throughout — see key signatures.
• A time signature after that says how beats are grouped.
• Dynamics, articulation and tempo marks sit above or below.