Staff and clef symbols

Each line and each space stands for one letter name. A note higher on the staff is higher in pitch, and one step up — from a line to the space just above it — is the next letter of the musical alphabet.

On its own a staff has no pitches: the clef at the start of each line fixes which letter goes where. Lines and spaces are counted from the bottom, so the bottom line is the first line.

A ledger line is a piece of a sixth (or seventh, or eighth) line, drawn just wide enough for one note. It counts exactly like a staff line: below the treble staff, the first ledger line is C and the space between it and the staff is D.

Middle C is the best-known ledger-line note — one ledger line below the treble staff, or one above the bass staff. When a passage would need many of them, music changes clef or uses an 8va sign instead.

The brace on the left says one player reads both staves at once. On the piano the upper staff, usually in treble clef, is mostly the right hand and the lower, usually in bass clef, mostly the left — but either hand may use either staff.

Middle C sits between them: one ledger line below the treble staff and one ledger line above the bass staff are the same key on the piano.

With the second line fixed as G, everything else follows: the lines from the bottom are E, G, B, D, F and the spaces F, A, C, E. It is the clef of high instruments and voices — violin, flute, trumpet, soprano and alto voices, usually the pianist's right hand — and of guitar music, which sounds an octave lower than written.

The shape grew out of a decorated letter G, which is where the name G clef comes from.

From that F, the lines from the bottom are G, B, D, F, A and the spaces A, C, E, G. It is the clef of low instruments and voices — cello, bassoon, trombone, tuba, bass voices and usually the pianist's left hand.

Bass guitar and double bass also read bass clef, sounding an octave lower than written.

The two curves of a C clef meet at a point, and that point marks middle C. On the middle line it is the alto clef, the normal clef of the viola: the lines from the bottom read F, A, C, E, G.

Like every clef, it exists to keep an instrument's usual range on the staff instead of on ledger lines.

Moving the C clef up one line moves middle C with it: in tenor clef the fourth line is C4, and the lines from the bottom read D, F, A, C, E.

Cellists, bassoonists and trombonists switch to it for high passages that would otherwise sit on ledger lines above the bass staff. Despite the name, tenor singers do not use it: they read treble clef, sounding an octave lower.

Under a percussion clef, lines and spaces stand for instruments rather than pitches. In drum-kit parts a common convention puts the bass drum in the bottom space, the snare drum in the third space and the hi-hat above the staff, often with x-shaped noteheads for cymbals. Conventions vary, so most parts include a key.

The rhythm is read exactly as it is anywhere else.

It saves ledger lines. Every note under the line sounds twelve semitones above where it is written; where the line ends — or at the word loco, 'in place' — the music returns to its written pitch.

15ma works the same way, two octaves higher.

It is the low partner of 8va, seen most often in the bass staff of piano music. The line shows exactly which notes are affected; when it ends, notes sound as written again.

Editions differ in the label — 8vb, 8va bassa, 8ba, or simply 8va placed below the notes. Its position under the staff is what tells you to go down.