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Learning to read the music can improve your grasp of music theory, enable you to play music you've never heard and allow you to relate musical ideas...
Links to free music staff paper and tab paper. Many different formats available. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to print these music staff files...
Some of the most versatile types of music staff paper. Different arrangements of unmarked staff paper as well as music staff specifically created for solo works...
Reading Notes OnThe Music Staff
If you have ever stopped to look at a music staff paper, you will have noticed many different shapes ranged across the page. Many look like circles that might or might not be totally filled in. Some may look connected by a couple lines or more. There are other strange symbols as well. What does this all mean?
Is music staff written in some strange language that only a musician can understand? The answer to that is a resounding no! While it can seem daunting at first, music staff reading is not extremely difficult once you know and understand the different types of notes and symbols you are looking at.
The note structure for most music staff follows the same basic rules. A whole note is the first note that you should be able to recognize easily. It looks like an open circle and will occupy one full measure (the space between two of the vertical bars which are placed at even integrals across the music staff). A whole note is one that is held for the full measure of a beat.
A whole note that falls under different time signatures will not be held for the same length of time however. A whole note in 4/4 time will be held for a full four beats whereas one in 3/4 time will only be held for three beats. This difference aside the whole note will always be considered a whole note unless there is another bit of musical notation added which will be discussed later on.
The next type of note on the music staff is a half note. This note will look like a small open circle with a line rising up from the right side. As the name implies this type of note will only be held for half the time that a whole note would be held. You will never see a whole note on the same measure as another note except in very specific time signatures which are the rare exception indeed.
Your next note will be a quarter note. Each of these notes in a measure are held for one-quarter of a beat. A quarter note will look just like a half note except the circle section will be completely filled. The other types of notes you will find will be drawn similar to the quarter notes except for one difference.
It is this difference that will determine the length of the beat for which the note will be held. Eighth notes for example are joined at the top of their vertical lines by a bar that crosses from one note to the next. It is this single bar at the top that will let you know that the notes on a music staff are held for one eighth of a beat apiece.
The same will go for sixteenth notes which are joined by two bars at the top and thirty second notes which are joined by three bars at the top of the note. Once you can recognize these different types of notes you will learning to read a music staff before you know it.
Article Source: Music Staff Article Archive
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