Lesson 2: 五線譜(The Grand Staff)

The grand staff is the most widely used system of musical notation. Generally, knowing how to read music on the grand staff is regarded as "knowing how to read music" in the lay man's term. The "grand staff" consists of two staffs stacked together as follows:

There are two clefs in the grand staff. The one on the top is called the treble clef (高音譜號); the one at the bottom is called the bass clef (低音譜號). There are 5 lines in each staff. Notes can be written on the lines or between the lines (in the spaces). Notes written on the lines are called line notes; and the notes written in the spaces are called space notes.

The grand staff also provides a "visualization" of the music in a sense, because notes that are higher up in the staff will have a higher pitch (with a few exceptions). The figure below shows that the Middle C on the piano is also in the middle of the grand staff.

This image is obtained from this website.

It is extremely important to memorize what notes each line and space refers to, because that will allow you to read music scores more quickly. You should be familiar with the notes that you can look at the note and know which letter it refers to immediately. Similarly, you should know the notes well enough that you can write down every note on the grand staff immediately when you are asked to do so. It should not be very difficult if you have memorized the letters in Lesson 1, because it is just cycles of C, D, E, F, G, A, B. And remembering where the Middle C is located on the grand staff helps you to count your steps up or down the staff to see where the notes belong to.

Questions that you should be able to answer at the end of this lesson:

• What are the clefs mentioned above? What are the differences between them?
• What are line notes and space notes? (Try to write examples of them)
• Be able to name notes that are written on the grand staff without thinking (for too long).
• Be able to write any note on the grand staff without thinking (for too long).