How to Read Music Like a Pro

Every piece of sheet music is made up of several components, all of which tell you something about the music on the page.

Staff: The first thing you’ll notice when you look at a piece of sheet music is the staff. The staff is made up of five evenly spaced horizontal lines, with each line and space representing room for a different note. The spaces and lines represent different notes depending on what clef you’re in.

• In treble clef, from bottom to top, the lines represent the notes E, G, B, D, and F, which you can remember with the helpful mnemonic Every Good Boy Does Fine. The spaces represent the notes F, A, C, and E, which are fairly easy to remember because they spell FACE.

• In bass clef, from bottom to top, the lines represent the notes G, B, D, F, and A, which you can remember with the helpful mnemonic Girls Buy Delicious Fudge Always. The spaces represent the notes A, C, E, and G, which you can remember with the mnemonic All Cows Eat Grass.

How do you know what clef you’re in? If you look to the far left of the staff, you’ll notice a little symbol that will clue you in. You’ll most often encounter treble clef, which looks a bit like an odd cursive “S,” as most vocal lines are annotated in treble. That said, lower-voiced singers will also sometimes run into music written in bass clef (which looks kind of like a weird letter “F”). Bass clef becomes crucial to know if you have any interest in playing piano: The left hand is written in bass clef, while the right is in treble.

There are other clefs as well, but you’re unlikely to encounter them on a beginner sheet-music-reading journey.

Key signature: After the given clef, you may notice a cluster of little symbols to the right. These are either sharps (which look like slanted pound signs or hashtags) or flats (which look like tiny lowercase b’s), and they denote the key signature. Pay attention to the notes these symbols are on: Their presence means the corresponding note will always be sharp or flat in this music, unless otherwise noted with an accidental. If there are no sharps or flats, congratulations—you’re in the key of C and can play every note as written.

Sharps and flats always appear in the same order—the order of flats is BEADGCF, and the order of sharps is the inverse, FCGDAEB.

Time signature: You’ll notice two numbers stacked on top of each other placed right after the key signature. This is the time signature, which tells us how we are going to count the music going forward. The top number tells us how many beats there will be in a measure (which is the space between two vertical lines that go through the whole staff), and the bottom tells us which note gets one beat. So, for example, in 6/8 time, there are six beats per measure, and an eighth note gets one beat. In 4/4, which is the most common time signature, there are four beats per measure and the quarter note gets one beat.

Note values: For the purpose of an introductory lesson, the most important notes for you to be able to recognize are whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes; each has a corresponding rest.

Again, there are a lot more complicated things going on when it comes to rhythm (such as smaller count values, dotted notes, and out-of-time markings like triplets), but being able to recognize these major players should be enough to get you started.

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Now you can read music! Kidding, of course. Let’s be clear: If you’re completely unfamiliar with it, reading music can be like learning to read a foreign language. Don’t be discouraged if a scroll through our how-to leaves you with more questions than answers at first. The best way to learn to read music is to practice, and practice intentionally. A couple of strategies include:

• Focus on notes and rhythms separately. It can be a lot to focus on both major elements of reading music at once. Try learning your notes (flashcards can help!) and rhythms one at a time before putting it all together.
• Don’t be afraid to mark up your music. There’s no shame in writing in note names, counts for difficult rhythms, or sharps and flats if it helps you to read faster.
• Find sheet music to songs you know. Even just being able to anticipate how a song goes can help you read it more easily than something you’re not familiar with at all. Bear in mind that many singers don’t sing things exactly as written, but having that jumping-off point can help you to develop a sense of intervals, rhythms, and the general flow of sheet music.

The most obvious reason for learning to read sheet music is to play an instrument. Do performers have to learn to read music? The short answer is no—there are many successful actors and singers who admittedly can’t read music. But just because you don’t have to, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider it. While not being able to read music won’t exclude you from much, it will make your learning process more limited and potentially more difficult. Reading music can help performers to:

• Build independence: Learning to read sheet music means that you won’t have to ask someone else to do it for you. The only thing worse than having the crunchiest inner harmony line is having to pay someone to play it out for you. Save yourself time and money by taking things into your own hands.
• Check accuracy: Being able to read music also means that you can play out difficult sections of a song or check pitch accuracy for yourself during practice without having to rely on a pre-recorded plunk track.
• Do what’s on the page: Many casting directors ask actors to sing the music as it is written on the page in auditions, instead of incorporating whatever riffs were made popular on a cast album. Being able to read music means you can double-check that you’re sticking to the script (or sheet music).
• Sight-sing: Reading music is the first step to sight-singing, which is an attractive skill to casting directors. Time is money in a rehearsal process, and being able to learn music for yourself means you can help expedite the process without having to have every musical line fed to you.

Ready to bring your new music-reading skills into the audition room? Check out our singing casting calls today.