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The written word is essential: it’s useful for everything from lyrical emotion, comedy and drama, to instructions for your dishwasher!

If we elevate the written word to the level of performance, we rely on actors to interpret the letters on a page and create a performance, live or recorded. This also applies to professional musicians, who take music and notes from a page and apply their own musicality to a performance, bridging the gap between the notes and the human beings who listen to and perform them.

Having a little knowledge of music theory can open many doors. Not least because some instruments rely heavily on written notation, with 99.9% of professional musicians being highly skilled and competent. Being able to engage on their level, as a producer or songwriter/composer, will help you generate the best performance from any musicians you work with.

Reading music in itself can seem intimidating, but it’s not that difficult, but speaking fluently takes some time and practice.

Read the scope and understand the pitch

You can think of musical notation as being a bit like an X/Y graph; from left to right you receive information that dictates the pace. But the high and low element, which we are discussing here, is related to the pitch of the notes. As the notes go up, the pitch also increases, and as they go down… you get the idea!

Rather than using a graphic format, the notes themselves are arranged on a construction consisting of five parallel lines, with four spaces between them. This provision is known as scope in the United Kingdom or staff in the United States.

Each of the lines and spaces indicate a pitch. It is also possible to extend above and below the staff, using lines that we draw manually. These are described as ledger lines. In theory, you can use multiple ledger lines in some sort of stack, but in practice you tend to only use a few at a time, otherwise it can become difficult to read.

What is the key?

At the beginning of each line or staff/staff we use what is called the clef sign. clefs are used to allow the notation of instruments or voices of different pitches, the most common being the treble clef and bass clef.

If you’ve ever seen piano music, this is what you see on the page, with the upper treble clef normally assigned to the right hand and the lower bass clef normally assigned to the left hand. Therefore, a bassist would use the bass clef, because he plays lower notes, whereas a guitarist would use the treble clef.

It should be noted that there are several other keys, but these tend to be specific to particular instruments, primarily from the orchestral realm. The notes assigned to the treble and bass clefs are different, so it is essential to take note of the key sign when you begin reading.

The treble clef

When learning key note names, it can sometimes be helpful to think of rhymes to aid recall. There are well-known and well-trodden examples!

Working from bottom to top, the note names for the treble clef lines are E, G, B, D, and F. This can be remembered as ‘Every green bus goes fast‘, while the spaces conveniently spell the word FACE.

The bass clef

The bass clef takes on very similar properties, but the notes are slightly different; the line note names are GBDF and A, and as a rhyme you can try ‘Good burritos don’t fall apart‘, while space notes are ACEG, or ‘All cows eat grass‘.

Much like producing or learning a musical instrument, repetition as part of practice will encourage note reading to become second nature. Try applying the notes on the staff to the instrument you’re playing, and you should start to find that reading the notes becomes second nature. It may also be a good idea to focus on just a few notes to start, adding more notes as you gain confidence.

Reading music is a skill like any other, and as an aspiring or progressing musician, expanding your musical vocabulary will quickly unlock areas related to creativity.