Sheet Music Quick Reference

Notes of the treble and bass clefs:

Timing durations for notes:   Tied notes       Timing durations for rests:         Symbols:   = sharp = flat = natural

While much of the music on TabNabber is in "Piano Tab" notation, we have the technology to:
   Turn a piano tab into sheet music     - and -    Turn a guitar tab into sheet music

Sheet music is read from left to right (notes above and below each other are played simultaneously).

Sheet Music for Pianists:

A 49 key keyboard.  "Middle C" is the "c" key in the middle of the keyboard. 
More keyboard layouts.

Here's a simple example of sheet music - the scale of "f" played on two octaves:

Sight Reading Sheet Music (for pianists):

As a musician, you can read and play sheet music by mentally converting the sheet music into note names and then playing the corresponding note on your instrument.

However, advanced pianists don't need to identify all the note names as they play a piece of music.  Finding the note's key on the piano is an important first step, but this would be quite a mental task for playing advanced sheet music.  One way to read sheet music faster is to know that a note equals a specific key (so you don't even think about the name of the note).

A common technique is to use the vertical distance between notes.  Look at how far apart one note is from another and move that distance on the piano... if you work on quickly identifying intervals in sheet music and separately work on moving intervals on the piano with your hands without looking then put the two together it'll help with your sight reading.

Also see:
   How to read piano tabs     - and -     How to read guitar tabs

Comments / Corrections (41):
NewbieNeedsHelp [Guest] (1 month ago) How to read key signatures? BA [Admin] (2 months ago) @Akash - This page is a description of piano sheet. What don't you understand? Akash [Guest] (2 months ago) Can u give a brief description on piano sheet to understand BA [Admin] (3 months ago) @harryb - What the? I don't think I've ever seen sheet notation like that before, did you just make that example up? If not, post a link to it and I'll make up a better answer. harryb [Guest] (3 months ago) Not much said about how to play tied notes on piano. First note E (first bar) tied to first note Middle C (seccond Bar)3/4 timing. In between these notes is G & E (first bar)/E G E/C C C/ I under stand that you play the first E and hold the count for 4 beats (I belive I understand that correctly). What do I do with the notes G & E. Do I play them at all like in a slur on a flute or what? Wow. [Guest] (6 months ago) Are you guys seriously fighting about format? Be happy for what you've got. Tabnabber is a good website. behappy for it. jimboo [Guest] (9 months ago) this was extremely helpful for mee BA [Admin] (12 months ago) @Learjeff - thanks for the feedback. You'd have to agree that A# and Bb do have the same frequencies on the piano, so for the purposes of the "sheet music for pianists" section I believe the A# is acceptable (though not traditional). Having hung up my bow and rosin long ago I cannot speak for the violin. But you make a compelling argument, and I shall look into that. Learjeff [Guest] (1 year ago) attackattackrocks is right. In any major scale, you want every letter to appear. You want to see A, Bb, C ... not A, A#, C. That's what Read Mee means. Furthermore, A# and Bb do not have the same frequencies. On a piano, each key actually corresponds to 3 different notes, and is tuned to the geometric mean of the three. But when playing a violin and not playing in a tempered scale, they're different notes. This is a helpful page. You might want to make it accurate as well. BA [Admin] (1 year ago) @read mee: Read this! The B key is labeled in the keyboard picture. I don't know what you mean 'where is your B key'? Where is your B key? ...More Comments...   View all 41 comments   Comment on this article   Your Guest Name:       [Member Login]   Comments:   Unhelpful comments are exterminated.   Verify your humanity: Enter the characters above: