Written Music Tutorial #1 ( Pitch )
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The Staff

The 2 primary defining characteristics of a note in music
are:

   Pitch (How high or low a note sounds)
   Duration (How long the note sounds for)

We'll start with pitch.

In music notation, the pitch of a note is shown by its vertical placement on the staff (Ex. 1).

Ex. 1

Staff

The staff consists of 5 lines and 4 spaces.
The placement of the notes alternates from line to space and visa versa.
So if you had a note written on a space,
the next note higher would be written on the line directly above that space,
and the next note higher than that would be written on the space directly above that line.

In the example below (Ex. 2), we have 3 notes written on the staff.

Ex. 2

By the placement of these notes we know:

• The second note is the highest of the three.
• The third note is the lowest.
  
• The second note is the next note higher than the first.
• The third note is 3 notes lower than the second note.

So with just the Staff, we can see the relationship between the notes in terms of higher and lower.
But in order to know the actual pitches of the notes, we need to set the pitches on the Staff.
This is done with a Clef.

Written Music Tutorial #1 ( Pitch )
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