At its very simplest, music is a language just like you'd read aloud from a book.
The symbols you'll see on pages of sheet music have been used for hundreds of years.
And they represent the pitch音高, speed and rhythm節奏 of the song they convey传达, as well as expression and techniques used by a musician to play the piece音乐作品.
Think of the notes 音符 as the letters, the measures 小節 as the words, the phrases 分句 as the sentences and so forth.
Learning to read music really does open up a whole new world to explore!

Follow our step-by-step introduction to the language of music below, download your FREE tools at the end of this article, and you'll be playing along in no time at all.

Step 1: Learn the Basic Symbols of Notation

Music is made up of a variety of symbols, the most basic of which are the staff 五線譜, the clefs 谱号 and the notes 音符.
All music contains these fundamental components, and in order to learn how to read music, you must first familiarize yourself with these basics.

The Staff 五線譜

The staff consists of five lines and four spaces.
Each of those lines and each of those spaces represents a different letter, which in turn represents a note.
Those lines and spaces represent notes named A-G, and the note sequence moves alphabetically up the staff.

Treble Clef 高音譜號

There are two main clefs with which to familiarize yourself; the first is a treble clef.
The treble clef has the ornamental letter G on the far left side.
The G's inner swoop 俯冲 encircles 环绕 the "G" line on the staff.
The treble clef notates the higher registers 聲區 of music, so if your instrument has a higher pitch, such as a flute, violin or saxophone, your sheet music is written in the treble clef.
Higher notes on a keyboard also are notated on the treble clef.

We use common mnemonics to remember the note names for the lines and spaces of the treble clef.
For lines, we remember EGBDF by the word cue "Every Good Boy Does Fine." Similarly for the spaces, FACE is just like the word "face."

Bass Clef 低音譜號

The line between the two bass clef dots is the "F" line on the bass clef staff, and it's also referred to as the F clef.
The bass clef notates the lower registers of music, so if your instrument has a lower pitch, such as a bassoon, tuba or cello, your sheet music is written in the bass clef.
Lower notes on your keyboard also are notated in the bass clef.

A common mnemonic to remember note names for the lines of the bass clef is: GBDFA "Good Boys Do Fine Always." And for the spaces: ACEG, "All Cows Eat Grass."

Notes 音符

Notes placed on the staff tell us which note letter to play on our instrument and how long to play it.
There are three parts of each note, the note head, the stem and the flag.

Every note has a note head, either filled (black) or open (white).
Where the note head sits on the staff (either on a line or a space) determines which note you will play.
Sometimes, note heads will sit above or below the five lines and four spaces of a staff.
In that case, a line is drawn through the note, above the note or below the note head, to indicate the note letter to play, as in the B and C notes above.

The note stem is a thin line that extends either up or down from the note head.
The line extends from the right if pointing upward or from the left if pointing downward.
The direction of the line doesn't affect how you play the note, but serves as a way to make the notes easier to read while allowing them to fit neatly on the staff.
As a rule, any notes at or above the B line on the staff have downward pointing stems, those notes below the B line have upward pointing stems.

The note flag is a curvy mark to the right of the note stem.
Its purpose is to tell you how long to hold a note.
We'll see below how a single flag shortens the note's duration, while multiple flags can make it shorter still.

Now that you know the parts to each note, we'll take a closer look at those filled and open note heads discussed above.
Whether a note head is filled or open shows us the note's value, or how long that note should be held.
Start with a closed note head with a stem.
That's our quarter note, and it gets one beat.
An open note head with a stem is a half note, and it gets two beats.
An open note that looks like an "o" without a stem is a whole note, and it gets held for four beats.

There are other ways to extend the length of a note.
A dot after the note head, for example, adds another half of that note's duration to it.
So, a half note with a dot would equal a half note and a quarter note; a quarter note with a dot equals a quarter plus an eighth note.
A tie 連結線 may also be used to extend a note.
Two notes tied together should be held as long as the value of both of those notes together, and ties are commonly used to signify held notes that cross measures or bars.

The opposite may also happen, we can shorten the amount of time a note should be held, relative to the quarter note.
Faster notes are signified with either flags, like the ones discussed above, or with beams between the notes.
Each flag halves the value of a note, so a single flag signifies 1/2 of a quarter note, a double flag halves that to 1/4 of a quarter note, et cetera.
Beams do the same, while allowing us to read the music more clearly and keep the notation less cluttered.
As you can see, there's no difference in how you count the eighth and 16th notes above.
Follow along with the sheet music for "Alouette" to see how beams organize notes!

But what happens when there isn't a note taking up each beat? It's easy, we take a rest! A rest, just like a note, shows us how long it should be held based on its shape.
See how whole and quarter rests are used in the song "Here We Go Looby-Loo."

Step 2: Pick Up the Beat

In order to play music, you need to know its meter, the beat you use when dancing, clapping or tapping your foot along with a song.
When reading music, the meter is presented similar to a fraction, with a top number and a bottom number, we call this the song's time signature 拍子.
The top number tells you how many beats 基本拍 to a measure 小節, the space of staff in between each vertical line (called a bar 小節線).
The bottom number tells you the note value for a single beat, the pulse your foot taps along with while listening.

In the example above, the time signature is 4/4, meaning there are 4 beats per bar and that every quarter note gets one beat.
Click here to listen to sheet music written in 4/4 time, and try counting along 1,2,3,4 – 1,2,3,4 with the beat numbers above.
In the example below, the time signature is 3/4, meaning there are 3 beats per bar and that every quarter note gets one beat.
Click here to listen to sheet music written in 3/4 time, try counting the beats, 1,2,3 – 1,2,3.

Let's look again at the above examples, notice that even though the 4/4 time signature in "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" calls for 4 beats per bar, there aren't 4 notes in second bar? That's because you have two quarter notes and one half note, which added together equal 4 beats.

In addition to your note values and time signature, the last piece to feeling the rhythm is knowing your tempo 速度, or beats per minute.
Tempo tells you how fast or slow a piece is intended to be played, and often is shown at the top of a piece of sheet music.
A tempo of, say 60 BPM (beats per minute) would mean you'd play 60 of the signified notes every minute or a single note every second.
Likewise, a tempo of 120 would double the speed at 2 notes every second.
You may also see Italian words like "Largo 慢板," "Allegro 快板" or "Presto 急板" at the top of your sheet music, which signify common tempos.
Musicians use a tool, called a metronome, to help them keep tempo while practicing a new piece.
Click here to see an online metronome tool, and click on the circles next to the BPM values to see how a tempo can speed up and slow down.

Largo 慢板, Adagio 慢板, moderato 中板, Allegro 快板, Presto 急板

Step 3: Play a Melody

Congratulations, you're almost on your way to reading music! First, let's look at scales 音階.
A scale is made of eight consecutive notes 音符, for example, the C major scale is composed of C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.
The interval between the first note of your C major scale and the last is an example of an octave 八度.
The C major scale (C 大調音階) is very important to practice, since once you have the C scale down, the other major scales will start to fall into place.
Each of the notes of a C major scale corresponds with a white key on your keyboard.
Here's how a C major scale looks on a staff and how that corresponds to the keys on your keyboard:

You'll notice that as the notes ascend the staff, and move to the right on your keyboard, the pitch of the notes gets higher.
But, what about the black keys? Musically, whole tones, or whole steps between the note letters, would limit the sounds we're able to produce on our instruments.
Let's consider the C major scale you just learned to play.
The distance between the C and the D keys in your C scale is a whole step, however the distance between the E and the F keys in your C scale is a half step.
Do you see the difference? The E and the F keys don't have a black key in between them, thus they're just a half step away from one another.
Every major scale you'll play on a keyboard has the same pattern, whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half.
There are many other types of scales, each with unique sounds, like minor scales, modal scales and more that you'll come across later on, but for now let's focus just on major scales and the major scale pattern.
Look at the C major scale again on the keyboard below.

Semitones 半級音, or half-steps on the keyboard, allow us to write an infinite variety of sounds into music.
A sharp 升半音, denoted by the ♯ symbol, means that note is a semitone (or half step) higher than the note head to its right on sheet music.
Conversely, a flat 降半音, denoted by a ♭ symbol, means the note is a semitone lower than the note head to its right.
You'll notice on the keyboard picture and notated staff below, showing each half step between the C and the E notes, that whether you use the sharp or the flat of a note depends on whether you're moving up or down the keyboard.

There's one more symbol to learn regarding semitones, and that's the natural 還原記號, denoted by a ♮.
If a note is sharp or flat, that sharp or flat extends throughout the measure, unless there's a natural symbol.
A natural cancels a sharp or flat within a measure or a song.
Here's what playing C to E would look like with natural symbols.

Finally, in order to read music, you'll need to understand key signatures 調號.
You actually already know one key signature, the key of C! The C major scale you learned above was in the key of C.
Scales are named after their tonic 主音, the preeminent note within the scale, and the tonic determines what key you play in.
You can start a major scale on any note, so long as you follow the whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half pattern.
Now, following that pattern in keys other than the key of C will require you to use sharps and flats.
Since that's the case, we place the sharps or flats for your song's key signature right before the meter, after the clef, on your sheet music.
That tells you to maintain those sharps or flats throughout the music, unless of course there's a natural symbol to override it.
You will begin to recognize the key signatures of pieces based on what sharps or flats are shown.
Here's a quick glimpse at some key signatures using sharps and flats:

音程

在音乐体系中，音程是指两个音的高低关系，或两音之间的音高差距。音程概略可分为“ 旋律音程”与“和声音程”。

旋律音程系指两个音符一先一后的发出声音，其中较低的音称为根音（下方音），较高的音称为冠音（上方音）。和声音程系指两个同时发声的音符。同样的，其中较低的音称为根音，较高的音称为冠音。

目录

• 1 音程结构
  • 1.1 音级
  • 1.2 半音数目
• 2 音程分类

音程结构

音程的概念是从乐谱中的记谱方式所得出，而并非靠听觉来分辨，特别是钢琴一类的键盘乐器，因为 十二平均律的原故，异名同音的处理方法都是按同一个键，因此乐谱上不论是标示是F、E♯或是G ，钢琴上都是按著同一个琴键，但在音程的计算上，F、E♯和G 的计算方法和归类便完全不同，因此纯以听觉并不是解释音程的最好方法。

计算音程，必须以下列两个元素作为指标：

音级

系指两音之间包括几个基本音。在乐理上，习惯以“度”来表示两音之间的距离。在五线谱中，每个“线”、每个“间”都代表一个音级，当两个音在同一个“线”或“间”时，称为一度。若两个音是在相邻的“间”与“线”上，就称为二度。其它度数以此类推。

如果以A为起点，而F、E♯和G 都是终点，那他们的音级便是：

• A-F：六度（A、B、C、D、E、F
• A-E♯：五度（A、B、C、D、E）
• A-G ：七度（A、B、C、D、E、F、G）

半音数目

系指音程内所含半音的个数。西方乐理中虽然有全音和半音的概念，但计算音程时，一直来都只采用单一的量度单位－半音。情况就有如使用国际单位制一样。华人地方则采用混合模式，即计算全音和半音的数量，以“1”代表全音，以“½”代表半音，因而得出称为音数的数额，不同的音程有各自的音数。优点是简单易明，但缺点是不同的音程，由于在排列时的全音、半音个数不同，因此尽管度数相同，但声响效果也不一定相同。

音程分类

音级与音数，就是构成音程的两个要素。在这么多音级、音数的排列组合中，每种组合都有它们自己的特性（音数不同，度数相同，声响效果不同）。所以，为了区别这些不同特性的音程，我们就需将它们做一些分类。

在乐理上，主要有七种基本型态：大音程、小音程、纯音程（又称完全音程）、增音程、减音程、倍增音程、倍减音程。而从这些基本型当中，又可依据音程内含的“音级”、“音数”再往下细分，列举如下：

上表中提及了两个现时极罕用的音程名称：“倍增”（doubly augmented）及“倍减”（doubly diminished）音程。从理论层面，倍增及倍减音程是存在的，但作曲家实际记谱时，通常都会考虑音高的标示会否令演奏者出现混淆不清的情况，亦会顾及在调性，和声，模进等其他因素是否相配合。“倍增”和“倍减”音程与 ）或 ）亦有着颇密切的关系，撇除刻意的写法，一般来说同时间或邻近同时出现双升号或双降号的情况是极罕见的。

即使是现代音乐，同样作曲家亦会以演奏者的角度去考虑记谱。如十二音技法中虽然容许异名同音的记谱方式，但作曲家决定采用升音或降音，最终还是要从乐句，甚至是观感去考虑。出现太多不切实际的记音，往往令人觉得作曲家专业度不足的印象。这也说明了倍增音程及倍减音程一直以来都不被重视的原因。

在一般的公开音乐考试中，考生在听力测视部分只需要使用大音程、小音程、纯音程及三全音的名称作答便可以，而书写部分亦只会涉及使用增音程和减音程，倍增音程及倍减音程早已摒除在考核内容之中。