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I was told to come here and see if I could get some help in trying to learn how to read music. I do not understand the what are the notes on the ledgers and how to understand why it is the note that it is. can anyone help?

Hi Connie,
There really is no mystery to the ledger notes. They simply go up (or down) in the same sequence as the normal staff notes written on the lines and spaces.
Taking the Treble Staff, for example, the line notes starting from the bottom, are, E, G, B, D and F (F being the top line note). The note that sits just above the top line, is G. The note on the first ledger line above G, is A. Just above that ledger line, is B. The next ledger line up, is C, and so on, in sequence.
The same applies to notes written on, or between ledger lines that are below the bottom line of the Treble Staff.

The Bass Staff, works in exactly the same way. For example,
the bottom line of the Bass Staff is G. The note sitting immediately below that line is F. The note on the first ledger line below that is E, with D below that, and so on.

Hope it helps,
Rob

Hi Connie,

Welcome to the forum.

From reading your posts over in the piano teachers forum, I think you have learned to tell the lines of the treble clef as E G B D F (some people say Every Good Boy Does Fine) and the spaces as the word F A C E. This is good when you are looking at the notes on the staff, but they don't repeat when you go to the ledger lines.

Try this way:

We use 7 letters for our notes, A B C D E F G, and when we reach the last one, we start over again at A.

For this to work, you need notes that you know well and start counting from there. It's good to learn where all the C's are and then figure out where other notes are - G is another common one to start with.

I'll start with what you already know - E G B D F are the lines on the treble clef.

So the top line is F. The next note above that, which is in the space just above the treble clef would be the next letter - G.

One line above the treble clef is the next letter. Since we are already at the end, we start back at the beginning with A.

The next note which is drawn as in the space just above the first ledger line would be B.

Then we come to the note on the second ledger line above the treble staff which would be C.

Remember that one. It gives you a starting point to start counting from again.

I think everyone has problems with ledger lines. I've been playing for a long time and I still sometimes have to count notes when I'm learning a new piece.

Hope this helps.
Rich

Here are a few, to get you started, Connie.
The same principle applies to the Bass staff.


Rob

Thanks for providing the picture Rob. I am also ledger challenged - I printed out your picture to use as a reference.

Hi Connie

Try to get a keyboard chart! It's like a lifesize keyboard that shows you the entire keyboard and the associated notes on the staff and ledger lines. I have one and it helps! And sooner or later, you'll know without having to look up at it (I place mine on my piano top, propped up).

You would also benefit from a good beginner's theory book.

Wye Mun

Welcome to the Ledger Lines are Impossible Club.

A while back, someone, can't remember who, gave me these tips. Maybe they can help.

Ledger lines below the treble clef, or above the bass clef, are just using the same notes that would appear in the proper clef if it was written. So, a note that is two ledger lines below the treble is the same note that is on the top note of the bass clef (A3 in this example), and two lines up from the bass is the same as the bottom line of the treble (E4 this time). If you can "see" the "missing" staff, then the notes are familiar.

Now, going up on the treble or down on the bass....

Notice that middle C is not on either staff, it is on the ledger line between the two staffs. The two staffs are seperated by one ledger line, which means three notes are always outside the two staffs (obvious, I know, but bear with me...).

So, C4 is below the treble (above the bass), the next C (C5) is in the treble, and C6 is two ledger lines above the staff. Two ledger lines. Hmmmm. That means the pattern we see in the treble is repeated starting on the 3rd ledger line, two octaves up.

OK. C4 is 1 ledger line above the bass, C3 is in the bass, and C2 is TWO ledger lines below the staff. Hmmm again. That means the third ledger line below the bass starts the pattern of the bass clef 2 octaves down.

If you can think of the treble clef just repeating up after two ledger lines, and the bass just repeating down after two ledger lines, then the written notes will be the same names, just two (or three,depending) octaves removed.

This trick helps me keep it within my tiny brain's grasp. It takes a little practice, but it just becomes "easier to see" after a while. Perhaps it becomes easier after time no matter how you learn it, but this trick stayed with me.

Hope it helps.....

Pleased you found it useful, Bill.
Just for you, here are some Bass staff ledger notes :-)

I think counting is unavoidable when it comes to a ledger with many lines.

Connie.... welcome to forums.

I'm also a music reading beginner, and Ive' found the following web site helpful as I drill to memorize clefs and then ledger lines:

http://www.emusictheory.com/practice.html

I use the Piano Notes drill, start out with just the treble clef and without ledgers or accidentals (go into "Settings" to configure it). I have now added ledgers to the treble clef but not accidentals, and I can do 100 notes in about 190 seconds with perhaps 6 errors; however, I know that if I stopped doing the drill I would get rusty fast.

I think it will take some months of drills and reading music, maybe longer, before the notes of the grand clef and a few ledgers above and below become as easy to read as middle C is now.

I have not even started yet on bass clef, so I have a long way to go.

There are other drills to help you on this excellent site.

Good Luck!

/Scruffies

PS: I sometimes just visualize the clef and random notes on it and then mentally identify the note (so like visualize the top line in the treble clef and think "F", etc.) You can do this mental drill at any time and any place really.

Rob... nice crisp visual you posed of both clefs.

Would you also happen to have the Treble Clef ledger lines below Middle C and similarily the Bass Cleff ledger lines above Middle C?

/Scruffies

Connie, one thing that helps many people is to not try to memorize the entire staff plus ledger lines all at once.

Instead, look for "Landmark" notes, lines and spaces that you do recognize, and then the rest of the lines/spaces will fall into place as you learn more music.

One memory "trick" I use to facilitate this with my students is:

Most likely, the first note you learned was middle C. So that is a important Landmark note, one that you are familiar with on both the staff and the keyboard.

The second C above middle C can also be a Landmark note, along with the second C below middle C. Both are on Ledger lines beyond the staffs.

The memory trick is this:

* Middle C is a one ledger line between staffs.

* Two C's above middle C is two ledger lines above the treble Clef.

* Two C's below middle C is two ledger lines below the Bass Clef.

Check it out on the staffs Rob posted above.

Once you internalize this, you can build up and down from those C's just as you do from middle C.

Hope this helps.

Thank you Scruffies,
I just quickly knocked up those graphics, in response to the OP.
Shouldn't take too long to do a couple more....watch this space.

Rob

Here you are Scruffies :-)




Rob

Before I learned how to read quickly, I used pivot positions on the music notes. I only needed to remember one note, and I usually picked the central one. Example: The treble symbol looks like a 'B', so the middle line is a B note. Conversely, the base clef locks like a 'D' so the middle line is a D note.

So if you followed this correctly, you should have five pivot points that are easy to remember. (an E note, a G note, a B note, a D note, and middle C). That should be enough to see patterns within the notes.

ROB is a nice guy!

I am no good in this as well. But I now don't think a lot about it because I work with my own system ...

Now, putting myelf in your shoes ... I have done some thinking ...

I think to overcome having to count the ledger lines, we need to imagine that they are all continuation of "long lines". Of course only 5 lines are usually shown.

Then you need to remember that C alternatively sits on the line, and then space, and line, and space, in different octaves. If you remember the treble clef well, then that's the image with C sitting on the second space from the top.

Then the "middle C" sits on a line, you can try to remember the image of the middle C together with the whole bass clef.

With these two images in mind, then you try to remember as many Cs as possible with a lot of ledger lines added.

Then when you are actually reading music with many ledger lines, you will first check where the nearest C is, and whether it is sitting on a line or space. Then you will call up one of the images that you have stored in your mind, and imagine that it is the same five line staff. That way you will be able to read all the different notes nearby sitting on ledger lines, without having to count to read each and everyone of them. Because you recognise all the lines and spaces on the image.

I will try it myself as well.

Jeff

/bow

Scruffies

Jeff, how about adding G4 and F3 to the system. The swirly thing in the treble clef marks G like a bull's eye, and the fat dot starting the bass clef symbol marks F. They are stylized G's and F's from the old days.

Hi, keystring. Yes, of course. The ancesters marked them for us.

In fact, what I said about C applies to every note: that it sits on a space and a line alternately in different octaves.

Using Gs and Fs as your "landmarks" in the ledger lines has added advantage. They remind you of the images of the 5-line treble staff or the bass staff. But this only applies to a region where the nearest G or F is sitting on a line (and the nearest C below them will be sitting in a space). One has to get used to another pattern, where G or F is sitting "in a space".

The memory trick is this:

* Middle C is a one ledger line between staffs.

* Two C's above middle C is two ledger lines above the treble Clef.

* Two C's below middle C is two ledger lines below the Bass Clef.

Interesting and useful landmark, I have not seen this in any book.

James