The stave: music symbols explained

25 symbols and terms, each explained in a sentence or two — the same dictionary the free Artform score reader uses when you tap a marking on a real score.

Ledger line

A short line added above or below the stave for notes that run off the end of it. Middle C on a treble stave sits on one.

Stavealso called Staff

The five lines. A note's height on them is its pitch, and the clef at the start says which pitches the lines are.

Bar linealso called Measure line

The vertical line dividing the music into bars. It is a counting mark, not a pause: nothing happens at a bar line.

Double bar line

Two thin lines marking the end of a section. A thin line followed by a thick one ends the piece.

Stem

The line off the notehead carrying flags and beams. It points up or down only to keep the note inside the stave.

Beam

The thick bar joining quavers and shorter notes. It groups them into beats, so the eye reads a bar in units rather than note by note.

Brace

The curly bracket joining the two staves of a piano part. It says one player reads both.

Bracket

The straight bracket joining a family of instruments in a score. Different from a brace, which means one player.

System

One line of music across the page: every stave that sounds at the same moment, joined at the left.

Score

All the parts on one page, stacked. What a conductor reads, and what a pianist reads every day without thinking of it as one.

Part

One player's line alone, without the others. The opposite of a score.

Bar number

The small number at the start of a system, counting bars from the beginning. Not played: it is how two people find the same place.

Rehearsal mark

A boxed letter or number every so often through the piece, so a room full of players can start from the same bar.

Stem direction

Stems go up below the middle line and down above it, to keep the note inside the stave. In two-voice writing they point by VOICE instead, upper voice up.

Voice

An independent line written on the same stave as another, with its own stems and its own rests. Bach's inventions are two voices on two staves; a hymn is four on two.

Cue note

A small note printed from another player's part, so you know what to listen for before you come in. Not played.

Ossia stave

A small extra stave above the main one, offering another way to play the passage.

Incipit

The opening few bars quoted at the head of an edition, showing how the original was written.

Slash notation

Slashes in a bar instead of noteheads: play the harmony in your own rhythm. Common in lead sheets, rare in classical music.

Chord symbol

The letters above the stave, C, Am7, F/A. They name a harmony and leave the voicing to you.

Figured bass

Numbers under a bass line, telling a keyboard player which intervals to build above it. Baroque shorthand for a chord symbol.

Tablature

Notation that shows where to put your fingers rather than which pitches result. Lute and guitar music has used it for five hundred years.

Rest

Measured silence: the shape says how long to wait, exactly as a notehead says how long to sound. The music keeps counting through it.

Measure number

Counts the undefineds from the start, printed every few undefineds so a group can begin from the same place without counting from the beginning.

Staffalso called stave

The five lines everything is written on. A note's height on it is its pitch: step up a line or a space and you step up the scale.

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