STAFF

Elia Grassi
May 29
2 min read

Updated: Aug 20

A blank musical staff, five lines one above the other. — STAFF

Just as the tempered system has Chinese origins, attributed to the theorist Zhao Yu, the staff is instead a European invention. Born in the medieval period, it helped spread a precise and orderly way of writing music around the world, and it is still the most widely used system by humans to read, write, and pass on sound.

Five horizontal lines, four spaces. This essential framework is all we need to indicate the pitch and duration of every note. When we write a note on the staff, we fix two pieces of information in a single symbol: what sound to produce, and how long to make it last.

PITCH

The vertical position of the note on the staff tells us how high or low the sound is. If a note is written higher up, the sound will be higher-pitched. If it’s written lower, the sound will be lower-pitched. Notes can be placed on the lines or in the spaces between the lines. Each line and space corresponds to a specific note. By looking at where a note is written, we can figure out its name and imagine its pitch.

For example, in treble clef, the bottom line represents the note E, and the space above it represents F. These notes are located in the central area of the keyboard, where sounds are neither too low nor too high, but similar to the range of spoken voice.

Depiction of the staff. Add a small line below the staff. On that line, draw the note C, a black dot. Then, on the next space, the one below the first line of the staff from the bottom, we have the note D, also a dot. On the first line from the bottom, we have the note E, and so on.

DURATION

By contrast, the shape of the notes doesn't affect their pitch or name, but it changes their duration over time. For instance, a note that is hollow and has no stem lasts longer than the same note with a black head and a stem. To sum up: the vertical position of a note, measured by lines and spaces, tells us its name and pitch.The shape of the note tells us how long it should be played.

All notes on the same line are Cs, but have different time signatures. — SAME NOTES, DIFFERENT SHAPES

Notes on different spaces or lines of the staff are notes with different names, but they all have the same shape because they have the same rhythmic value. — SAME SHAPE, DIFFERENT NOTES

CONCLUSION

Anyone who reads music learns to see two things in one note: pitch and duration.A note placed in the second space, with a filled head and a stem, becomes a sonic image that says: this is the pitch, this is the time.That’s why reading music isn’t just recognizing symbols — it’s imagining a sound.

Written music is a map: every note you read, you can also hear — just like when you read a written sentence, and you can already hear the words in your head.

STAFF

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