Basic music theory

A staff is a most important part of every music sheet. It is made up by 5 horizontal lines as the following picture:

Notes will be put onto the staff and depends on the position of them on the staff, we can decide their names. For example, if we put a note on a second line counted from the bottom of the staff, this note will be G.

The next thing about notes is note values which are durations of specific notes. The following picture shows quite clearly about them.

A staff in music sheets is splitted by vertical lines. Each part of it is call a measure.

For example, in the above picture, all of the 3 staffs have 2 measures. The fraction number in the beginning of each staff is called the Time Signature. In the first staff, 2/4 means that the duration of each measure equals to the duration of 2 quarter notes. 3/4 time signature in the second one indicates that the duration of each measure equals to the duration of 3 quarter notes and so on.

There are also time signature with denominator which is not 4 such as 6/8. However, the meaning of them is the same except that we use eighth notes as a unit to measure instead of quarter notes. So, 6/8 means the duration of each measure in a staff equals to the duration of 6 eighth notes.

Reference:

• http://www.musictheory.net