How Kids Learn to Read Sheet Music: Where to Start

Piano music is written on a staff of five horizontal lines. The symbol at the left end is a clef, and it fixes which line stands for which note. As the English Wikipedia article on the Clef explains, the treble clef sits on the second line from the bottom and marks it as the G above middle C. The bass clef sits on the fourth line from the bottom and marks it as the F below middle C.

To an adult these rules are familiar. To a child, a page of music is just a lot of black dots and lines. This post covers where I think it makes sense to start when teaching a child to read music, and in what order to go.

Music tells you two things

Each note on the page mainly tells you two things.

• Pitch. This comes from how high the note sits on the staff. The higher it is, the higher the sound.
• Length. This comes from the shape of the note. Whether the head is hollow or filled, and whether it has a stem or a flag, tells you how many beats to hold it. The Wikipedia article on Note value lists the note shapes and their lengths.

Trying to teach both at once tends to confuse a child. I think it works better to separate pitch and length and teach one at a time.

Teaching pitch, step by step

1. Higher on the page means higher in sound

You do not need note names at first. Just tell the child that a note higher up is a high sound and a note lower down is a low sound. Playing a high note and a low note on the keyboard, then placing a circle high and low on a staff drawn on paper, makes the link easy to see, I think.

2. On a line, or in a space

Next, show that some notes sit on a line and some sit in the space between two lines. If the line runs through the middle of the note head, it is a line note. If the head fits between two lines, it is a space note. If a child cannot tell these apart, they will mix up neighbouring notes.

3. Pick one landmark note

Learning every note name at once is a lot. I believe it is better to learn a single landmark note first. Middle C is the easiest. On the treble staff it is written below the bottom line, with a short extra line of its own. A note with that short line through it is middle C.

4. Count from the landmark

With a landmark in place, read other notes by how far above or below it they are. One step up from a line note is a space note, and the next step up is a line note again. When a note moves from a line to the next space, the hand moves to the next key. When it jumps from one line to the next line, the hand skips a key.

Seeing how far a note has moved from the one before is faster, when actually playing, than recalling every name one by one. I think the names come naturally later.

Teaching note length

I think length is easier to feel in the body before reading it with the eyes. Clap: one clap for a quarter note, a clap and then hold for one more beat for a half note, and so on, linking each note shape to a way of clapping.

For the order, I think it is clearest to start with notes that get longer on the same beat count, such as the quarter note, the half note and the whole note. Notes that split a beat, such as the eighth note, can wait until counting beats feels comfortable.

About writing names under the notes

Writing letter names or “do re mi” under each note is a common method. It lets the child play straight away, and children like that.

The catch is that with names written in, the child reads the letters, not the notes. When the names are taken away, the reading often disappears too.

If you write names, I think it is best to write them only on the landmark note. Write “C” under middle C, and the child has to count from there for everything else. If names are already written under every note, you can remove them a few at a time.

If you cannot read music yourself

I believe a parent can teach this without reading music. The order in this post has only four steps: high and low, line and space, a landmark note, and counting from it. You can check each one together as you go.

One handy point is that the clefs themselves are landmarks. The curl at the start of the treble clef wraps around the second line from the bottom, and that line is G. The two dots of the bass clef sit on either side of the fourth line from the bottom, and that line is F. When you get lost, go back to the shape of the clef and check.

If there is a note neither of you can read, I don’t think you need to hide it. Counting it out together, “which note is this one?”, shows the child how to deal with music they do not know yet, which I think is worth learning too.

Between reading and playing

Reading music and playing while reading are slightly different things. While playing, the eyes are on the page and the hand is looking for keys. At first, a child usually stops because one of the two takes all their attention.

So at home, one approach is to keep reading practice and playing practice separate. Reading practice can be done with paper and pencil, and playing practice can use songs learned by ear. Once both feel easier, you can add playing from the music.

Practice playing from the page

Kinder Piano is a piano app for iPhone and iPad for children from about age 3 to the early years of primary school. I made it for my 4-year-old daughter. The practice screen shows real sheet music with treble and bass clefs, highlights the next note, shows the finger number above it, and lights up the key to press. The notes in the music do not have their names written on them, so the child checks “high and low” and “line and space” from this post by comparing the highlighted note with the lit key.

Slow mode waits until the right key is pressed, so the child can compare the page and the keyboard one note at a time. Rhythm mode scrolls the music along, so it is practice in reading length. In free play, the app shows the chord name of the keys being held.

All 21 nursery songs are free, the first classical piece and the first ear training level are free, and free play and MIDI connection are free too. A one-time purchase opens the rest of the classical pieces and every ear training level. There are no ads and no subscription.

How to read finger numbers is in Piano Finger Numbers, and when to start is in What Age Should a Child Start Piano?