Elements on a Music Staff

The flute plays in the Treble Clef which is shown below. Notes are positioned on the staff that tell the musician what note to play and for how long. Lets look at the following piece of music from "A Jig" found in FluteInfo's Sheet Music section:

Music Notated in 6/8 with a Repeat

Let’s break this down into its basic sections. We will just cover the basic information you can get from this staff and save some of the more difficult things for later.

: This is the Trebel Clef and it tells us what notes go on what lines. Other Clefs include: Bass, Tenor, and Alto. Different notes are associted with different lines and spaces in these other clefs.
: This is the Key Signature and it will show us what notes are sharp and flat. We will ignore this in the first few flute lessons.
: This is the Time Signature and it tells how many notes can fit inside one measure. A Time Signature of 6/8 means that you can have six eighth notes in a bar.
: This is a barline and it divides notes into measures. As you learned fro the Time Signature six eighth notes can fit between two of these bars.
: These are Repeat signs, and indicate that when the performer reaches the end to repeat the section.

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