With a little success under your belt, you can begin to tackle the job of learning to read . Of course, many musicians do not know how to read . They just hear a song and play it, as they say, by ear. These musicians can improvise on any simple themes and come up with elaborate renditions of popular songs. These players know their instruments as well as singers know their own voices.

You may be someone who can do that. There will be some information later on about chords and improvisation. However, if you are a beginner just finding out about the piano, it is more likely that you need the help that written music can provide you. Furthermore, learning to read written music can open up a whole new world to you. You can learn piano songs that you have never even heard before. If you want to repeat the performance, you will have the sheet music to guide you note for note.

There is a great deal to learn.  You will have to find out how each note is depicted.  You will have to know what the staffs are that the notes are written on and what they look like.  You will have to learn how rhythm, sharps, and flats are represented.  Once you learn these basics, you can start to build on the knowledge.

You can really learn a lot by simply looking at a piece of music.  If you don’t have any sheet music to look at, now is the time to borrow a book from a friend or the or even buy one.  Get a hold of some sheet music, a songbook, or a hymnal and study the music.

You will notice that there are groups of five horizontal lines. If the music is for both hands, it will have two of these groups of lines connected together by a longer line along the side. The horizontal lines are called the staff. You can get staff paper that is already marked with these lines.

At the far left side of the staffs you will see the clef marking. It will be a treble clef marking for the upper staff. The treble clef resembles a fancy backwards S with a line going down through it and curling underneath. In the beginning of learning to play piano, you will play the treble clef notes with your right hand.

On the lower staff you will find the bass clef sign.  It looks a lot like a backward C with two dots on the right of it.  The bass staff indicates the lower notes that are played with the left hand.  The upper and lower staffs usually repeat several times down the sheet.  Take a look at your written music and locate each of the staffs.  Once you do this you will be ready to learn to read the notes.