Staff (music) - Staff Positions

Staff Positions

The vertical position of the notehead on the staff indicates which note to play: higher-pitched notes are marked higher on the staff. The notehead can be placed with the center of its notehead intersecting a line (on a line), or in between the lines touching the lines above and below (in a space). Notes outside the range of the staff are placed on or between ledger lines—lines the width of the note they need to hold—added above or below the staff.

Exactly which staff positions represent which notes is determined by a clef placed at the beginning of the staff. The clef identifies a particular line as a specific note, and all other notes are determined relative to that line. For example, the treble clef puts the G above middle C on the second line. The interval between adjacent staff positions is one step in the diatonic scale. Once fixed by a clef, the notes represented by the positions on the staff can be modified by the key signature, or by accidentals on individual notes. A clefless staff may be used to represent a set of percussion sounds; each line typically represents a different instrument.