Reading Standard Notation – Bass Lesson

This bass lesson will go over reading standard notation and how to easily relate what you see to the bass neck.

Before starting, make sure you know the musical alphabet.

The Staff

The staff is made up of five horizontal lines, separated by vertical bars (barlines). Sections of the staff are called “measures”.

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Notes are placed on the spaces or lines. Their vertical position tells you the pitch, while the appearance of the note will tell you the rhythm of the song.

Clefs & Pitches

There are a few different clefs, the treble and bass clef are the most popular. The clef symbol tells you the pitches on the staff, the treble clef means the second line is a G note and the spaces (bottom to top) are the notes F, A, C, E.

If you notice, it all goes in alphabetical order from bottom to top…

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The bass and treble clef connect a middle C, when both are shown together, we call it the “grand staff”.

As you can see, notes above and below the staff have lines through or above/below them. These lines are called “ledger lines”. We use them to extend the staff up or down, the pattern of notes stays the same: A-B-C-D-E-F-G, etc.

Accidentals

To show sharp and flat notes on the staff, we use accidentals next to notes (# or b).

Accidentals go to the left of the notehead (in front of it).

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It’s important to know that accidentals last the remainder of the measure for notes of the same octave. In other words, if you raise C5 (third space note) to C# it will still be played as C# for the rest of the measure, but middle C (C4) and C notes in other octaves will remain as C natural.

To return a note before the end of the measure, the next C5 would need a natural sign in front of it (♮).

Octave Naming

By the way, C5, C4, and other numbered notes are using the octave numbering system to differentiate between the many different pitches of notes.

There are only twelve notes, but they repeat again and again in many different octaves. That’s why you can play the same note at multiple places on your instrument, some sounding higher in pitch, and some sounding lower in pitch.

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C notes are in blue. Don’t be overwhelmed! Look for the pattern. Here’s the complete printout.

Key Signatures

Key signatures are the final piece we’ll talk about before we go over notes and rests.

Instead of using accidental signs whenever you need to raise/lower particular notes, we use key signatures to keep specific notes at certain pitches. The treble clef, when written without a key signature, uses the key of C major/A minor (no flats or sharps).

Circle of Fifths

The circle of fifths will help you decipher the key signatures…

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Here’s the complete printout.

Notes & Rests

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In 4/4 time, also known as “common time”, here are the note durations:

Here’s how to count notes (play on underlined beat):

Note that the count for sixteenth notes is spoken “1 e and uh” but is usually written as “1 e and a”.

Rests last the same as their corresponding notes.

Time Signatures

Time signatures show at the beginning of a piece of music next to the clef sign, they tell you how many beats are in a measure and which note type gets a full beat.

If there is no time signature, assume the music is in common time (4/4).

Reading Standard Notation

Here are some tips for applying this to your bass…

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