I like the wikipedia list of musical symbols: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_symbols Answer from ElectronicProgram on reddit.com
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Pianote
pianote.com › blog › how-to-read-piano-notes
Piano Notes: The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Reading Music | Pianote
June 3, 2024 - Everything you need to learn how to read piano notes, including tricks and tips to read sheet music quickly and fluently.
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Flowkey
flowkey.com › en › piano-guide › read-sheet-music
How to Read Piano Sheet Music: All-in-One Guide | flowkey
This chapter will put notes on a page by introducing musical notation, the written communication of music. If you aren’t sure whether you should learn reading sheet music, then read on. If you have already decided that you do, then reading it anyway will reassure you.
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Music Theory
musictheory.net › exercises › note
Note Identification
The exercise could not be displayed because JavaScript is disabled
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/piano › piano note key chart sheet
r/piano on Reddit: Piano Note Key Chart Sheet
November 29, 2021 -

I could not find a note-key chart sheet that fully satisfied me, so I decided to make one myself. Maybe other beginners will also find this helpful.

Link to the pdf: https://www.file-upload.net/download-14763443/note_key_chart_sheet.pdf.html

Link to the MS Word file, feel free to edit it to fit your own needs: https://www.file-upload.net/download-14763442/note_key_chart_sheet.docx.html

[Since it looks a bit misleading: The Bitcoin-donation-address that appears on the download site is not mine, but the file hosters.]

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Hoffman Academy
hoffmanacademy.com › blog › how-to-read-piano-sheet-music
How to Read Piano Sheet Music | Tips & Techniques
Learn how to read piano sheet piano with Hoffman Academy, including tips and techniques for understanding the process of reading music easier.
Find elsewhere
Top answer
1 of 3
17

I would say three things:

System position. Basically people think bass clef for the left hand, treble clef for the right hand. But, clefs can change. The grouping of two staves makes a system for the grand staff. Rather than clef type, it's the system position that matters. The lower staff is for the left hand and the upper staff is for the right hand.

...in that example the left hand is the lower staff and the clef changes are used to keep the notes on the staff with fewer ledger lines.

Hand abbreviations. L.H. for left hand and R.H. for right hand (or m.s. and m.d.) will label parts of the notation when the notation move the hands between the usual staves...

...that was from the Mozart Nannerl Notebook.

Stem direction. In some cases stems up mean right hand and stems down mean left hand...

Keep in mind stem direction is also used to show multiple voices played by one hand...

...so, stem direction doesn't always mean left/right hands.

2 of 3
0

The right hand plays the upper staff, and the left hand plays the lower staff, regardless which clefs are displayed. The clefs only tell you how to interpret the lines and spaces; they don't tell you which hand to use.

When playing duets, for example, it's very common that one part will have both hands indicated in treble clef and the other both hands in the bass clef.

Edit: As Andrew Chin mentioned, sometimes there will be an explicit instruction as to which hand to use. Otherwise, the above holds.

An example of explicit instructions for which hand plays which notes, see What does the L-shaped symbol attached to C5 and G4 on the top staff mean?

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Flowkey
flowkey.com › en
Learn How to Play Piano Online - Piano Learning App | flowkey
Practice notes and chords interactively ... flowkey app and your piano or keyboard. Thousands of songs from every genre and skill level · Listens to your playing and waits for you to hit the right notes · Watch an expert pianist play and follow sheet music on the same scre...
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Musicnotes
musicnotes.com
Sheet Music – Digital & Printable | Musicnotes
As a piano bar performer I must try to play all requests. I need the sheet music now, today, while it is hot and can earn me tips. I don't have time to find it in a collection or something containing songs I already have, or to wait for the Post Office to deliver it to me. With Musicnotes I can order it, pay for it, and have it in minutes. I can use the song that night & make a better living. ... At its very simplest, music is a language just like you'd read aloud from a book.
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Key-Notes
key-notes.com › blog › how-to-read-piano-notes
How to Read Piano Notes
The first thing you’ll notice when you open up any piano music is almost certainly the grand staff: The grand staff is composed of two staves, each of them a standard five-line staff. They are joined by a brace. The upper staff generally uses a treble clef and the bottom staff a bass clef. Other combinations are possible, however, such as two treble clefs: ... This may look somewhat confusing, so to read piano notes more easily let’s align middle C directly between the staves. Middle C is one ledger line below the treble clef staff, and one ledger line above the bass clef staff.
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › List_of_musical_symbols
List of musical symbols - Wikipedia
3 weeks ago - Accidentals modify the pitch of the notes that follow them on the same staff position within a measure, unless cancelled by an additional accidental. Key signatures indicate which notes are to be played as sharps or flats in the music that follows, showing up to seven sharps or flats.
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Musicnotes
musicnotes.com › all sheet music › piano
Piano Sheet Music | Digital Sheet Music For Piano
Discover the largest selection of piano sheet music at Musicnotes. Browse our popular piano sheet music and download your favorite scores through our app.
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Piano Street
pianostreet.com › smf › index.php
Identifying Notes
June 28, 2015 - Great news for anyone who loves Chopin’s music! Piano Street’s Chopin Competition tool now includes all 1,848 recorded performances from the Preliminary Round to Stage 3. Dive in and listen now!
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nkoda
nkoda.com › blog › piano-notes
Piano Notes 101: Complete Beginner’s Guide | nkoda
February 1, 2022 - Notes are raised - or sharpened - with a sharp (♯) and lowered - or flattened - with a flat (♭). A third type of accidental, called a natural (♮), cancels out previous sharps and flats. Looking back to the piano octave above, you can see more clearly how this process works. You’ll notice that each black key can be referred to in two ways - whether it’s a sharp or a flat depends on the musical context. In sheet music, accidentals appear next to the note that’s to be played, but they can also appear next to the clef at the far left of the stave, as part of a key signature.
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NoobNotes
noobnotes.net › popular
Popular songs in letter notes - music notes for newbies
music notes for newbies - Play popular songs and traditional music with note letters for easy fun beginner instrument practice - great for flute, piccolo, recorder, piano and more. practice now, theory later!
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/pianolearning › i'm new to sheet music, how do i know that some of these keys are sharp keys?
r/pianolearning on Reddit: I'm new to sheet music, how do I know that some of these keys are sharp keys?
June 24, 2023 -

For example the first few notes are sharps, what tells me that they are sharps? Like I said, I'm very new to this so this might be very obvious but I'm just not getting it 😅

Top answer
1 of 4
2

In my opinion it's easiest to forget the names of the notes for a while, and just learn how to find the positions on keyboard based on sheet music. The connection between the staves and the piano keyboard is really simple: one white key for one position on staff. If there's a sharp, use the next black key to the right, and if there's a flat use the next black key to left. A good starting point is to remember just the location of different Cs (or Dos if you like it more) on the staves and count from there. After you do the counting exercise a few times, you will start to remember other locations too.

The same goes for scales and chords: When you see an ascending or descending row or dots, you don't have to read each of them, just to recognize it's a scale, and when you become familiar with different shapes of stacks of dots, you can play the chords without thinking what they are called.

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1

Remembering where each note is is virtually impossible with 88 notes to choose from, looking at the music involved!

However, you don't need to remember each and every one, as there's a pattern that repeats several times up and down the piano keyboard, and the two staves in the music written for it only encompasses around half of those! Good news so far.

Every note on the piano has its own special place, and it works best alphabetically. Your do-re-mi may be more familiar to you, but it probably will slow you down here. Firstly, there are two do-re-mi systems, fixed do and movable do. Fixed do may help, as that means each and every C note is the white key to the left of the pair of black ones. At least that will give you a start to navigate your way round.

If, quite possibly, you are familiar with movable do, it won't help much: that one means the root of every key, though a different note, is called do. Quite confusing for a beginner.

So, let's hope it's fixed do (or C). Travelling up the keyboard, it's sequential, C, D, E, F (left of the 3 black keys), G, A, B, and back to left of the next black pair, another C. Using fixed do, the same idea exists, but substitutes tonic sol-fa names for the letters. Just hope you're not using the German system which incorporates another letter - H.

That's all the piano part, nearly. Using letters only, a good way to familiarise with where each lives is to make up words, and play those words. As in DAD, BADGE, CABBAGE, DEAF, BEEF, and so on, until you can look at a word and play it straight off. Black keys can be ignored for now - they don't play this game. For now, it doesn't really matter which octave you play each letter in, it's fun to mix 'n' match. But familiarisation of the instrument is an important, and in some ways detached part of learning music - where each note lives.

As far as the dots on the sheet are concerned, there is correlation. With 2 staves of 5 lines, it helps to consider that middle C is in fact in the middle. It has its own little line - no permanent one. When needed, it has a 'leger line' under the treble, or above the bass clef.

From that datum point, it's not too difficult to extrapolate where on the staves the other notes live. The oft-used mnemonic upwards for the dots on the treble clef lines EGBDF is 'Every Good Boy Deserves (something beginning with F), the spaces revealing FACE. In the bass clef, spaces reveal All Cows Eat Grass, unsurprisingly. Of course, it will be more memorable for your own silly sentence to be utilised.

I hope all that's a good starter in response to what I think the question asks. Take it all slowly, and get a good teacher!

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Quora
quora.com › Can-you-explain-how-to-read-piano-notes-from-sheet-music-What-are-the-names-and-positions-of-all-the-keys-on-a-piano
Can you explain how to read piano notes from sheet music? What are the names and positions of all the keys on a piano? - Quora
Answer (1 of 2): As others have mentioned, your best bet is to sign up for lessons at a music school or get weekly lessons from a private teacher nearby you. Having said that, here is how I learned to play. 1. I joined the grade school band and went to private lessons once per week. I learned to...