How to Read Tones and Semitones in Sheet Music

The lines and spaces on a music staff are the same distance apart, but the notes they represent are not. With the help of a piano keyboard, you can easily understand whole tones and semitones and how to read them on sheet music.

Things You'll Need

• Piano keyboard
• Blank staff paper
• Pencil

Instructions

1. Place the little finger of your left hand on the E above middle C on a piano keyboard. Holding this note down, skip the next white note and place your ring finger on the G. Then put your middle finger on B, your index finger on D and your thumb on F. If you can't stretch this far, you may have to cheat and use your right hand.

2. Hold these five notes down and look at just the white keys. The notes that are depressed are E, G, B, D, and F ("Every Good Boy Does Fine") the same as the five lines on the treble staff. The four white keys between them spell F-A-C-E, the spaces on the treble staff. All the white keys have a letter name and are called naturals. The black keys are called accidentals, and they borrow the name of a white key on either side. Depending on which white key you tie them to, they may be called sharp or flat.

3. Look at the white keys that don't have a black key between them. Refer to the E-F and B-C keys as semitones because they are only a half step apart. The other pairs of white keys (F-G, G-A, A-B, C-D, D-E) each have a black key between them. These are called whole tones because they are two half steps apart.

4. Play the note F on the piano. Write this note on a sheet of music in the bottom space of a treble staff. Now play the black note between F and G. Write this note as an F with a sharp sign in front of it. Next, play the note G, and write it on the second line of the staff. Play the note between F and G, and write it on the same line, with a flat sign in front of it.

5. Compare the way you have written the two accidentals on your sheet music. G-flat and F-sharp look different on paper, but when you play them on the piano they are the same note.

6. Write the notes for the other black keys (there are only four more) on your staff paper, showing each one with their flat name and their sharp name.

Tips & Warnings

• The key signature on each piece of sheet music indicates whether to use sharps or flats.