What do ledger lines do

On piano, if middle C is written with a ledger line below the treble staff, you play it with your right hand. If the line is above the bass staff you play it with your left hand.

Middle C is located in the middle of your piano. Here is a diagram showing several ledger lines:. Your focus should be mainly on the lines and spaces on the staff and middle C. Then you gradually add leger lines as you progress.

This is where things get a little more complicated. It will take you a lot of time before you ever reach this level. In piano music, multiple ledger lines can make sight-reading difficult. To solve this problem they are often bypassed and other methods are used. These methods include the octave commands, 8va, 15ma, 8vb and 15mb. This note is C8. Instead of writing this note on the 9th leger line above the treble staff, 15ma can be used above C6, making it easy to identify the note.

This note is A0 and can be written just under the sixth leger line below the bass staff. Instead of adding so many leger lines, it could be written with 15mb on A2 or 8vb on A1. Another way to avoid ledger lines for very low notes on the treble staff is to invade the bass staff. Simply write the notes in the bass staff.

Sometimes, these lines are avoided by adding a temporary G-clef on the bass staff or a temporary F-clef on the treble staff. In Western musical notation, the staff is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch—or, in the case of a percussion staff, different percussion instruments. Appropriate music symbols, depending upon the intended effect, are placed on the staff according to their corresponding pitch or function.

Musical notes are placed by pitch, percussion notes are placed by instrument, and rests and other symbols are placed by convention. The absolute pitch of each line of a non-percussive staff is indicated by the placement of a clef symbol at the appropriate vertical position on the left-hand side of the staff possibly modified by conventions for specific instruments.

The lines and spaces are numbered from bottom to top; the bottom line is the first line and the top line is the fifth line. The musical staff is analogous to a mathematical graph of pitch with respect to time. Pitches of notes are given by their vertical position on the staff and notes to the left are played before notes to the right. Unlike a graph, however, the number of semitones represented by a vertical step from a line to an adjacent space depends on the key, and the exact timing of the beginning of each note is not directly proportional to its horizontal position; rather, exact timing is encoded by the musical symbol chosen for each note in addition to the tempo.

A time signature to the right of the clef indicates the relationship between timing counts and note symbols, while bar lines group notes on the staff into measures.

The more you do this, the easier you'll be able to recognize and play Ledger Line notes easily. I've got a great video that goes over all of this info and explains it in detail.

Why don't you come and practice with me? The best way to really understand how to read Ledger Line notes this way is to take a look at this video and see how I do it at the keyboard. We'll also practice doing this several times with different notes so you can get the patterns down.

Question 1 year ago. Question 2 years ago. More by the author:. Let's see exactly what Leger Lines are. Notice how they are located both above and below the Treble top staff.

Let's take a look at Treble Clef Ledger Lines next. Image 2 shows notes going above the Treble staff from the top line. Now let's look at Ledger Line notes that fall below the Treble Clef. Is it the same with the Bass Clef? Let's find out! Yes, it is! Take a look at image 2 to see examples of these notes along with the note names.

Let's go back to the beginning. In the Treble Clef, we learn something like this: Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge This stands for each of the lines on the Treble staff and the notes that fall on those lines.

I'll show you the notes on actual music paper and where those notes are on the keyboard.