Here’s a quick quiz: how many lines does a staff have on it? Did you say five lines? If you did, you’re right but can you imagine if a staff had more lines? What if it had 10 lines or even 7 or 8 lines? Would it be easier or harder?

The truth is that music has evolved for hundreds of years. In fact, in the early days when the art of music notation was far from an art, different instruments had differing numbers of lines on their staves. Can you imagine how confusing it must have been to try to read music on a staff that looked different for various instruments?

It would be confusing but music can be read with an infinite number of lines in a staff but early musicians figured out two things: It’s terribly hard to look at a lot of lines and read notes with any accuracy. They also figured out that more lines on a staff meant that it took more paper to write out the music and before the days of printing presses, scribes were none too happy about drawing all of these lines, some of which weren’t even used in a piece.

By the 17th century, the five line staff had been adopted and it remains with us today. Nearly all instruments fit comfortably on to the five line staff but what happens when a note or series of notes finds its way above the staff?

In the world of music notation, the ledger line system was developed to solve this problem. It works like this: rather than printing an entire extra line, when a note goes above or below the staff, just a small piece of the line is printed. In fact, just enough so the note can sit on or above it. Once the notes find their way back in to the staff, the ledger line goes away.
This presents a clean look to the music while also making it easy for the player to read the music. How do you read music that sits on a ledger line? The same way you read music on the staff.

Think of the top line of a treble clef, for example. We know that the top line is F so right above that is G. When we go up to an A, a ledger line appears and the A is printed on it. After that, the B sits on top of the ledger line.

What if we want a C? A second ledger line will appear above the first ledger line where the C will sit. So if you know your musical alphabet, you can figure out ledger lines with ease. By the way, it works exactly the same way for notes that appear below the staff.

For some instruments, ledger lines rarely appear while others, like the flute and tuba, virtually every piece uses them. Once you gain some experience with ledger lines, it will be as easy as reading the notes on the staff.

Have fun!