How to use this page
Sheet music symbols are the marks around the notes that say how to play them: how loud (dynamics), how each note is shaped (articulation), where to repeat or jump (repeats, D.C., D.S., coda), which octave (8va, 8vb), which decorations to add (trills, mordents) and how fast (tempo words). None of them changes which note you play; all of them change how it sounds.
- Dynamics say how loud: p is soft, f is loud, mp and mf are in between, and hairpins mean gradually louder or softer.
- Articulation says how each note is shaped: a dot is short, a wedge is emphasised, a line is full length, a fermata is held.
- Repeat signs, first and second endings, D.C. al Fine and D.S. al Coda say where to go next on the page.
- 8va means an octave higher than written, 8vb an octave lower; tempo words at the top say how fast.
Each family below has a heading, and each symbol a short paragraph: what it looks like, what it means, what it sounds like. Skim to the one you are looking at. If you are new to the staff itself, start with how to read sheet music and come back here when a marking stops you.
Dynamics: how loud
Dynamics are the italic letters under the staff, abbreviations of Italian words, and they set the volume from that point until the next dynamic. They are relative, not absolute: f in a lullaby is quieter than f in a march. The sound of a dynamic is a level that holds until something changes it.
p, pp, ppp
p is piano, soft. pp is pianissimo, very soft; ppp softer still. Each added letter is a step quieter. Sounds like: the same notes, gentler, with less attack on each one.
f, ff, fff
f is forte, loud. ff is fortissimo, very loud; fff louder still. Sounds like: full tone, firm attacks, but never forced or ugly.
mp and mf
mp is mezzo piano, moderately soft; mf is mezzo forte, moderately loud. From quiet to loud the order is pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff. mf is roughly the volume you play at when nothing is marked.
Hairpins: crescendo and diminuendo
A long wedge that opens to the right (<) is a crescendo: get gradually louder across its length. A wedge that closes to the right (>) is a diminuendo or decrescendo: get gradually softer. The words cresc. and dim. mean the same, often with a dotted line showing how far. Sounds like: a slope, not a step; the change is spread evenly over every note under the wedge.
sfz and fp
sfz (sforzando) means a sudden strong accent on that one note, then back to the prevailing level. fp (forte-piano) means attack the note loud and immediately drop to soft while it sounds. Both are one-note instructions.
Articulation: how each note is shaped
Articulation marks sit directly above or below a notehead and change that one note: its length, its attack, or both. They do not change pitch or volume level. The sound of articulation is the difference between a sentence spoken in a monotone and one spoken with expression.
Staccato dot
A small dot above or below the notehead (not after it, which would be a dotted note). Play the note short and detached, with a little silence before the next one; roughly half its written length, though the gap matters more than the exact fraction. Sounds like: crisp, separated, bouncing.
Accent
A small sideways wedge (>) above or below the note. Play it with more weight or a stronger attack than the notes around it. The length stays as written. Sounds like: one note leaning forward out of the line.
Tenuto
A short horizontal line above or below the note. Hold it for its full written value, with a slight pressing weight, and do not let it shorten the way unmarked notes naturally do. Sounds like: a note given its full room, slightly broad.
Fermata
An arc with a dot underneath, sitting over a note, chord or rest, sometimes called a pause or a bird’s eye. Hold it longer than written, for as long as feels right, then carry on. On the last note of a piece it means let it ring. Sounds like: time stops for a moment and the pulse restarts afterwards.
Slur
A curved line over or under two or more notes of different pitch. Play them joined, in one breath or bow, with no gap between. A curved line joining two notes of the same pitch is a tie, a different thing: the second note is not restruck. Sounds like: one smooth gesture rather than separate notes.
Repeat signs, first and second endings
Repeat signs tell you to play a section twice. A thick-and-thin double barline with two dots on the inside marks the end of the repeated section; a matching sign facing the other way marks its start, and if there is no start sign you go back to the beginning of the piece. The sound of a repeat is simply the same bars again.
Repeat barlines
Dots on the left of a double bar (:||) mean go back. Dots on the right (||:) mean this is where you go back to. Play the section between them twice, then continue past the closing sign. Unless the music says otherwise, a repeat is played once more, not endlessly.
First and second endings
Brackets numbered 1. and 2. over the last bars before a repeat sign. The first time through, play the bars under bracket 1 and take the repeat. The second time, skip bracket 1 entirely and jump to bracket 2, then carry on. Sounds like: the same phrase twice, with a different tail the second time.
Bar repeat and simile
A slash with two dots inside a bar (the “percent” sign) means play the previous bar again. Simile or sim. after a marked pattern means keep playing in the same manner, even though the marks are no longer printed.
8va and 8vb: octave signs
An octave sign shifts a passage up or down by an octave so the composer can avoid a stack of ledger lines. 8va (ottava) above the staff with a dotted line means play everything under the line an octave higher than written. 8vb (ottava bassa) below the staff means an octave lower. The end of the dotted line, or the word loco, returns you to written pitch.
A small 15ma means two octaves higher, and a small 8 attached to a clef (treble clef with an 8 below it, common in guitar and tenor voice parts) means the whole part sounds an octave lower than written. Sounds like: the same tune, the same shape, in a higher or lower register.
Trills, mordents and turns
Ornaments are small symbols that tell you to decorate a single note with quick neighbouring notes. They are a shorthand: writing the decoration out would clutter the page. The exact speed and number of notes is left to the player and the style.
Trill
tr, often with a wavy line, over a note. Alternate rapidly between the written note and the note above it (the next note in the key) for the length of the note. Sounds like: a shimmer on one pitch.
Mordent
A short zigzag over a note. Play the written note, the note above, and the written note again, quickly, then hold. With a vertical line through the zigzag it is a lower mordent: written note, note below, written note. Sounds like: a quick flick at the start of the note.
Turn
A sideways S over or after a note. Play the note above, the written note, the note below, the written note, as a quick four-note curl. Sounds like: a little loop around the main note.
Grace note
A tiny note with a slash through its stem, before a normal note. Play it as quickly as possible, squeezed just before the beat, leaning into the main note. Tiny notes without the slash are appoggiaturas, played on the beat and taking part of the main note’s length.
Tempo words
Tempo words sit above the first bar and say how fast the beat goes; a metronome mark next to them (a note value = a number) gives the exact beats per minute. The words are Italian, and although each has an accepted range, they describe a character as much as a speed.
From slow to fast
Grave (very slow, solemn), Largo (broad, slow), Adagio (slow, at ease), Andante (walking pace), Moderato (moderate), Allegretto (fairly brisk), Allegro (fast, lively), Vivace (very lively), Presto (very fast). As a rough map, Adagio sits near 60 beats per minute, Andante near 80, Allegro near 120 and Presto near 170.
Changes of speed
rit. or ritardando means gradually slower; rall. (rallentando) the same; accel. (accelerando) gradually faster; a tempo means back to the original speed; rubato means take liberties with the beat for expression. Più mosso is more movement, faster; meno mosso less, slower.
A worked example
Picture a short song of sixteen bars. Above bar 1 it says Andante and a crotchet equals 76. Bar 1 is marked mp. There is a segno over bar 5. A hairpin opens from bar 9 to bar 12, where f appears. Over bar 12 there is a To Coda sign. Bar 16 ends with a repeat sign and, underneath, D.S. al Coda. After a gap, four more bars headed Coda finish with a fermata over the last chord.
Here is the route. Play bars 1 to 16 at walking pace, moderately soft, swelling from bar 9 so that bar 12 is loud. At the end of bar 16, the D.S. al Coda sends you back to the segno at bar 5. Play bars 5 to 12 again, with the same crescendo, and when you reach the To Coda sign at the end of bar 12, jump to the Coda. Play its four bars and hold the last chord longer than written. Total: 16 + 8 + 4 = 28 bars of music from a 20-bar page. Every marking on that page was a route instruction or an instruction about sound, and not one of them changed which notes you play.
Beginner mistakes
- Reading the notes and skipping the markings. The commonest. A piece played with every note correct and no dynamics sounds like a typing exercise. Fix: before you play, read the markings alone, out loud, as a separate pass.
- Playing into the coda. Reaching the coda section in order and playing it as if it were the next bars. Fix: the coda is only ever reached by a jump from To Coda; if you arrive without jumping, you have missed a D.S. or D.C.
- Confusing the dot after a note with the dot above it. A dot after the notehead lengthens it by half; a dot above or below shortens it (staccato). Fix: look at where the dot is, not whether there is one.
- Treating hairpins as steps. Jumping to loud at the start of a crescendo instead of growing across it. Fix: the end of the hairpin is the destination; the first note under it should be barely louder than the one before.
A two-minute drill
- Read the markings onlyTake one page you are learning and, without playing, read every symbol that is not a note, aloud, in order: “mp, slur, staccato, crescendo, f, repeat”. Sixty seconds. Look up any you cannot name on this page.
- Trace the routeWith a finger, follow the path of the piece from first bar to last, including every repeat, D.S., D.C. and jump to the coda. Say the bar numbers as you go. Forty seconds.
- Play the dynamics on one notePick any single note and play the page’s dynamic scheme on it alone: mp, swell to f, drop to p, whatever is written. Twenty seconds. Now the notes have somewhere to go.
Hear the marking
A reference tells you what a symbol means in general. The marking on your page is specific, and the fastest way past it is to hear the bar played and ask. Photograph the page in Sheetly, press play on the bar with the marking, and slow it to half speed to hear the notes under it clearly; loop it while you try the staccato, the crescendo or the ornament against what you hear. Then ask the coach what the sign in bar 12 means, where the D.S. sends you, and how to play it, and get an answer about that bar. Photograph it, hear it, understand it, practise it.
Hear what the marking does.
Photograph the page, press play, loop the bar with the sign you do not recognise, and ask the coach what it means. Free to download on iPhone and iPad.
Free to download · iPhone and iPad · Android on the way
When you get stuck
Sheetly is the only iPhone and iPad app we know of where the AI coach has read the actual notes of the page you photographed, so a question about bar 12 gets an answer about your bar 12. For symbols that matters, because “what does this squiggle mean” is always a question about one squiggle in one bar.
Ask Sheetly: a coach that has read your score
Not a chatbot bolted onto a music app. The coach has the actual notes of the page you just photographed, so you can ask about your bar 12 and get an answer about what is written in it.
We know of no other sheet-music scanner that does this. Every other tool hands you a transcription and stops.
Free to download · iPhone and iPadQuestions
What does D.S. al Coda mean?
D.S. al Coda (dal segno al coda) means: go back to the segno sign, play from there until you reach the coda mark (a circle with a cross through it, usually with the words To Coda), then jump to the separate section labelled Coda and play to the end. D.S. al Fine is the same return but you stop at the word Fine instead of jumping.
What does D.C. al Fine mean?
D.C. al Fine (da capo al fine) means: go back to the very beginning of the piece and play until you reach the word Fine, then stop. Fine is usually placed at a double barline somewhere in the middle of the page, so the piece ends there on the repeat even though more music follows on the page.
What does 8va mean in sheet music?
8va (ottava) above a passage means play every note an octave higher than written, for as long as the dotted line lasts. 8vb (ottava bassa) below a passage means play an octave lower. Composers use them to avoid a pile of ledger lines. Loco, or the end of the dotted line, means return to the written pitch.
What is the difference between staccato and an accent?
A staccato dot above or below a note means play it short and detached, leaving a little silence before the next note; the note’s length changes, not its loudness. An accent, a small sideways wedge, means play the note louder or with a stronger attack than its neighbours; its length does not change. A note can carry both: short and emphasised.
What do first and second endings mean?
First and second endings are brackets numbered 1 and 2 over the last bars before a repeat sign. The first time through, play the bars under bracket 1 and repeat. The second time, skip bracket 1 entirely, jump straight to bracket 2 and continue. They let a repeated section end differently the second time without writing the whole section out twice.
What does a fermata mean?
A fermata, the arc with a dot underneath that looks like an eye, means hold the note or rest longer than its written value, for as long as the performer or conductor judges, then continue. There is no fixed length; roughly half as long again to twice as long is typical. On a final note it means let it ring and take your time.