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Music notation has been around for hundreds & hundreds of years. We know that medieval monks wrote down books of music. The modern system that we have today is about 1,000 years old and was invented by Guido d'Arezzo.

1. Guido was a monk.
2. He lived in Arezzo in Italy.
3. Guido made up the system of staff notation to help singers remember medieval chants.
4. He was born near Paris around 995 a.d. and died near Arezzo around 1050.
5. Guido is thought to have invented the system of singing that uses do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do

Later on you will see that we still use Italian words to show tempo (speed) and dynamics (volume), etc.

1. The pitch of a note depends on the clef and how high or low it is on the stave.

2. The notes have alphabetical names from A - G.

3. The notes go up in alphabetical order.

4. Notes that are too high or low to fit on the stave have extra little lines drawn in called leger lines.

5. A useful way to remember the names of the notes is to separate the lines from the spaces and make up little sayings:

Notes that are next to each other are said to move by step.
The notes that move from one line to the next line (or more) are leaps.
So are notes going from space to another space.
Leaps can also be between one note and any other note that isn't next to it.