Part of our section on Musical Notation where we look at the elements of a music score.
The 5 horizontal lines are called the music stave
The music stave is divided into bars, or measures, by vertical lines called “bar lines”
Music notes are placed on the lines or in the spaces between lines:
Each note has a round “note head” which can be solid black or white with a black outline, and may have a “stem” which is a line pointing up or down, as here, possibly with a “flag” attached to the end of stem.
The notes shown in this example bar are, from left to right: a dotted crotchet; a quaver, with stem and flag; and a minim with a white note head. Find out more about note names and values on our page on note values.
Other types of bar line include:
a double bar line to indicate the end of one section of music and the start of a new one;
a final bar line which marks the end of the piece of music.
A double bar line usually divides passages of music where the key signature, time signature or tempo changes.
We also use special bar lines to indicate a section or passage of music that should be repeated, as here:
The repeated section starts with a double bar line, where the left hand bar line is thicker, and is followed by 2 dots as above.
The repeated section ends with a double bar line, where the right hand bar line is thicker, and is preceded by 2 dots as above.
A repeated section can consist of any number of bars and can continue over several lines of the music score.
Sometimes, as above, there is one or more bars at the end of the repeated section which are only played the first time. This is marked above the bar(s) by a bracket with the number “1.”. Then the repeated section is followed by one or more bars which are played the 2nd time instead. This is marked in a similar way to 1st time bar(s) but with a “2.”.
A repeated section can be repeated more than once (played more than twice). In this case the 1st time bar(s) might be marked “1.,2.” or more times, and the 2nd time bar(s) would then be marked “3.” or “3.,4.” or more times as required, or just “last”.
You might notice that in our extract from Seven Nation Army at the top of the Musical notation page, there is no start of repeat bar marked. This can happen if the repeat starts at the beginning of the music score as in our example. In that case the repeat is back to the start.
Continue to explore musical notation on our page about Music clefs
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