Written music is not as complex as it first appears. There are a few conventions unique to music that are easy to understand when compared to reading a book.

Music notes are written on “the staff.” The staff is simply five horizontal lines. Think of this like the lines on a piece of paper. These lines provide a background structure upon which we can write interesting things.

A note can be located either A) on a line, or B) in a space (in between the lines).

To tell the difference, look at the center of the note.

This note is written on a line.

This note is written in a space.

Next, look at these two Xs side by side. Notice how the first X is written just about the top line of the staff, while the second X is on the top line of the staff. While these notes are very close on the staff, they are far apart on the drum set. The first note is the hihat cymbal, and the second note is the ride cymbal. Drummers should always plan to look closely at which cymbal is being played.

Next, we will see the clef. This tells us how to decode the music we are about to read. For tonal instruments, For atonal instruments like the drums

Next, we will see the time signature. This tells us how long each measure will be, and broadly speaking, how we should expect each measure to be divided. We will study different time signatures in the future. For now, all we need to know is that most modern music is in 4/4, or "four four." This means that we have four quarter-notes to work with in each measure.