Maths Playground4 of 9 Stave grid
Coordinate planeGrade 5

The stave is a grid

Across is time. Up is pitch. Music writing is plotting points — click a coordinate and a note lands there.

GeometryGraphs & functions

Plotting a point means going across, then up. A stave works the same way: across tells you when the note happens, up tells you how high it is. Music writing is coordinates that make a sound.

click a square — across, then up

line 1Espace 1Fline 2Gspace 2Aline 3Bspace 3Cline 4Dspace 4Eline 5F1234567891bar 12341bar 2234beat →beat 1, line 1 — Ebeat 1, space 1 — Fbeat 1, line 2 — Gbeat 1, space 2 — Abeat 1, line 3 — Bbeat 1, space 3 — Cbeat 1, line 4 — Dbeat 1, space 4 — Ebeat 1, line 5 — Fbeat 2, line 1 — Ebeat 2, space 1 — Fbeat 2, line 2 — Gbeat 2, space 2 — Abeat 2, line 3 — Bbeat 2, space 3 — Cbeat 2, line 4 — Dbeat 2, space 4 — Ebeat 2, line 5 — Fbeat 3, line 1 — Ebeat 3, space 1 — Fbeat 3, line 2 — Gbeat 3, space 2 — Abeat 3, line 3 — Bbeat 3, space 3 — Cbeat 3, line 4 — Dbeat 3, space 4 — Ebeat 3, line 5 — Fbeat 4, line 1 — Ebeat 4, space 1 — Fbeat 4, line 2 — Gbeat 4, space 2 — Abeat 4, line 3 — Bbeat 4, space 3 — Cbeat 4, line 4 — Dbeat 4, space 4 — Ebeat 4, line 5 — Fbeat 1, line 1 — Ebeat 1, space 1 — Fbeat 1, line 2 — Gbeat 1, space 2 — Abeat 1, line 3 — Bbeat 1, space 3 — Cbeat 1, line 4 — Dbeat 1, space 4 — Ebeat 1, line 5 — Fbeat 2, line 1 — Ebeat 2, space 1 — Fbeat 2, line 2 — Gbeat 2, space 2 — Abeat 2, line 3 — Bbeat 2, space 3 — Cbeat 2, line 4 — Dbeat 2, space 4 — Ebeat 2, line 5 — Fbeat 3, line 1 — Ebeat 3, space 1 — Fbeat 3, line 2 — Gbeat 3, space 2 — Abeat 3, line 3 — Bbeat 3, space 3 — Cbeat 3, line 4 — Dbeat 3, space 4 — Ebeat 3, line 5 — Fbeat 4, line 1 — Ebeat 4, space 1 — Fbeat 4, line 2 — Gbeat 4, space 2 — Abeat 4, line 3 — Bbeat 4, space 3 — Cbeat 4, line 4 — Dbeat 4, space 4 — Ebeat 4, line 5 — F

where is that note?

Click anywhere on the stave and its coordinates appear here. Click the same spot again to take the note away.

7 notes on the stave.

or start from one of these

From the NSM syllabus

  • “Staff Notation — X & Y Axis, Lines, Spaces & Clefs”

Across, then up

The same rule you use on graph paper. In maths you would write (3, 4). A musician says “beat 3, space 2”. Same instruction, different words.

Nine places, not five

Five lines, but a note can also sit in the gap between two lines. Five lines plus four spaces gives nine places to stand — the y-axis of a stave counts both.

Where the letters come from

This is the treble clef. It is really a fancy letter G, and it curls around the second line to say “this line is G”. Once one place is fixed, every other line and space follows.

For the classroom

Learning goals

  • Plotting and reading ordered pairs: the first coordinate moves along the horizontal axis (time in beats), the second moves up the vertical axis (nine lines and spaces).
  • Reading a point back out in two languages — (3, 4) and 'bar 1, beat 3, space 2' — and recognising them as the same instruction.
  • Understanding that a scale on an axis can count places rather than distance: the stave's nine positions alternate line, space, line, space.

Try this

  1. 1.Call out coordinates — '(2, 5)', '(6, 1)' — and have students place them, then play the result and see whether everyone wrote the same thing.
  2. 2.Place four notes, then ask students to write down the coordinates without looking at the read-out. Compare answers.
  3. 3.Load 'F A C E' and ask why those four notes are the ones musicians remember: they are the four spaces, the odd-numbered y positions 2, 4, 6, 8.