Struggle with recognizing notes when they get up or down into the ledger lines? Here’s a tip: focus on the three C’s.

High C is 2 lines above the treble staff.
Middle C is 1 line below the treble staff and 1 line above the bass staff.
Low C is 2 lines below the bass staff.

Memorize where these notes are and let them serve as your anchors. Suddenly recognizing other ledger line notes becomes much easier because you can see they’re only a short interval from one of our C’s, rather than a large interval from the staff.

Thanks to Brian Lucas for sharing this tip.

Related reading

4 Sight Reading Tips Liszt Wants You to Know
How to Choose a Tempo When Sight Reading

Evan R. Murphy

Evan is the founder of SightReadingMastery. He studied music and computer engineering at the University of Pittsburgh before moving to Austin, TX, where he currently lives with his girlfriend Rebecca.

More Posts - Website - Google Plus