Frequently asked questions

Flourish makes learning to read sheet music quick and easy.

By practicing for just a few minutes a day, you'll soon recognize notes effortlessly, saving you time and money in practice and lessons.

So when you're on the train or waiting for your morning coffee, launch Flourish and shortcut your musical journey.

Tip: consistency and creating habits are the key to progress. Build up streaks by practicing with Flourish every day.

Training is organized into levels. Each level includes a different set of notes to learn.

When you start a new quiz, 16 notes are drawn randomly and then presented to you, one by one.

As each note appears, try to guess its musical key.

A successful guess will reward you between 50 and a perfect 100 points, depending on how fast you were.

Achieve a score of at least 1200 points in a level to earn the Silver rank.

Earning Silver will prompt you to advance to the next level.

Achieving a perfect score of 1600 points will earn the Gold rank.

Your ultimate goal is to consistently earn a perfect score in every level.

Tip: need to brush up on particular notes? You can skip to any level from the Levels menu.

The staff is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch ("notes").

A note's vertical position on the staff tells us the pitch. Notes placed higher on the staff have a higher pitch.

Each line and space corresponds to a white key on the piano, though the staff is used with other instruments as well.

The actual pitches are determined by the staff's clef.

The clef is a musical symbol placed on the left-hand side of a staff.

The clef gives the staff meaning, by fixing certain pitches (notes) to specific lines and spaces.

There are different types of clefs, but the most common are the treble and bass clefs.

The range of notes created by different instruments is very wide. There are too many notes to squeeze on to five staff lines.

Instead, different instruments use different clefs. This way, most of an instrument's notes will fit comfortably on the staff.

The treble clef is the most commonly used clef, and the starting point of our journey.

It's also known as the G clef, as the symbol curls around the G line on the staff.

On a piano, this clef is usually played by the right hand.

Guitar also uses the treble clef, but sounds an octave lower.

Pronounced "base", the bass clef is used for lower pitches.

It's also known as the F clef, as its symbol features two dots straddling the F line on the staff.

On a piano, the bass clef is usually played with the left hand.

The bass guitar and cello also use this clef.

Ledger lines are short horizontal lines, used to extend the staff without overly cluttering it.

They're used to indicate notes whose pitches lie outside the range of the staff's permanent five lines and four spaces.

Ledger lines can be tricky to learn, but that's why Flourish was created!

Flourish will teach you how to quickly recognize all commonly used notes in both the treble and bass clefs.