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The marks on a stave, grouped because they are useless individually and complete together: a staff means nothing without a clef, a clef nothing without notes, a note nothing without a time signature to count it in. The group also holds the notation's most consequential look-alikes, where a single detail carries the whole meaning — a dot above a note shortens it and a dot after it lengthens it, and the same curve is a slur between different pitches and a tie between identical ones.
Five horizontal lines on which notes are placed to show pitch.
An ornate spiral-and-loop figure at the left of a staff, fixing the second line as the note G.
A backwards-C figure with two dots, fixing the fourth line of the staff as the F below middle C.
A bracketed figure whose centre points at the line meaning middle C, movable up and down the staff.
A hollow oval with no stem, the longest note value in ordinary use.
A hollow oval with a stem, lasting half as long as a whole note.
A filled oval with a stem, the note most often equal to one beat.
A filled oval with a stem and one flag, or beamed to its neighbours.
A filled oval with two flags or two beams, a quarter of a beat.
A dot after a notehead, adding half the note's own length again.
A small filled rectangle hanging below a staff line, a bar of silence.
A small filled rectangle sitting on a staff line, two beats of silence.
A zigzag figure occupying the middle of the staff, one beat of silence.
A slanted stroke with one flag-like hook, half a beat of silence.
A vertical line across the staff, dividing the music into bars.
Two stacked numerals at the start of a piece, stating the metre.
A large letter C at the start of a staff, standing for four-four time.
A group of sharps or flats after the clef, altering those notes for the whole piece.
Two slanted horizontal bars crossed by two vertical strokes, raising a note by a semitone.
A stem with a rounded lobe at its foot, lowering a note by a semitone.
An open bracket-like figure of two stems and two bars, cancelling a sharp or flat.
A small saltire-like cross, raising a note by two semitones.