Printable Music manuscript paper
Blank staves, five lines each, at a spacing that suits your hand.
Runs entirely in this tab. Nothing is uploaded.
Paper
Orientation
Stave height
8 mm
Gap between staves
12 mm
Print at 100% — “fit to page” rescales the sheet and a 5 mm grid stops being 5 mm. Every template already keeps clear of the margin no printer can reach.
Building your sheet…
About this music manuscript paper
Drawn as vector geometry at real-world dimensions, so it prints at exactly the size shown on A4, A5, A3, US Letter, US Legal. Print at 100% rather than “fit to page” — that setting rescales the sheet and the measurements stop being the measurements.
You can change:
- Stave height — 5 to 14 mm, 8 mm by default
- Gap between staves — 6 to 25 mm, 12 mm by default
Free, unwatermarked and yours to use for anything, including in a classroom or in something you sell.
Frequently asked questions
How many staves will I get on a page?+
As many as fit, which follows from the stave height and the gap you set rather than being chosen directly. At the defaults — 8mm staves with a 12mm gap — an A4 portrait page comes out at fourteen. Increase the gap if you need room to write lyrics or fingering underneath.
What stave height should I choose?+
8mm is the default. Professionally engraved music sits around 7mm, so that is the size to pick if you want your manuscript to sit comfortably beside printed parts. Beginners and anyone writing in pen rather than pencil are usually better served by 10 to 12mm.
Why is there a vertical line at each end of every stave?+
Those are barlines closing the system. Without them five parallel lines read as five stray rules rather than as a stave, and the page stops looking like manuscript paper. The line spacing within a stave is always a quarter of the stave height, which is what keeps noteheads sitting correctly in the spaces.
More printables to go with music manuscript paper
- Graph paperSquare grid at any spacing, with an optional heavier line every n squares.
- Dot gridThe bullet-journal ruling: dots instead of lines, at your spacing.
- Isometric paperTriangular grid at 30°, for drawing objects in 3D without perspective.
- Lined paperRuled lines at any spacing, with or without a margin rule.
- Cornell notesCue column, note area and a summary band, in the standard proportions.
- Handwriting practiceFour-line guides — baseline, midline, ascender and descender.
Or see all 16 printable templates.