Table of contents
* Foreword - Why should I?
* The Staff
* The (One) Clef
* Key Signature & Sharps, flats and naturals
* More about sharps and flats
* Time Signature
* Note value - The length of notes and rests
* Notes on the staff
* But how do I play it with my ocarina?
* The End
Foreword - Why should I?
There is the big question "Why should I learn to read sheet music, instead of learning one of those tab systems?" I'd say the biggest reason is that sheet music is an universal way to write music. And that's two reasons packed in one:
1. It doesn't matter what instrument you are playing, you can still play music written as sheet music. Those tabs on the other hand are good for one instrument only. Even tabs meant for one type of ocarina are worthless for you if you have another type of ocarina.
2. Because sheet music is a universal way to write music it means that there's a lot of music available as sheet music. If you can read sheet music you have more songs available to play than you have time to play them all.
Also, learning to read sheet music is pretty much as easy as learning any of those tab systems. Just remember that there's a lot of information written on sheet music. That's why this guide is so long and that's why sheet music might look confusing at first. But, much of that information is something you can ignore, and thus you could consider this guide as "How to read sheet music - A guide to things you can ignore." For example rythm is something that isn't written into tabs, at least not accurately. Sheet music on the other hand has rythm written to the smallest detail so that someone who is good at reading sheet music can play any song even without ever having heard the song before. But as a beginner you can pretty much ignore everything related to rythm, and as you get better at reading sheet music you will over time learn to read the rythm too.
But before this foreword gets bigger than the guide itself - I hope that someone finds this guide usefull and is encouraged to learn to read sheet music. Without further ado; On with the show.
The Staff
The core of sheet music is the staff. It has 5 lines and 4 spaces. They are numbered starting from the bottom, so the lowest line is called "first line", the next line is "second line" and so on. The same goes for the spaces. It isn't really important to know what each line and space are called when all you want is to be able read sheet music, but it does sometimes help when you discuss things related to sheet music - like in this guide.
The (One) Clef
The clef indicates where notes are placed on the staff. There are seven notes. They are: A, B, C, D, E, F and G. There are several clefs but you only need to know the treble clef. Just be aware that if you see sheet music which has another clef than the treble clef, you won't be able play it correctly unless you know how. Just stick with the treble clef!
Treble clef's other name is G-clef; It indicates where the note G is located. Treble clef kind of like wraps or is tied around the second line, and that line holds the note G. That's a good memory rule! The rest of the notes are then placed in relation to G. Notes that don't fit on the staff are placed on ledger lines. There can be as many ledger lines as are needed.
Key Signature & Sharps, flats and naturals
Key signature tells you which notes you have to play as either sharp or flat. In the above image, the key signature has 3 flats. That means that unless otherwise specified, you have to play notes A, B and E as flats. And that means that each A, B and E are played as flats, not just those that are on those specific lines and spaces. For example the first line of the staff is also E, and you need to play those as flats too.
It's also possible that there's no key signature at all, that just means that you play all the notes as naturals unless otherwise specified. A natural note is a normal note, not a sharp or a flat. For example, C and G are natural notes, while C-sharp (C#) and G-flat (Gb) are accidentals.
More about sharps and flats
Each accidental has another name. For example C-sharp is the same note as D-flat. This is because the difference in pitch between C and D is one whole tone. Two semitones is one whole tone.
A sharp is semitone higher pitched than the natural note.
A flat is semitone lower pitched than the natural note.
And so, when you go semitone up from C and semitone down from D, you end up in the same spot. To fully understand sharps and flats we need to take a quick look at the piano keyboard.
On piano keyboard, each white key is natural note and each black key is accidental. For example the black key between F and G can be called either as F-sharp (F#) or G-flat (Gb).
The difference in pitch between each consecutive key (both white and black keys included) is always one semitone. As you can see there are two occasions where there are two white keys next to each other without black key in between them. That means that the difference between those white keys (or notes) is a semitone. For that reason notes B and E doesn't have a sharp, and C and F doesn't have a flat. (Or they do, B-sharp is... C. C-flat is... B. But you don't need to care about that.)
Here's a list of "accidental pairs", or enharmonic equivalents.
C# <-> Db
D# <-> Eb
F# <-> Gb
G# <-> Ab
A# <-> Bb
And as I said "enharmonic equivalents", I have to add these here too:
B# <-> C
Cb <-> B
E# <-> F
Fb <-> E
Time Signature
Time signature is something you can in my opinion pretty much ignore as beginner musician.
Time signature tells you how many beats there is in a measure, and how long the beats are. A measure is marked with vertical bars. One measure is from one bar to the next. 3/4 time signature means that there are 3 (upper number) 1/4-note (lower number) beats. 4/4 time means that there is four 1/4-note beats. Even so, time signature doesn't tell how many notes there are in a measure. So even if there are 4 beats, doesn't mean there are 4 notes. The total length of the notes and rests just needs to match with the time signature. So, in 4/4 time there can for example be eight 1/8-notes in a measure, or any combinations of different length notes as long as their total length is the same as four 1/4-note's length. It's purely mathematics.
4/4 time is also called common time. It has it's own sign.
Note value - The length of notes and rests
Note value tells you how long each note should be played or how long each rest is. For example 1/4-note and 1/4-rest are equally long. Rest just means silence, while note means noise.
Below is an image which has note values and the corresponding symbol for notes and rests.
Looking at the image, when you go from left to right, each note (or rest) is half as long as the note (or rest) before it. Going from right to left, each note (rest) is twice as long as the note (rest) before it.
Double full note/rest is quite rare so you probably won't see many of them. Also anything shorter than 1/16 is quite rare too. Though you might see 1/32 somewhere. But there can be even shorter notes and rests, just add more flags for notes or more "dots" (I don't know what to call them) for rests. Each flag or "dot" will halve the length.
But how long to play a 1/2-note or 1/4-note? The note value isn't any set amount of time, but how long to play one note depends on how long you play other notes. For example, if you play 1/2-note for one second, it means that you have to play 1/4 note for half second (1/4-note is half as long as 1/2-note) and 1/8 note for quarter second (1/8-note is half as long as 1/4-note). Tempo defines how long you should play each note, the faster the tempo the shorter the notes are played and vice versa.
There's couple other things that affects the length of notes and rests and the first is a dot. In a nutshell, dotted note's length is the note's length + half of the note's length. Notes and rests can also be double dotted (or even triple dotted).
Example1: Dotted 1/4-note = 1/4-note + 1/8-note
Example2: Dotted full note = full note + 1/2-note
Example3: Double dotted full note = full note + 1/2-note + 1/4-note
It's also possible that there's a dot above or below a note, it then means staccato. Staccato means that you have to play the note disctinctly separate from the note that follows it. How you do that is up to you, but it probably makes the note slightly shorter.
There's also things called tuplets... But I'll leave that as homework.
They aren't that common though, but if you see a number above or below notes or rests, you've spotted a tuplet.
Notes on the staff
There's couple things that are important to show about how notes are drawn and marked on the staff.
If one note needs to be played as flat or sharp, the rest of the notes marked on the same line or space are also played as sharps or flats till the end of the measure.
A natural sign is used when a note that would otherwise be played as sharp or flat is played as natural instead. Similar to sharps and flats, natural sign's effect lasts till the end of the measure.
Two or more notes which have flags can have their flags replaced with beams. This doesn't usually change how the notes are played, but it might sometimes mean that they need to be played slightly less distinctly from each another. Even notes that have different amount of flags can have their flags replaced with beams. The number of beams is the number of flags the notes have.
Usually, if the note is below the middle line (third line) the note's stem is upwards and if the note is on or above the middle line, it's stem is downwards. This doesn't affect how the notes are played though.
Tempo is marked with a symbol of a note and a number. The number means beats per minute, BPM.
But how do I play it with my ocarina?
So far I haven't mentioned ocarina at all. That's simply because everything mentioned so far isn't tied to any specific instrument at all. To be able to play music on your ocarina that is written as sheet music, you need a fingering chart which tells you what holes to cover to play each note on the staff. Your ocarina probably came with a fingering chart, but in case there was no fingering chart or you've lost it, I've included some fingering charts below.
Because ocarina is transposing instrument you can use fingering chart intended for C ocarinas on any ocarina regardless of how it's tuned. This allows you to play songs transposed for C ocarinas on F or G or any other ocarina. If you play with someone else, you need to take into account your ocarina's tuning, but if you play solo it doesn't matter at all.
Transverse ocarinas:
Fingering chart for 12-hole ocarinas. Made by Maparam, edited by me for easier reading.
Fingering chart for 10-hole ocarinas. Posted by Felosial. There's also another fingering chart for 10-holers couple posts below in that same thread.
Pendant ocarinas:
Fingering chart for 6-hole pendant ocarinas. Posted by tuneofwind.
Fingering chart for 6-hole pendant ocarinas. Posted by Aryah.
The End
Well, that's all folks. You should now be able to read sheet music, so go play some music! Feel free to comment, give suggestions on how to improve this guide and especially point out any and all mistakes if you spotted any.
And for the sticky. 
that may be why it didn't sound right....
