Students majoring in music, except those who study percussion, basically use staff and simple music, which belong to melody music. Knowing the music can basically sing the rhythm and tone of the music, which is to know the music.

However, in modern guqin, when using staff or notation, in most cases, it has to be used in conjunction with the unique "subtraction notation" of guqin. The subtraction notation is a fingering notation, which only indicates the fingering (how to play a certain sound), and the melody (pitch, rhythm, etc.) cannot be visually seen, so it is not convenient to sing. Subtraction spectrum looks like a gobbledygook on the surface, but it is actually very simple, a bit like a spelling bee. There are plenty of materials on the Internet, and any guqin music-blind person can learn to recognize it by himself.

It is normal for most students majoring in music not to know the notation, but they can recognize the melody part (staff or notation) in the modern ancient piano notation, because most modern musical instruments use staff and notation.