My Color Music

The first thing you might notice about music notation is that the notes are written on a bunch of lines. Musicians call these lines “staves,” and each stave (or “staff”) has five (5) lines. The higher notes fall onto what’s called the “treble” (or high) staff … while the lower notes fall onto the “bass” (or low) staff. And centered right in between these two staves is a note called “middle C.” That is, the C note found directly in the middle of any piano keyboard.

At first, these clef symbols might look a little strange. But like everything in music, they’re easy to understand … when you know what they mean. You see, notation was designed to favor the key of C—which is why middle C is placed at the center of the grand staff. The clefs simply clarify which notes fall above or below middle C by highlighting C’s dominant note (G) and subdominant note (F).

If you look closely, the treble clef (or “G clef”) is really just a stylized, Gothic letter “G.” And it wraps around the line that is second from the bottom on the treble staff to emphasize the G note written on that line. Likewise, the bass clef (or “F clef”) is a stylized, Gothic letter “F” … highlighting middle C’s lower subdominant note (F) on the bass staff. Together, these two clefs help you remember that lower notes are written below middle C, while higher notes are written above it.

In this way, all the notes rise above, or fall below, the central note, middle C. Higher notes are written on the treble staff … while lower notes are written on the bass staff. And any super high or super low notes are written on short extension lines called “ledger lines.” It’s all pretty straightforward, really. And the more we play, the more comfortable this layout becomes.

By now, you may have noticed that I’m not making this up. The truth is that Color Music is real … which means both color and music follow the exact same patterns. Once you see this connection, you can simply follow these patterns wherever they go. So what started with a basic color wheel is now helping us crack the code to music notation. Not bad, eh? (And believe me, it only gets better from here….)

But while the science of sound is simple, the art of music is what’s still so amazing. Sure, it’s easy to pick apart the chromatic scale and to learn the language of music. But the power and movement of a song is still magical. And that’s why music has blown people’s minds for thousands of years.

Ancient civilizations even had special “gods” who ruled over music. In Greece and Rome, Apollo was the patron god of music and poetry. And he was the leader of the Muses (or the spirits who inspired the arts). Interestingly, he was also the god of light (or color).

In Egypt, Hathor served as the goddess of music. The Norse god of music was Bragi. In Mesapotamia, it was Ea. In China, it was Feitian. In the Phillipines, it was Pasipo. In India, it was Saraswati … and so on. In other words, everyone was trying to get in on that action. And for my money, these were the really cool gods—because they probably had all the fun.

But now, if you had to pick the modern gods of music, who would you choose? That is, which musicians have totally mastered the art and science of sound? Everybody has their favorites. In your opinion, who would you say creates real magic?

In music notation, all 12 notes are laid out in the chromatic scale pattern. So it’s pretty easy to pick apart. The only thing is … this pattern looks different than how we’re used to seeing it on a piano keyboard. You see, on a piano, the chromatic scale is laid out from left to right—with lower sounding notes on the left, and higher sounding notes on the right. 

We already know this arrangement makes sense when you actually play the instrument … so that your left hand hits the lower notes, while your right hand hits the higher notes. But can you imagine using a keyboard to illustrate something like a melody or song? On paper, this would be hard. Because with all the different notes moving up and down at different speeds, you’d have to show not only which notes to play (pitch), but also how long to play them (duration).

So to work around this problem, musicians came up with a clever way of illustrating both pitch and duration in music notation. The idea behind it is simple. Instead of showing pitch from left to right (like on a keyboard), music notation turns everything on its head—so that low notes are at the bottom … while high notes are at the top. 

In this way, duration (or time) can also be shown—moving from left to right. So together, pitch and duration form a simple cross … with pitch moving up and down, and duration moving from left to right.

Seriously … this is all music notation is: a basic keyboard pattern turned on its side. And personally, if I’d known about this when I first learned notation, life would have been so much easier! In fact, it’s so easy, it makes me want to cry. But before we go ahead and start playing melodies, let’s look a little closer at how music notation is designed … starting with the “grand staff.”