My Color Music

Now we know that the lines and spaces of the grand staff are laid out in a C major scale pattern. So notes   C, D, E, F, G, A, B  repeat as they rise up from the bass staff—all the way through the treble staff.

But by zooming in a little, we can get an even better view of this pattern. For example, if we focus on just the treble staff, we can see how the notes rise above middle C … with each note placed on its own staff line or space.

It’s pretty straightforward, really, as the pattern clearly follows the notes of a keyboard. The only question we might have is … what about all the sharp and flat notes? In the chromatic scale, these notes are just as important. So, where do we put them?

Well … it turns out, the answer is simple. In music notation, sharp and flat notes simply share the same lines and spaces as the “natural” notes of the C major scale. In other words, any sharp (#) or flat (b) note is written in the same spot as the natural note of the same name:

For example, C# is written in the same position as C natural … while notes Db and D# are written in the same spot as D natural. Likewise, notes F# and F natural are written in the same position … while notes Gb and G# share the same spot as G natural … and so on.

It’s really as basic as that. Except musicians don’t actually write the letter name of each note on the staves. Instead, the notes are written like this … with a sharp (#) or flat (b) symbol placed next to any note that’s either sharp or flat:

For example, the note C#/Db is written in two different places … as C# with a sharp symbol next to it—or as Db with a flat symbol next to it. Looking at the color and shape of this note, we already know that C# and Db are the same. So we don’t actually need these extra sharp and flat symbols. But since they’re used in traditional notation, we’ll keep them. After all, they don’t cause us any harm….

Try playing through each note to get a feel for how they look in music notation. Nothing has changed about the way these notes are laid out on the piano keyboard. Music notation is just another way of showing us the same patterns. In fact, a little practice here will go a long way. As you play, check out the connection between the notes on the instrument and the notes on the musical staves. Just as you might expect … they are identical.