Okay, can you name this face?
I’ll give you three hints:
- He was a monk
- He lived during the Middle Ages
- He’s one of the most famous musicians who ever lived
That’s right … it’s Guido d’Arezzo—the guy who invented modern (black-and-white) musical notation. He lived from about 995 to 1050 A.D. And, in his time, he came up with some pretty big innovations. The biggest, of course, was his brainchild, the musical staff. Which his statue is kindly pointing out below:
Before Guido developed staff lines, musicians had a hard time remembering which notes to sing or play. Their only real option was to memorize the songs they learned … and that took a very long time. So to help out, Guido designed a system that let people actually see the notes of a song written on paper.
At first, his system was rejected by the musicians and monks of his time. In fact, the hate was so bad that he actually was forced to move to a new town (!). But eventually, notation caught on. And when Pope John XIX became a fan and supporter, suddenly everyone wanted to be Guido’s friend. As the story goes, Pope John was totally excited when he saw how easy it was to learn new melodies using this thing called “music notation.”
… Now, let’s fast forward 1,000 years—that’s right, ONE THOUSAND YEARS—and people still call Guido’s design “modern” music notation. I mean, it’s a pretty good system and all. But seriously … no one has improved upon this medieval invention? For ONE THOUSAND YEARS?! Wow. It’s a wonder we don’t still use things like the Model T, 8-tracks, or typewriters.
But then again, maybe it’s just that traditional notation was always only good enough. After all, it’s been the best we’ve had … until now, that is. Because, with Color Music, life is finally truly modern. And musicians are moving ahead at light speed.
Back in the day, Guido d’Arezzo declared that his “new” system dramatically reduced the amount of time it took to become a musician. Instead of 10 years, he said it would take only one (1) year. Now, with Color Music, that year has been turned into months—or even weeks. Which means learning music has never been faster … or more fun.