Okay, so color is simple. There are just 12 colors in the color wheel and we all know how they work. You’ve got primaries … and secondaries … and tertiaries. Oh yeah, and there are complementary colors, too. It’s basic, really.

As it turns out, music patterns are just as simple—seriously. They just look a little strange. Colors are easy to see because our eyes naturally understand them. But musical notes, on the other hand, got a bad deal. It’s unfair, really. Over the centuries, musical patterns were slowly hidden under a layer of letters, numbers, and symbols. And we can thank a few medieval monks for that.

To make sense of music, we just have to bring those patterns to the surface. And that’s what Color Music is all about. It makes musical patterns easy to see. And, honestly, they look awesome  … like some ancient mosaic that’s been waiting under a layer of dust. (In fact, I get all excited just thinking about it.)

But before we can really unearth musical patterns—and get them out into the sunlight—we have to look at three basic note patterns:

1. The Chromatic Scale
2. The Major Scale
3. The Circle of Fifths

Think of these patterns as the three doors that lead to Color Music. Once we’ve passed through all of them, it gets really good.

Of course, we could just start looking at musical patterns right now … in color. But to really make sense of things, it helps to have a little background in music. Nothing crazy, of course. Just a quick look at notes and how they work. And we’ll do this the old-fashioned way: in black and white.

It’s all very simple. And once we have Color Music, we’ll really appreciate how easy life gets. So first off, the chromatic scale….