(… continued from “Color Code, part 1“)

The old, medieval system of notation was sloppy … at best. The reason, my friends, has to do with the difference between linear and cyclical patterns. (Yes, that sounds geeky and technical. But it actually makes a lot of sense.)

You see, music is really all about cyclical patterns. Or patterns that repeat and cycle over again and again. Think of any composition by Bach and you know what I mean. Swirling, cascading patterns that have no beginning and no end. Just limitless, fluid strands of music that weave in and out, clean and symmetrical. This cyclical nature is a hallmark of music.

We can actually see this pattern on a piano keyboard. It’s just the same 12 keys repeated from low notes on the left … to high notes on the right.

Because this pattern is cyclical, we can easily wrap these notes into a circle, like this:

See what I mean? Music is just a repeating pattern—plain and simple.

The trouble starts when we throw letters and numbers into the mix. Because—unlike musical notes—these symbols are linear. So they can add more confusion than clarity.

A perfect example is the basic number line. (It’s even called a “line,” which means it is linear.) From left to right, this pattern rises from very low numbers to very high numbers. It’s like a long railroad track—straight and rigid.

Of course, we can try to wrap these numbers into a circle, like we did with the piano keyboard pattern. But we get a very different result. And it’s definitely not a cyclical pattern. Instead, what we get is something like an ordinary clock.

We start at a low number (1) and then work our way up to a high number (12) … only to drop back down to a low number (1) again. It’s a weird and unnatural pattern. And when we apply these numbers to music, the poor fit becomes even more obvious. While the musical pattern repeats seamlessly, the number labels look choppy and awkward.