Unlocking the Power of the Color Score
Estimated reading time 11 minutes
Table of Contents
Why Color Code Music?
Do you have a hard time reading music? Do you have a music student who just can’t seem to read notes? A few years ago, I had a student with amnesia who would forget everything she had learned from the previous lesson. Amy (her name has been changed) had survived a car accident and suffered extensive brain damage. Nevertheless, color coding music notation helped her find success.
The accident left her with motor control issues on her left side and issues with the left side of her vision. However, the biggest problem was that she did not retain new experiences in long term memory.
In music lessons an instructor teaches a concept or skill and builds upon that the next week, and the week after, etc. However, that was not possible with Amy. Nonetheless, with color coding applied to the score, she was able to learn beginner level piano music with hands together. Moreover, her success is not unique.
According to Rogers, the LD, ADD, ASD, and special needs students in his study had no success at reading music without color. However, with it they played as well or better than the typical learner students.
For practical examples, read:
- Color Coded Quarter Note Clapping
- Playing the Piano with Color Coded Notes (right hand)
- Playing Piano with Color Coded Left Hand Notes
- How to Color Code Tab for LD Achievement (guitar)
- How to Color Code Notes for Successful LD & Special Needs Distance Learning
For graduating from the colors:
- How to Graduate from Color Coded Music Notes – Part I
- How to Graduate from the Color Coded Sheet Music – Part II
Video: How Effective is Color Coding?
The Approach to Color Coding Music
When using color, most music teachers only color code the notes. In supplementary blogs, I likewise show you how to color code the notes for distance education. However, I also explain how to color code:
- rhythm
- form
- alternate picking
- articulations
- tablature
- accents
- fingering
- hand icons
- instruments (guitar & keyboard)
- clefs
- key signatures
- note head extenders
- musical diagrams
- eighth notes
- rests
Each blog post focuses on only one aspect of color coding music notation. Moreover, the posts are quick and to the point.
The Problem: LD & Reversable Symbols
Winner, West, Miles, Davis, and Silverman all state that students with visual-spatial ability can have LD, be gifted, or both.
The ability to control images in the mind in three dimensions can have a huge impact on reading music. Jaarsma found the reading error that typical learners made most often was confusing notes a second apart: C & D, D & E, etc.
The students with LD also made second errors. However, they confused notes a third apart as well: E & G, F & A, and so on.
Davis states that children with visual spatial talents can see their imaginations as if it is real. Consequently, an LD child’s subconscious ability to mentally switch the line and space notes on the staff creates problems when score reading, making sense of the results in Jaarsma’s study.
Westcombe describes what LD musicians see when they look at a musical score. “… [the] notation sometimes appears to fall away from the horizontal or seems watery” (12). Unless dealt with, most LD students with strong visual spatial skills will be unable to read music at all.
Video: What is it Like to be Dyslexic?
The Solution: Color Coding Music for Successful Score Reading
Color coding music brings success to LD students, because it works with the student’s strengths. Color creates visual labels for the notes, and colored rhythm greatly reduces the information a student needs to process.
At one end of the music education spectrum sits the Suzuki method. Suzuki emphasizes learning by ear first and introduces music notation later. Conversely, at the other end sits western music education. Westerners stress learning the notation before learning the music.
In the first case, some students become upset when their playing ability far exceeds their ability to read notes. In the second case, if students struggle with the notation, they can be cut off from learning music at all.
However, color coding creates a middle ground. Students can play right away without being entirely dependent on the score to learn music. At the same time, they interact with the score in meaningful ways.
This is done through the prepared score – sometimes called an adapted score. The basic idea is color is applied to the sheet music in various ways. This aids in learning the music and also in learning musical concepts.
Many sources support the notion that children respond to color when used in general education:
- Gattegno (1963)
- Pollock (1965)
- Goldenberg (1970)
- Papy and Papy (1970)
- Green (1970)
- Bradford (1974)
- Burns (1975)
- Ewbank and Ginther (1975)
Moreover, color has been a part of music education for as long as there has been music notation. “Color, as a reading aid in music, is as old as the music staff. The medieval staff had the F line colored red and the C line colored yellow or green, while the other two lines were black” (Read 10 – 11).
Modern music education also uses color coded music. As an example, Margaret Hubicki invented the “colour staff.”
The Research on Color Coded Music
Typical Learners
Rogers studied the effect of color coded pitch notation when used to teach 5th and 6th grade brass and woodwind students.
He noted. “… students in the experimental [color trained] and the control [not color trained] groups combined scored higher on the sight-reading task when reading the color-coded notation than when reading the uncolored notation…” (68).
He goes on to state. “A positive affective influence was noted for the color-coded notation when 65% of all subjects favored the color-coded notation as easier to play…” (72).
In addition, Rogers studied the effect of colored rhythmic notation when used to teach 1st and 2nd graders.
Also, he states. “It seems the colored notation increased the student’s affective involvement in the academic task of reading music, with nearly 80% of the students preferring the experimental notation.
“This in itself might be of interest to practitioners who value music literacy and want to make music more appealing to elementary students” (23 – 24).
It is clear from these statements that young music students respond strongly when using color as a teaching tool. In other words, they responded to the color coded music to successfully sight read the music.
Furthermore, over time typical learners will graduate from the color coding.
Special Needs and LD Students
Many LD and most special needs students will fail to read the notes without color as an aid. However, they succeed when using color coded music.
Rogers states. “Not only did the learning-disabled and educably mentally handicapped students in the experimental group score much higher on the tasks that involved the color-coded notation than on the uncolored notation, but it also appeared that the color-coded notation enabled them to score as high as or higher than the other students…
“The same students scored rather high [Mean = 10.5] when sight-reading color-coded notation and yet were completely unable to sight-read the uncolored notation, with each student scoring 0 out of a possible 12” (70 – 72).
With the colors they read at a high level. However, without the colors they could not read at all. Use color coding and LD and autistic students will learn music.
Gradually, the colors will be phased out for most LD students, and some but not all, special needs students.
Color works for instrument lessons, but for singing I recommend shape notes.
Shapes Notes: The “Color Coded Music” of Sight Singing
What are shape notes?
Comparable to the colored score, shape notes create a different, but similar-in-concept, visual symbol system for the pitches. Furthermore, shape notes are statistically proven to be effective for teaching students to sight sing.
Shape notes have been used in southern hymnody since 1789. It uses different shaped note heads (triangles, squares, etc.) to help singers to read in a moveable do solfege system. (For practical examples of shape notes see Shape Note Sight Singing Success.)
Mobile users: for best results, tilt your screen 90o to the right.
Shape Note Research
Kyme examined the effectiveness of the notation scheme.
He states. “The results of the post instruction test reveal that the experimental groups [shape notes] were superior to the control groups [non-shape notes] in each of the four paired situations.
“The probability that the differences in the means would occur solely through chance factors was less than one in a hundred in each of the four cases. Therefore, the null hypothesis must be rejected” (7).
In research, scientists look for a significantly large effect size. When they say significantly, the effect size needs to be large enough that there is little chance that it happened randomly.
This depends on the p-value: the smaller the p-value the stronger the evidence against the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis embodies the idea that the results occurred purely by chance.
Therefore, by saying the null hypotheses must be rejected, Kyme means that the effect was not the result of random chance.
The Impact of Shape Notes
Kyme later expands on the positive influence the notation had on the singers.
“The most interesting observation of all, however, was found in the seventh-grade registrations and requests for electives.
“At the junior high school to which three control and experimental groups were promoted, 63% of the students who were in the experimental group enrolled in seventh-grade glee club – an elective, before-school course.
“The average percentage from other elementary schools entering the school is less than 20%” (8).
Similar to color coded music, Kyme’s students really liked the shape notes, to the tune of a +43% larger enrollment than the rest of the school system.
Conclusion
Finale Music Notation Software colorizes notes and applies shape notes to the score for you. This makes it easy to create materials for students.
However, Siw Wood relates her experience of having LD while taking violin lessons that did not employ color coded music.
“…I expressed a desire to learn an instrument…. As I had a good ear I made progress and got through the whole of Book One of the exercises and simple tunes simply by copying the notes the teacher played on the piano.
“She had not enquired whether I could read music; she had assumed that I could, and I was far too inhibited to tell her I could not.
“One lesson into Book Two I played my first wrong note. ‘What note is that?’ she said. I made a wild guess – ‘B’. ‘No, of course not you stupid girl.’ There ended my violin lessons” (51).
On the other hand, both Amy’s story and Rogers’ research show the power of color coded notation. Without it, most special needs and LD students will have no avenue of approach for learning music. Unfortunately, too many students end up with experiences like Siw Wood’s.
Follow the color coding blogs in the Successful Music Student series for the specifics on color coding music for success.
Related Content:
- Lego Rhythm Manipulatives
- Special Needs Music Success
- Color Coded Quarter Rest Clapping
- Playing the Piano with Color Coded Notes
- Playing Piano with Color Coded Left Hand Notes
- How to Graduate from Color Coded Music Notes: Part I
- How to Graduate from the Color Coded Sheet Music: Part II
- How to Graduate from the Color Coded Music Score: Part III
- How to Deal with Students Who Act Out in Music Lessons
- Do Visual Spatial Thinkers and Other Neurodivergent Musicians Need to Have Sheet Music Tailored to How They Learn?
© 2020 Geoffrey Keith
Join me for in-person or online lessons.
Glossary
References
Bradford, C. L. “Keith’s Secret Discovery of the Sieve of Eratosthenes.” Arithmetic Teacher, March, 1974, pp. 239 – 241.
Burns, M. Ideas: Coloring squares. Arithmetic Teacher, February, 1975, pp. 124 – 125.
Davis, Ronald D., and Eldon M. Braun. The Gift of Dyslexia. Perigee, 1997.
Davis, Ronald D., and Eldon M. Braun. The Gift of Learning. Perigee, 2003.
Ewbank, W.A., & Ginther, J.L. “Math lab activities – Colorful squares.” School Science and Mathematics, vol. 75, 1975, pp. 739 – 742.
Gattegno, C. For the Teaching of Elementary Mathematics. Cuisenaire Company of America, 1963.
Green, R. “A Color-Coded Method of Teaching Basic Arithmetic Concepts and Procedures.” Arithmetic Teacher, 1970, pp. 231-233.
Goldenberg, E.P. “Scrutinizing Number Charts.” Arithmetic Teacher, December, 1970, pp. 645 – 653.
Hubicki, Margaret. “A Multisensory Approach to the Teaching of Musical Notation.” Music and Dyslexia: Opening New Doors, edited by T.R. Miles and John Westcombe, Whurr, 2001, pp. 85-100.
Hubicki, Margaret. “Musical Problems? Reflections and Suggestions.” Dyslexia Matters, edited by Gerald Hales, Whurr, 1994, pp. 184 – 198.
Jaarsma, B., A.J.J.M. Ruijssenaars, and W. Van den Broeck. “Dyslexia and Learning Musical Notation: A Pilot Study.” Chart. Annals of Dyslexia: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Orton Dyslexia Society, vol. 48, 1998, Figure 2.
Kyme, George H. “An Experiment in Teaching Children to Read Music with Shape Notes.” Journal of Research in Music Education, vol. 8, no. 1, 1960, pp. 3-8.
Miles, T.R. “The Manifestations of Dyslexia, Its Biological Bases, and Its Effects on
Daily Living.” Music and Dyslexia: Opening New Doors, edited by T.R. Miles and John
Westcombe, Whurr, 2004, p. 3-5.
Papy, F. Mathematics and the Child. Algonquin Publishing, 1971.
Papy, F. “Nebuchadnezzar, Seller of Newspapers: An Introduction to Some Applied Mathematics.” Arithmetic Teacher, April, 1974, pp. 278 – 285.
Papy, F., and G. Papy. Graphs and the Child. Algonquin Publishing, 1970.
Pollock, S. The Basic Colour-Factor Guide. Heinemann Educational Books, 1965.
Read, Gardner. Music Notation: A Manual of Modern Practice. 2nd ed., Taplinger, 1969.
Rogers, George L. “Effect of Color-Coded Notation on Music Achievement of Elementary Instrumental Students”. Journal of Research in Music Education, vol. 39, no. 1, 1991, pp. 64–73.
Rogers, George L. “Effect of Colored Rhythmic Notation on Music-Reading Skills of Elementary Students.” Journal of Research in Music Education, vol. 44, no. 1, 1996, pp. 15–25.
Silverman, Linda K. “Visual Spatial Learners: An Introduction.” Gifted Development. www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm. Accessed 29 June 2000.
Silverman, Linda K. Gifted Development. www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm . Accessed 5 January 2006.
West, Thomas G. In The Mind’s Eye. Prometheus, 1997.
Westcombe, John. “How Dyslexia Can Affect Musicians.” Music and Dyslexia:
Opening New Doors, edited by T.R. Miles and John Westcombe, Whurr, 2004, pp. 9-17.
Winner, Ellen. Gifted Children. Basic Books, 1996.
Wood, Siw. “My experience with the problem of reading music.” Music and Dyslexia: Opening New Doors, edited by T.R. Miles and John Westcombe, Whurr, 2004, pp. 51-52.
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