Rainbow Music – using the whole pencil case

I love to colour. The mindless rhythmic motion as you fill in the white spaces with a rainbow of hues is satisfying and calming. You know when you go to a restaurant and the wait staff gives your kids a page to colour and a handful of crayons to keep them busy while they wait for their meals? Well, I am the one who ends up colouring. I do have to say that I find it frustrating when they give you a package with nothing but the three primary colours.  How can you colour a half decent picture with only red, blue and yellow?! How can you colour a tree with that? How can you show the whisps of purple and pink and orange in a sunset? The same is true when making music. It is important to use the whole spectrum of colour when playing. Red, blue and yellow just won’t cut it. I need the whole box of crayons.

In any piece of music you will find dynamic markings. These are added to direct the performer to increase or decrease volume, alter tone, or to lean on one voice or the other.  They are like the composer’s pencil crayons. The melody and rhythm create a black and white sketch  and all of the other markings help the performer to add a rainbow of colour to the picture.

Imagine then, that each dynamic marking is a different coloured pencil crayon; forte – blue   piano – pink   mf – green  mp- orange  fortissimo- purple  pianissimo-yellow. The variety of colours can take a piece of music from sounding alright to making your hair stand on end beautiful!

Sometimes, however, a piece will have little in the way of markings, leaving the artistry to the performer. There may be 4 lines that are marked forte. Should all four lines of music be played “blue” ?  I challenge my students to dig deeper into the “pencil case”. How many different shades of blue are there? Each of those shades represent a different sound in the spectrum that is “forte”. A two line forte section of music doesn’t mean that it should all sound the same. You could have a royal blue, peacock blue and periwinkle blue all within the first two bars. By changing the weight of your fingers, arms and shoulders and back you can create differing tones that pull your listener in and begin to paint a picture- tell a story.

Colour your music beautiful.  Create a music rainbow and turn your pieces into works of art.