Accelerating music literacy

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Music Rounds

In the lates 1960's, Candida produced a series of children's nursery rhymes in graphic form. These were designed on squared paper - each square depicting a quarter note, so four squares represent a whole note, etc. These graphs made children aware of the pattern that is found in music. Also the tones and semitones are clearly visible, far more so than in conventional notation.


Psalm 134	Prelude in A major, by Chopin	Minuet in C, by Bach

Candida developed the graphic representations to produce these circular graphs in the 1970's and 1980's. They are large circular designs made up of many concentric circles, with lines representing the distances of tones and semitones, and each of the segments of the circle representing a single bar of music.

If, for instance, the music were in 4/4 time, a whole note would take up the complete segment and the half note just half, and so on. The pitch of the note is accurately denoted by its position given by the tone and semitone circular lines, and by their colour. The harmonies can be seen by the colour combination of each segment.

One of Candida's discoveries when presenting music in this way is that each graph produces a pattern that is unique to a particular composer. Just by looking at one, it is possible to say which composer's music it is depicting.

A recent exhibition of the music rounds, at St. John's Arts and Recreation Centre, Old Harlow, Essex. April 2007