WYSIWYP Simplified Notation

Color-coded chord intervals

To make reading intervals even more recognizable with WYSIWYP, there is a color-coding User Preference option in the WYSIWYP sheet music app, SNapp, that explicitly identifies the intervals between noteheads in a chord. The notehead of the lowest note in the chord, is always black. The color of each notehead above the that is set by the interval between it and the one below it. Yellow is defined to be an interval of three semitones and green an interval of four. In this example, it’s easy to see the intervals of 3 and 4 as yellow and green, despite the inconsistent notehead shapes and position on the staff.

Beginners are still more likely to play these single interval chords by identifying both the bottom and top notes and playing them accordingly since they have not yet learned to “automatically” play intervals. However, musicians with more experience may be able to play intervals of different length intuitively (thanks to muscle memory and lots of playing experience) and could use this feature to play the chord based on the lowest note and the interval. Here are a few more examples in measures 3 and 4 illustrating different chord “looks” having the same interval.

With two-note chords, this still does not really buy one a whole lot because one still must take two factors into account in order to play the chord: either read both noteheads individually, or read the lowest note and the color-coded interval. However, it may indeed be helpful with chords with more than one interval.