Composing A Memo

Pencils and memo pads are often used as advertising media, but another common use is personal expression.
They go hand-in-hand, literally, and are useful as well as decorative.
Here are some designed with musicians in mind.

PENCILS

This pencil depicts the familiar black-and-white pattern of a musical keyboard.
They wrap all the way around the pencil.
Most of us probably think piano, but such keyboards are also found on
organs, harpsichords, clavinets, celestes, accordians, hooters, etc.

This is a transverse flute, or french flute, meaning played horizontally.
Appropriately, the manufacturer used sliver-colored paint.
Unlike many depicions of woodwinds, the detail here is accurate rather than simplified.

There are actually two trombone images on this pencil, one sort of piggybacking the other.
So from this vantage point, you can get the full picture between the two of them.
You get the detail right down to the water key, commonly known as the "spit valve."

MEMO PADS

This pad is very symbolic.
First of all, it is only 3 or 4 inches in any dimension, so it is for short notes.
It depicts eighth notes, which are indeed "short notes."
The background is rainbow-like, implying the full spectrum of musical pitches.
(Musical tones and visible colors are two different ranges of electromagnetic waves.)

A partial spectrum is shown on this pad, which depicts two of the most recognizable symbols in music:
The G clef sign on a staff, making this a a treble clef setup.
There is also a repeat sign, of sorts; the two dots should be followed by two vertical lines.

This memo pad is "headed" by a conductor, as is a typical symphony orchestra.
It enables the notemaker to write on the lines of four staves, organizing the message into four paragraphs!

Perfect for grocery lists, this pad features three Canadian musicians.
It's possible that the cartoonist was working from a reversed image,
since the sax players hands are switched and the guitarist is backward.
Don't even ask me to make sense of of the clarinet player's hand position.

~ FURTHER READING ~

One of my guitar students used to make memo pads for me every year.