Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a sonnet that begins:  How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. It is one of my favorites and one I re-read frequently. Instead of counting the ways, today I count notes.

There was once a television show called Name That Tune which my Beloved and I enjoyed watching. Because my Beloved can come up with some of the most surprisingly bizarre song lyrics and I’ve memorized a good bit of music, whenever we watched the show, it was always a challenge to see which of us could outshine the television competitors.

According to the rules of the show (as I remember them), contestants were given a maximum of seven notes (played instrumentally) before being asked to Name That Tune. It requires amazing ability to identify a tune based on seven or fewer notes but these contestants did it time after time.

Another aspect of the show:  when both contestants decided they were up for the challenge, they would out-bid each other by offering to identify a piece of music with fewer notes than his/her opponent. Test yourself; see how many of your favorite and familiar songs you can identify in seven notes or less. It’s rarely easy.

With tonight’s sonnet I adapted the concept of Name That Tune, played with it a bit and created a love poem.