Close-up of a black fine line tattoo of musical notes and staff lines on the inside of an ear, with a white earphone and a stud earring nearby.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Musical notes tattoo on the ear

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows several beamed musical notes linked to wavy staff lines that curve across the inner ear. The linework is solid black and fairly thin, with no shading, and it sits against the natural skin tone. The ear fills most of the frame, with a white earphone and a small stud earring visible beside it on a dark blurred background.

Fine line Other Music note Staff lines Ear

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The proving cabinet has been a half-tone flat since Easter, and I can tell you exactly which note it sits on. Middle C with a sigh in it. Gerry says we should have the fan seen to, but I like the hum. It is the first sound of the day that doesn't need me to be awake for it, and at twenty to five that is a mercy.

Keep reading

Ruth pinned the rota to the corkboard by the scales, though she wrote it on the back of an old hymn sheet, the staves still faint under her biro. Four names sat on the lines as quavers for the early shifts, and the rolls and tins were rests. She said it was the only way anyone would read it properly. Kenny, on his first Saturday, took one look and asked whether the cobs were crotchets or minims, and Ruth laughed so hard she had to sit down on a flour sack.

By five the windows had gone from black to the colour of weak tea. Ruth's old transistor sat on the sill, tuned to the shipping forecast, and I kept the volume low so the dough could think. When the forecast ended a flute came in, thin and sure of itself, and I found I had been tapping the rhythm on the bench with two floury fingers, the way she used to tap the counter at the end of a shift.

The last tray came out at a quarter to six. I set the loaves in a row along the rack, each one a little apart, like notes waiting for a bar line. The first van pulled up outside with its headlights still on. I did not go to the door straight away. I stood a moment longer with my hand on the warm crust and let the cabinet finish its one flat note.