FootNotes was created and written by Greg Varlotta, a jazz musician who performed at Disneyland for over 20 years. Greg began tapping in 1998, when he befriended a tap dancer at Disneyland. Because of his formal education in music, Greg was able to learn tap steps faster by writing them down as rhythms on traditional music paper. He took that idea and developed an entire system to express tap dance steps on a musical staff. He named his system FootNotes, and decided it was something that other tap students might benefit from.