In this talk I progress semi-historically from the potential model as applied to heavy onia states to the QCD string dynamics of light quark mesons. The virtues and problems of the potential model are reviewed. Some of the difficulties are solved by the introduction of QCD string confinement. The method of solving string models numerically is outlined and some recent analytic results are discussed. We end by exploring some consequences of the model and how the observed light quark mesons can be classified simply.