16 ms·

This is neat, of course. Yet, being classically trained myself and a software engineer, both for 30 years, I have yet to find an alternative music notation sys

This is neat, of course. Yet, being classically trained myself and a software engineer, both for 30 years, I have yet to find an alternative music notation system that would make me proclaim I would use it. When I look at a traditional score I see and hear the music in my mind pretty much instantly. There is zero cognitive load, at least at the conscious level. With any kind of text-based notation you have to read text. Another point, perhaps minor, I think I can say that most of the world does not learn notes as "CDE" but rather "do" "re" "mi". That's certainly how I learned it because I did not study music in the US. Perhaps you've accounted for this? For me paper and pencil is still the best approach and the most natural experience. Notation is a powerful tool, in fact it is a tool for thought. I learned this in CS when I studied APL and used the language professionally for nearly ten years. Music very naturally lends itself to a sophisticated notation. I am not sure taking that away can ever produce a better outcome. Someone more qualified on the subject can probably explain why it is our brains have evolved to be "tuned" for notation. My hypothesis is we evolved powerful image recognition capabilities coupled with high speed classification and semantic processing. We can instantly recognize shapes (predators, something flying towards you, etc.) decide what it is, access a library giving us options and decide how to react. All of that in a very small fraction of a second. Notation benefits from us having developed such capabilities in our brains. It isn't my intent to criticize this effort. Without attempting new ideas there can never be any progress. Kudos for trying. I'll end with a question: What would you say is the use case for Alda?

sampl 11y ago
> why it is our brains have evolved to be "tuned" for notation I'm not sure they are tuned--is there any reason you say this beyond personal experience? Music notation is noriously difficult to learn for most people, and many non-classical musicians avoid it entirely. Maybe it's just self-selection. Those with a natural gift for reading are likely to become classically trained musicians, and those without it are likely to find other means of creative expression.
- gtani 11y ago
  i think pianists, string, woodwind and guitar players look at scores differently, they visualize them and start recruiting motor skills ahead of time. WHen i look at a Bach score as a pianist, i just kind of flow thru it, if i see it as a guitar score, i think of the simplest fingering patterns (CAGED patterns are the simplest framework), a woodwind player wants to pinpoint the large intervals and octave breaks and other difficulties where intonation and tone become tricky (whereas with somebody laying out a c++ project or studying Baby Rudin (real analysis), you can't explain it in terms of muscle memory
- mkorfmann 11y ago
  I guess the OP just got used to reading notation and now thinks it's natural for him to read notation.
- rebootthesystem 11y ago
  > I'm not sure they are tuned I think you took what I said too literally. I explained that my hypothesis was that --over millions of years-- our brains evolved excellent pattern matching and semantic association capabilities for various reasons. For example, quick recognition of predators, food, danger, falling rocks, sounds, language, etc. I am proposing that it is this capability --evolved for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with math, music or other notation-- that makes us really good at using notation to quickly communicate and receive a range of things. A road sign can communicate a turn or the potential for falling rocks or danger with a simple symbol. I think our brains evolved capabilities that just happened to also make them really good at notation, hence my use of the term "tuned". It isn't that our brains are specifically tuned for musical notation or that a particular gift is required for this, we are good at this due to millions of years of evolving a set of capabilities that make us good at it because they are, for lack of a better term, symbiotic. > Music notation is noriously difficult to learn for most people That is simply not true. Don't equate not making an effort to it being difficult. Five year old's are learning musical notation at school every day. It's easy. You just have to put in the effort AND practice. > and many non-classical musicians avoid it entirely. Because they don't want to put in the effort. I know many. They simply have no interest in doing the work. And, in most cases, they suffer for it because they can't advance past the stage they are on. Yes, musical prodigies who can't read a single note do exist. That's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of 1% of the billions who approach music at any level. In other words, an aberration. Coding is easy. But it requires effort. People who can't code (my wife, for example) are not missing a gene or neural connections. They either lack the interest to learn or don't want to put in the requisite work. To say that only certain people can learn to code is just plain wrong. > Maybe it's just self-selection. Those with a natural gift for reading are likely to become classically trained musicians Reading traditional musical notation does not imply one is classically trained. My three kids can read notation just fine and play piano, saxophone and guitar. They are not classically trained. They are learning about music in a fun and relaxed way both in school and at home. And all of it is firmly rooted in having use of a notation that enables them to read, write and communicate music. The band at the local middle school has a bunch of kids who communicate through traditional musical notation, some having never had any music training at all. If a five year old can do it there's no excuse for an adult not to unless there's something fundamentally wrong at some cognitive level that truly prevents them from learning notation. I would suspect such a person would have far serious problems in life than not being able to read music. Every single frustrated musician I've ever met has exactly the same problem: can't read music and lack of discipline to develop technically and musically. Notation is the foundation upon which the rest builds because, historically, this is how music has been taught and this is how you communicate and read everything from the first scales you play up to the score for the Brandenburg Concerto's. I don't have a problem with alternative notations. Many have been tried. Whether they are for data entry or performance is semantics. It's music notation. And none have yet proven to do a better job than traditional notation. I'm happy to be wrong on this point but if you've ever read an orchestral score I challenge you to do better with any other notation. Pretty tall order. Someone mentioned forms of music that don't quite fit traditional western notation. Well, it's a given, there are edge cases that don't fit traditional solutions. I say, live long and prosper. Use whatever works for that type of music. That means absolutely nothing when it comes to what we are discussing.
coldtea 11y ago
>This is neat, of course. Yet, being classically trained myself and a software engineer, both for 30 years, I have yet to find an alternative music notation system that would make me proclaim I would use it. Emm, this is not an "alternative music notation system" meant for musicians to read music in. It's an entry method for writing MIDI (and therefore alo getting standard notation output). >Someone more qualified on the subject can probably explain why it is our brains have evolved to be "tuned" for notation. They haven't. You're just used to it. Tons of self-tought musicians can't handle it, even though they're virtuoso players on their own. Besides, the brain doesn't "evolve" in the Darwinian sense in the span of mere centuries that we have had our modern music notation. It takes tens of thousands of years for something like that -- and only if reading notation provides any evolutionary benefit to not reading it.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  >It's an entry method for writing MIDI. I'd suggest no one needs yet another text-to-MIDI system. There are plenty of existing methods that do the job just fine - from live recording, to step entry, to any of the hundred or so text-based systems that have been (re)invented since the 1950s. (And which hardly anyone uses, because for most people - even most programmers - ASCII turns out to be a really clumsy and difficult way to write a non-trivial score.)
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >I'd suggest no one needs yet another text-to-MIDI system. Well, I need one. What are you gonna do about it? >And which hardly anyone uses, because for most people - even most programmers - ASCII turns out to be a really clumsy and difficult way to write a non-trivial score. Check again. There are large communities around cli tools for music, especially in electronic and experiemental scenes.
    - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
      >What are you gonna do about it? Suggest you look at abc2MIDI, which has been around since 2002: http://abc.sourceforge.net/abcMIDI/original/README.txt http://abc.sourceforge.net/abcMIDI/original/README.txt >There are large communities around cli tools for music, Actually there aren't. The biggest community is around Max, with PD a close second, and both are dataflow languages, not clis, although they have code affordances. Most musicians don't get on with cli's at all. (I know this because I've sometimes tried to teach them.) Judging by mailing list volumes, actual volunteer user numbers - i.e. excluding students who have to learn them on courses before giving them up - are in the hundreds of users for each of the most popular clis, as a world wide total. Trackers are a lot more popular - but they're a different subculture. In any case, ALDA is barely a cli for music - it's a very simple ASCII music specification with a bare bones GM runtime, and it has some important features missing. (n-tuplets or chord symbols or key signatures?) For a non-trivial cli look at Common Music, Csound, SuperCollider, Overtone (which runs on Clojure), ChucK, Impromptu, or even Sonic Pi, all of which do quite a bit more.

sampl 11y ago

> why it is our brains have evolved to be "tuned" for notation I'm not sure they are tuned--is there any reason you say this beyond personal experience? Music notation is noriously difficult to learn for most people, and many non-classical musicians avoid it entirely. Maybe it's just self-selection. Those with a natural gift for reading are likely to become classically trained musicians, and those without it are likely to find other means of creative expression.

gtani 11y ago
i think pianists, string, woodwind and guitar players look at scores differently, they visualize them and start recruiting motor skills ahead of time. WHen i look at a Bach score as a pianist, i just kind of flow thru it, if i see it as a guitar score, i think of the simplest fingering patterns (CAGED patterns are the simplest framework), a woodwind player wants to pinpoint the large intervals and octave breaks and other difficulties where intonation and tone become tricky (whereas with somebody laying out a c++ project or studying Baby Rudin (real analysis), you can't explain it in terms of muscle memory
mkorfmann 11y ago
I guess the OP just got used to reading notation and now thinks it's natural for him to read notation.
rebootthesystem 11y ago
> I'm not sure they are tuned I think you took what I said too literally. I explained that my hypothesis was that --over millions of years-- our brains evolved excellent pattern matching and semantic association capabilities for various reasons. For example, quick recognition of predators, food, danger, falling rocks, sounds, language, etc. I am proposing that it is this capability --evolved for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with math, music or other notation-- that makes us really good at using notation to quickly communicate and receive a range of things. A road sign can communicate a turn or the potential for falling rocks or danger with a simple symbol. I think our brains evolved capabilities that just happened to also make them really good at notation, hence my use of the term "tuned". It isn't that our brains are specifically tuned for musical notation or that a particular gift is required for this, we are good at this due to millions of years of evolving a set of capabilities that make us good at it because they are, for lack of a better term, symbiotic. > Music notation is noriously difficult to learn for most people That is simply not true. Don't equate not making an effort to it being difficult. Five year old's are learning musical notation at school every day. It's easy. You just have to put in the effort AND practice. > and many non-classical musicians avoid it entirely. Because they don't want to put in the effort. I know many. They simply have no interest in doing the work. And, in most cases, they suffer for it because they can't advance past the stage they are on. Yes, musical prodigies who can't read a single note do exist. That's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of 1% of the billions who approach music at any level. In other words, an aberration. Coding is easy. But it requires effort. People who can't code (my wife, for example) are not missing a gene or neural connections. They either lack the interest to learn or don't want to put in the requisite work. To say that only certain people can learn to code is just plain wrong. > Maybe it's just self-selection. Those with a natural gift for reading are likely to become classically trained musicians Reading traditional musical notation does not imply one is classically trained. My three kids can read notation just fine and play piano, saxophone and guitar. They are not classically trained. They are learning about music in a fun and relaxed way both in school and at home. And all of it is firmly rooted in having use of a notation that enables them to read, write and communicate music. The band at the local middle school has a bunch of kids who communicate through traditional musical notation, some having never had any music training at all. If a five year old can do it there's no excuse for an adult not to unless there's something fundamentally wrong at some cognitive level that truly prevents them from learning notation. I would suspect such a person would have far serious problems in life than not being able to read music. Every single frustrated musician I've ever met has exactly the same problem: can't read music and lack of discipline to develop technically and musically. Notation is the foundation upon which the rest builds because, historically, this is how music has been taught and this is how you communicate and read everything from the first scales you play up to the score for the Brandenburg Concerto's. I don't have a problem with alternative notations. Many have been tried. Whether they are for data entry or performance is semantics. It's music notation. And none have yet proven to do a better job than traditional notation. I'm happy to be wrong on this point but if you've ever read an orchestral score I challenge you to do better with any other notation. Pretty tall order. Someone mentioned forms of music that don't quite fit traditional western notation. Well, it's a given, there are edge cases that don't fit traditional solutions. I say, live long and prosper. Use whatever works for that type of music. That means absolutely nothing when it comes to what we are discussing.

coldtea 11y ago

>This is neat, of course. Yet, being classically trained myself and a software engineer, both for 30 years, I have yet to find an alternative music notation system that would make me proclaim I would use it. Emm, this is not an "alternative music notation system" meant for musicians to read music in. It's an entry method for writing MIDI (and therefore alo getting standard notation output). >Someone more qualified on the subject can probably explain why it is our brains have evolved to be "tuned" for notation. They haven't. You're just used to it. Tons of self-tought musicians can't handle it, even though they're virtuoso players on their own. Besides, the brain doesn't "evolve" in the Darwinian sense in the span of mere centuries that we have had our modern music notation. It takes tens of thousands of years for something like that -- and only if reading notation provides any evolutionary benefit to not reading it.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
>It's an entry method for writing MIDI. I'd suggest no one needs yet another text-to-MIDI system. There are plenty of existing methods that do the job just fine - from live recording, to step entry, to any of the hundred or so text-based systems that have been (re)invented since the 1950s. (And which hardly anyone uses, because for most people - even most programmers - ASCII turns out to be a really clumsy and difficult way to write a non-trivial score.)
- coldtea 11y ago
  >I'd suggest no one needs yet another text-to-MIDI system. Well, I need one. What are you gonna do about it? >And which hardly anyone uses, because for most people - even most programmers - ASCII turns out to be a really clumsy and difficult way to write a non-trivial score. Check again. There are large communities around cli tools for music, especially in electronic and experiemental scenes.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    >What are you gonna do about it? Suggest you look at abc2MIDI, which has been around since 2002: http://abc.sourceforge.net/abcMIDI/original/README.txt http://abc.sourceforge.net/abcMIDI/original/README.txt >There are large communities around cli tools for music, Actually there aren't. The biggest community is around Max, with PD a close second, and both are dataflow languages, not clis, although they have code affordances. Most musicians don't get on with cli's at all. (I know this because I've sometimes tried to teach them.) Judging by mailing list volumes, actual volunteer user numbers - i.e. excluding students who have to learn them on courses before giving them up - are in the hundreds of users for each of the most popular clis, as a world wide total. Trackers are a lot more popular - but they're a different subculture. In any case, ALDA is barely a cli for music - it's a very simple ASCII music specification with a bare bones GM runtime, and it has some important features missing. (n-tuplets or chord symbols or key signatures?) For a non-trivial cli look at Common Music, Csound, SuperCollider, Overtone (which runs on Clojure), ChucK, Impromptu, or even Sonic Pi, all of which do quite a bit more.