3 ms·

One attempt was Hummingbird. http://www.hummingbirdnotation.com http://www.hummingbirdnotation.com

GirlsCanCode 10y ago
You can't read ahead easily with it. Totally useless.
ludston 10y ago
Which in durations are represented spacially, which in my opinion has two negative effects. The first is that spacial recognition takes more effort than symbol recognition, because it's comparative. The second, and more important being that complex sequences of notes will be very dense on the page, and simple sequences of notes will take up a lot of space on the page, so suddenly there is a tradeoff between having sheet music that doesn't take 10 pages, and having enough space to represent hemi-demi-semiquaver sequences when they inevitably appear somewhere.
- Ericson2314 10y ago
  Yeah wtf. Like I don't think current notation is perfect by any means (and I am a PLer, I love new representations) but this and every other replacement I've seen blatantly sucks. ....As with so many things, know what your disrupting! [In this case, I'd like to say go apprentice engraving if you are 100% serious.]
- acid__ 10y ago
  Your second point seems pretty valid, and to address your first point: "There are multiple cues to the same information. Everything has both a symbol and spatial element, for all kinds of thinkers." Indeed, in addition to the spatial length of the notes, there is also a symbol next to the notes denoting their life. You can see this on the linked page, in the second section. (Next to "Intuitive.")
- clentaminator 10y ago
  With Hummingbird's inclusion of a trailing line as part of the indicator of note duration you also have to read ahead in the score and then jump back if you want to use the trailing line to identify the duration, which is a lot harder than just identifying by local information in the form of a set of note tails and whether or not a note is filled in. While there are additional parts to the glyphs for half and whole notes, these aren't the dominant part of the symbol. Another question is whether or not the length of a trailing line is absolute or relative to the bar itself. On the subject of filled notes, Hummingbird is also conveying a lot of information that for performance of a score is useless. Note letters (A-G) aren't actually important for performance, only the action or position that they map to for each instrument. No musician parses a score and translates each note to a letter and then each letter to an action, instead going directly from note to action. Essentially, telling you the note letter with a glyph shape on top of the position on the stave is adding noise to the signal. I'll admit I'm coming at it from a position where I'm perfectly comfortable with traditional notation, so part of the reason that it appears difficult is simply because it's unfamiliar, however the terseness of traditional notation and ability to read in one "parse" without forward- and back-skipping seems to give it the advantage. That and over 300 years of existing music, too ;)
efnx 10y ago
Try writing hummingbird notation by hand though!
- mikestew 10y ago
  Their pages claims: "It’s quick and easy enough to write with an unsharpened pencil. You can scrawl it on a napkin in a pinch." I don't know if it's true or not, as I view Hummingbird to be fixing things that aren't broken (is the difference between a whole note and a half that hard to suss?) and doesn't fix the things that are.
  - taco_emoji 10y ago
    I think the more difficult part writing by hand would be the redundancies -- not only do I have to know which line to put the note on, I have to know which symbol to draw. Which could be tough, as it forces the composer to be consciously aware that e.g. "this note is D#" rather than "this note should be two steps above the previous note in the current key".

You can't read ahead easily with it. Totally useless.

Which in durations are represented spacially, which in my opinion has two negative effects. The first is that spacial recognition takes more effort than symbol recognition, because it's comparative. The second, and more important being that complex sequences of notes will be very dense on the page, and simple sequences of notes will take up a lot of space on the page, so suddenly there is a tradeoff between having sheet music that doesn't take 10 pages, and having enough space to represent hemi-demi-semiquaver sequences when they inevitably appear somewhere.

Ericson2314 10y ago
Yeah wtf. Like I don't think current notation is perfect by any means (and I am a PLer, I love new representations) but this and every other replacement I've seen blatantly sucks. ....As with so many things, know what your disrupting! [In this case, I'd like to say go apprentice engraving if you are 100% serious.]
acid__ 10y ago
Your second point seems pretty valid, and to address your first point: "There are multiple cues to the same information. Everything has both a symbol and spatial element, for all kinds of thinkers." Indeed, in addition to the spatial length of the notes, there is also a symbol next to the notes denoting their life. You can see this on the linked page, in the second section. (Next to "Intuitive.")
clentaminator 10y ago
With Hummingbird's inclusion of a trailing line as part of the indicator of note duration you also have to read ahead in the score and then jump back if you want to use the trailing line to identify the duration, which is a lot harder than just identifying by local information in the form of a set of note tails and whether or not a note is filled in. While there are additional parts to the glyphs for half and whole notes, these aren't the dominant part of the symbol. Another question is whether or not the length of a trailing line is absolute or relative to the bar itself. On the subject of filled notes, Hummingbird is also conveying a lot of information that for performance of a score is useless. Note letters (A-G) aren't actually important for performance, only the action or position that they map to for each instrument. No musician parses a score and translates each note to a letter and then each letter to an action, instead going directly from note to action. Essentially, telling you the note letter with a glyph shape on top of the position on the stave is adding noise to the signal. I'll admit I'm coming at it from a position where I'm perfectly comfortable with traditional notation, so part of the reason that it appears difficult is simply because it's unfamiliar, however the terseness of traditional notation and ability to read in one "parse" without forward- and back-skipping seems to give it the advantage. That and over 300 years of existing music, too ;)

efnx 10y ago

Try writing hummingbird notation by hand though!

mikestew 10y ago
Their pages claims: "It’s quick and easy enough to write with an unsharpened pencil. You can scrawl it on a napkin in a pinch." I don't know if it's true or not, as I view Hummingbird to be fixing things that aren't broken (is the difference between a whole note and a half that hard to suss?) and doesn't fix the things that are.
- taco_emoji 10y ago
  I think the more difficult part writing by hand would be the redundancies -- not only do I have to know which line to put the note on, I have to know which symbol to draw. Which could be tough, as it forces the composer to be consciously aware that e.g. "this note is D#" rather than "this note should be two steps above the previous note in the current key".