4 ms·

These guitar hero style alternative notations are a major problem IMO. It's extra problematic to advertise it as "learn music" when really it's giving you a cr

by hashkb 9y ago

These guitar hero style alternative notations are a major problem IMO. It's extra problematic to advertise it as "learn music" when really it's giving you a crutch to avoid learning music.

cranjice 9y ago
Yeah, sorry, I took one look at this keyboard layout and thought to myself "ok this is a toy" I'd love to see an application that could capture audio from an instrument and act as a real-time theory aid/teacher. For example: * the note you are playing is this * the notes you've just played in sequence belong to these scales. here are possibilities for next notes * try these chords * the chord you've just played is comprised of these notes * the next chord in the scale could be this * popular songs with these chords or in this scale are
- ThomPete 9y ago
  You need context for that. Clearly something like this isn't for getting your head around avantgarde music. I say the more tools the better. People will outgrow their instrument fairly quickly if it's too limiting and then just move on to something new.
- markvdb 9y ago
  Supposedly something like chordify does this relatively well...
sclangdon 9y ago
I think you're confusing the act of making music with musical notation. This app is clearly trying to teach you how to play music, not how to read notation. I don't see the problem in an alternative notation if it's easier to read (I don't know if it is, I've never used the app).
- analog31 9y ago
  Disclosure: I'm a performing musician. I'm fluent at "sight reading," which means that I can perform music directly from a written sheet. I use this skill regularly on stage. Since I play jazz, the notations that I read include standard "dots," chord symbols, and mixtures thereof. But... learning to read music is an effectively insurmountable obstacle for many people who might otherwise enjoy playing music in a limited capacity, or in musical styles that don't make much use of reading. For this reason, I appreciate development of alternative notations. There is already an extensive literature of written music for guitar and electric bass, that uses "tabulature," a notation based on numerically identifying finger positions on the instrument. Percussion notation is a kind of tabulature. The problem with alternative notation is that standard notation represents a symbiosis between composers and performers. Composers know that if they use a particular notation system, then there will be plenty of people who are capable of reading it. Performers know that if they learn standard notation, then they can tap into extensive literature and performing opportunities. Nothing like that exists for any alternative notation. Even with guitar tabulature, very few composers know how to write it unless they're guitarists, and nobody can "sight read" it, so it's use is limited to learning material that will be performed from memory. Granted, I've just made a lot of generalizations, but they hold pretty well, most of the time.
  - armagon 9y ago
    As someone trying to learn to read sheet music as an adult, it is clear to me that the system is in dire need of a refactor. I'm always excited to see alternative notations, but you are right about the problem where there is a vast amount written using the notation we have right now. I look forward to the day when I can don a pair of high-tech glasses, look at something written in standard musical notation, and have it "transnotated" on the fly to something easier to read!
    - analog31 9y ago
      One huge problem is that very little of the literature is in computer readable format, otherwise we'd probably already have translators and more open exploration of alternative notation systems. But I don't know how much of the problem is our notation, versus the fact that learning to read is hard. It's almost like becoming fluent in a foreign language, which we know gets harder as we get older. I started learning to read music when I was 6. I don't know what it's like to learn reading as an adult.
ThomPete 9y ago
Isn't music first and foremost about rhythm, melodies, harmonies? How is this not giving them som basic introduction?
- treehau5 9y ago
  Those are the parts that roll up into this thing we call "music" but that is not what music is nor what it is about. Your air conditioner, for example, has a rhythm and a pitch to it's sound, but no one would ever call it music. Your cooking timer, another example. Jonathan Peters defines music as "the universal language of emotions communicated through intelligently ordered sounds consisting of rhythm and pitch" so to answer what music is about: It's about conveying emotion.
  - brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
    Wait,what? So who is Jonathan Peters (a dj, re-mixer, and producer) to tell us what music is? Excuse me, but I happen to think my air conditioner is making a kind of music. The dude works with Mac Quale (American Horror Story) , and Quale seems to think sounds and textures are music. Also- can we please move beyond this "universal language" thing? What is universal about sounds and contexts? For example, the 12 tone scale is western, while other cultures enjoy microtones but these sounds sound "out of tune" to the average westerner. Steve Reich thought the utterances of a victimof race riots was music as evidenced by his piece "Come Out". John Cage showed that chance ambient sound is music with the famous 4'33"... and well, there are hundres ofexamples. Why can't we reach for a more culturally and intellectually and conceptually expansive defenition of an artform here on Hacker News? What "emotion" was John Cage going for in his prepared piano pieces? What about Richard Serra, the sculptor? I read stuff like this time and again by truly intellectual people on HN and I am always surprised at how behind the developments in artistic thinking are here.And really, it is 2017-- how can anyone think "music" is a universal language. As a composer myself, this defenition of music shoves me into a time machine and thrusts me back to old Vienna where I'm having tea with Brahms and Clara Schuman! Please! I need my modern brain, modern concept of the history of music and art, and my ability to redefine the parameters of my artform! How would you like program in COBOL all day for the rest of your life, denying the existence of modern coding languages? By the way, do yourself a favor and listen to "come out"---- drop in at some middle or later point innthat composition or even anywhere in Reich's "clapping Music" and tell me what emotion one is meant to feel... get back to us on that please.

by hashkb 9y ago

These guitar hero style alternative notations are a major problem IMO. It's extra problematic to advertise it as "learn music" when really it's giving you a crutch to avoid learning music.

cranjice 9y ago

Yeah, sorry, I took one look at this keyboard layout and thought to myself "ok this is a toy" I'd love to see an application that could capture audio from an instrument and act as a real-time theory aid/teacher. For example: * the note you are playing is this * the notes you've just played in sequence belong to these scales. here are possibilities for next notes * try these chords * the chord you've just played is comprised of these notes * the next chord in the scale could be this * popular songs with these chords or in this scale are

ThomPete 9y ago
You need context for that. Clearly something like this isn't for getting your head around avantgarde music. I say the more tools the better. People will outgrow their instrument fairly quickly if it's too limiting and then just move on to something new.
markvdb 9y ago
Supposedly something like chordify does this relatively well...

sclangdon 9y ago

I think you're confusing the act of making music with musical notation. This app is clearly trying to teach you how to play music, not how to read notation. I don't see the problem in an alternative notation if it's easier to read (I don't know if it is, I've never used the app).

analog31 9y ago
Disclosure: I'm a performing musician. I'm fluent at "sight reading," which means that I can perform music directly from a written sheet. I use this skill regularly on stage. Since I play jazz, the notations that I read include standard "dots," chord symbols, and mixtures thereof. But... learning to read music is an effectively insurmountable obstacle for many people who might otherwise enjoy playing music in a limited capacity, or in musical styles that don't make much use of reading. For this reason, I appreciate development of alternative notations. There is already an extensive literature of written music for guitar and electric bass, that uses "tabulature," a notation based on numerically identifying finger positions on the instrument. Percussion notation is a kind of tabulature. The problem with alternative notation is that standard notation represents a symbiosis between composers and performers. Composers know that if they use a particular notation system, then there will be plenty of people who are capable of reading it. Performers know that if they learn standard notation, then they can tap into extensive literature and performing opportunities. Nothing like that exists for any alternative notation. Even with guitar tabulature, very few composers know how to write it unless they're guitarists, and nobody can "sight read" it, so it's use is limited to learning material that will be performed from memory. Granted, I've just made a lot of generalizations, but they hold pretty well, most of the time.
- armagon 9y ago
  As someone trying to learn to read sheet music as an adult, it is clear to me that the system is in dire need of a refactor. I'm always excited to see alternative notations, but you are right about the problem where there is a vast amount written using the notation we have right now. I look forward to the day when I can don a pair of high-tech glasses, look at something written in standard musical notation, and have it "transnotated" on the fly to something easier to read!
  - analog31 9y ago
    One huge problem is that very little of the literature is in computer readable format, otherwise we'd probably already have translators and more open exploration of alternative notation systems. But I don't know how much of the problem is our notation, versus the fact that learning to read is hard. It's almost like becoming fluent in a foreign language, which we know gets harder as we get older. I started learning to read music when I was 6. I don't know what it's like to learn reading as an adult.

ThomPete 9y ago

Isn't music first and foremost about rhythm, melodies, harmonies? How is this not giving them som basic introduction?

treehau5 9y ago
Those are the parts that roll up into this thing we call "music" but that is not what music is nor what it is about. Your air conditioner, for example, has a rhythm and a pitch to it's sound, but no one would ever call it music. Your cooking timer, another example. Jonathan Peters defines music as "the universal language of emotions communicated through intelligently ordered sounds consisting of rhythm and pitch" so to answer what music is about: It's about conveying emotion.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
  Wait,what? So who is Jonathan Peters (a dj, re-mixer, and producer) to tell us what music is? Excuse me, but I happen to think my air conditioner is making a kind of music. The dude works with Mac Quale (American Horror Story) , and Quale seems to think sounds and textures are music. Also- can we please move beyond this "universal language" thing? What is universal about sounds and contexts? For example, the 12 tone scale is western, while other cultures enjoy microtones but these sounds sound "out of tune" to the average westerner. Steve Reich thought the utterances of a victimof race riots was music as evidenced by his piece "Come Out". John Cage showed that chance ambient sound is music with the famous 4'33"... and well, there are hundres ofexamples. Why can't we reach for a more culturally and intellectually and conceptually expansive defenition of an artform here on Hacker News? What "emotion" was John Cage going for in his prepared piano pieces? What about Richard Serra, the sculptor? I read stuff like this time and again by truly intellectual people on HN and I am always surprised at how behind the developments in artistic thinking are here.And really, it is 2017-- how can anyone think "music" is a universal language. As a composer myself, this defenition of music shoves me into a time machine and thrusts me back to old Vienna where I'm having tea with Brahms and Clara Schuman! Please! I need my modern brain, modern concept of the history of music and art, and my ability to redefine the parameters of my artform! How would you like program in COBOL all day for the rest of your life, denying the existence of modern coding languages? By the way, do yourself a favor and listen to "come out"---- drop in at some middle or later point innthat composition or even anywhere in Reich's "clapping Music" and tell me what emotion one is meant to feel... get back to us on that please.