4 ms·

Hexnot: an experimental musical notation

1 points by fpereiro 9y ago

davelnewton 9y ago
Interesting in some respects, and I like that it's text-editor-friendly. My biggest issue is that traditional notation does a lot more to show flow, relationships, and basic shapes. All of that is invisible in this notation without reading and understanding it. There's a lot of cognitive overhead not present in standard notation. An editor that had live conversion to standard notation might be pretty boss, though.
- fpereiro 9y ago
  Hi Dave, Thanks for checking it out! I definitely agree; traditional notation is quite more suggestive, though I don't know how much this is because of previous exposure to it. The long term question here, I believe, is whether the cognitive overhead of using hexnot can converge to the cognitive overhead of using traditional notation. When you learn it, a notation should make things as easy as possible; so I'm interested in finding out empirically if hexnot has actual value as a notation for memorizing, interpreting and composing. As for an editor, I am considering the idea of writing a parser for hexnot, which could also generate some other kind of output, but not at this moment :). And, of course, if you're interested in experimenting with this, I'll be glad to be of help. Cheers!
  - davelnewton 9y ago
    It's more suggestive because the shape of the music is visible; the interval relationship is tangible. Humans are visual creatures (by and large). The memorization of played music is generally proprioceptive; while the music may still be read, it has more to do with relating structure to the playing appendages once you know the piece.
    - fpereiro 9y ago
      You're absolutely right; hexnot is way less visual than the standard notation. I am a quite non-visual person and I think that's part of the reason I'm inclined towards this approach. Hexnot seems to draw more on the formal and perhaps also linguistic parts of the brain. I also find very reassuring the 1:1 relationship between the numbers and the actual notes, which lets them stand a little bit more in the realm of a symbolic ideal, and less dependent on a position in the staff. Thank you for commenting!

1 points by fpereiro 9y ago

Interesting in some respects, and I like that it's text-editor-friendly. My biggest issue is that traditional notation does a lot more to show flow, relationships, and basic shapes. All of that is invisible in this notation without reading and understanding it. There's a lot of cognitive overhead not present in standard notation. An editor that had live conversion to standard notation might be pretty boss, though.

fpereiro 9y ago
Hi Dave, Thanks for checking it out! I definitely agree; traditional notation is quite more suggestive, though I don't know how much this is because of previous exposure to it. The long term question here, I believe, is whether the cognitive overhead of using hexnot can converge to the cognitive overhead of using traditional notation. When you learn it, a notation should make things as easy as possible; so I'm interested in finding out empirically if hexnot has actual value as a notation for memorizing, interpreting and composing. As for an editor, I am considering the idea of writing a parser for hexnot, which could also generate some other kind of output, but not at this moment :). And, of course, if you're interested in experimenting with this, I'll be glad to be of help. Cheers!
- davelnewton 9y ago
  It's more suggestive because the shape of the music is visible; the interval relationship is tangible. Humans are visual creatures (by and large). The memorization of played music is generally proprioceptive; while the music may still be read, it has more to do with relating structure to the playing appendages once you know the piece.
  - fpereiro 9y ago
    You're absolutely right; hexnot is way less visual than the standard notation. I am a quite non-visual person and I think that's part of the reason I'm inclined towards this approach. Hexnot seems to draw more on the formal and perhaps also linguistic parts of the brain. I also find very reassuring the 1:1 relationship between the numbers and the actual notes, which lets them stand a little bit more in the realm of a symbolic ideal, and less dependent on a position in the staff. Thank you for commenting!