4 ms·

Some alternative/experimental music notation systems look very impressive, and even beautiful, on paper, but with some of them I wonder if that's due to the sys

Some alternative/experimental music notation systems look very impressive, and even beautiful, on paper, but with some of them I wonder if that's due to the system itself, or the complexity of particular piece being rendered. In the coding world, we have "Hello World" and Fizzbuzz. It would be nice if alternative music notation systems had something similar: A simple, familiar melody (candidates that come to mind are "Happy Birthday to You," and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star") that, by rendering it in the new notation system, demonstrated the fundamental features of that system, and could be easily understood by someone knowledgeable in the traditional system.

psychometry 8y ago
It would be nice if people on HN didn't try to turn everything into a coding analogy.
- wolfram74 8y ago
  But it's fairly fitting since musical notation is /supposed/ to be instructions for making a machine behave in a certain way. It's an early example of write-once-run-everywhere since the sheet music is relatively unchanged from instrument to instrument.
  - xxxdarrenxxx 8y ago
    When you input sheet music in a synth/computer it sounds "inhuman". People tend to blame the sound, which has it's merits, but the problem is we humans have an x factor. This factor is that we naturally add a million things when reading from sheet. Slight drag to create loose rhythm, microvariants on each note's volume (dynamics) timbre and everyone has a slightly different touch to the release (ASDR). Sheet might notate vibrato, but even this is different for each person. Musical notation is hardly an absolute instruction, but more a guide. We interprete it on the base that (formal) music training/experience/knowledge will "fill in the gaps" (ie. Palm mutes in metal or "swing" in jazz), but placing any sheet in a midi device shows how much magic happens between reading and moving the fingers. This is significant, because a math equation does not change between machines or men and thus these can be considered true instructions.
  - TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
    Sheet music contains instructions for making human musicians behave a certain way. There is no sense in which it's a complete description of a musical performance. Timing variations and dynamics are all controlled by the player. If the score is figured bass, the player will improvise/create a complete accompaniment from a sketch of the bass line and some hints about the harmony. And it's not necessarily unchanged. The layout of a piano score and a transposed brass line are only distantly related. The notation will be common, more or less, with the limitation that a horn line is monophonic while a piano can play chords. But the key won't be the same, which means the pitches won't be the same. And many of the expressive markings will be different too.

psychometry 8y ago

It would be nice if people on HN didn't try to turn everything into a coding analogy.

wolfram74 8y ago
But it's fairly fitting since musical notation is /supposed/ to be instructions for making a machine behave in a certain way. It's an early example of write-once-run-everywhere since the sheet music is relatively unchanged from instrument to instrument.
- xxxdarrenxxx 8y ago
  When you input sheet music in a synth/computer it sounds "inhuman". People tend to blame the sound, which has it's merits, but the problem is we humans have an x factor. This factor is that we naturally add a million things when reading from sheet. Slight drag to create loose rhythm, microvariants on each note's volume (dynamics) timbre and everyone has a slightly different touch to the release (ASDR). Sheet might notate vibrato, but even this is different for each person. Musical notation is hardly an absolute instruction, but more a guide. We interprete it on the base that (formal) music training/experience/knowledge will "fill in the gaps" (ie. Palm mutes in metal or "swing" in jazz), but placing any sheet in a midi device shows how much magic happens between reading and moving the fingers. This is significant, because a math equation does not change between machines or men and thus these can be considered true instructions.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  Sheet music contains instructions for making human musicians behave a certain way. There is no sense in which it's a complete description of a musical performance. Timing variations and dynamics are all controlled by the player. If the score is figured bass, the player will improvise/create a complete accompaniment from a sketch of the bass line and some hints about the harmony. And it's not necessarily unchanged. The layout of a piano score and a transposed brass line are only distantly related. The notation will be common, more or less, with the limitation that a horn line is monophonic while a piano can play chords. But the key won't be the same, which means the pitches won't be the same. And many of the expressive markings will be different too.