4 ms·

Alternative Music Notations

22 points by cassepipe 6y ago

throwawayfire 6y ago
I would much prefer music notation where time - the duration of notes and rests - was indicated by space, rather than symbols. That would be one less thing to decipher. (This website does not appear to cover that option, considering this undesirable)
- virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
  This quickly becomes intractable and useless for most musicians, as all it does is waste space, and in many cases is impossible to even use. If you can remember the duration of notes based on a few different symbols (which is partly systematized anyways), you can remember the duration of rests based on a few different symbols. Think of it this way: different sized spaces work semiotically the same way, but are much harder to read. Could you tell the difference between 31 and 32 1/32 rests?
  - virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
    > different sized spaces work semiotically the same way Actually I'll nitpick myself about this. They aren't the same, semiotically, because traditional musical notation is purely symbolic (the signs have literally nothing to do with the signified) whereas white spaces would be somewhere in between indices and icons, which do share some semblences of some kind with the signified. In this case, width of space maps to duration of time, which is a fairly basic embodied metaphor in the George Lakoff sense.
  - throwawayfire 6y ago
    I agree that it wastes space to represent time on one axis, if space is a resource that you want to conserve, and I see how that has historically influenced music notation. But, I have a digital screen that can scroll at a specified pace, so I don't find it necessary to conserve space. > If you can remember the duration of notes based on a few different symbols I can do this but I find it a heavy cognitive load to translate symbols into duration while I am also reading/playing music: that was my point. > Could you tell the difference between 31 and 32 1/32 rests? Yes, if there was an adequately marked time scale/axis. There are already bars: just turn them back into the equal areas they are already abstractly representing. (I'm not suggesting that you notate a rest with only blank space - you can still explicitly notate a rest).
- zserge 6y ago
  I think Chinese numbered notation does something similar: https://web.stanford.edu/group/scme/cgi-bin/wordpress1/chinese-music-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E9%9F%B3%E4%B9%90/chinese-musical-notation-numbered-system https://web.stanford.edu/group/scme/cgi-bin/wordpress1/chine... Notes longer than quarter look like `1`, `1-` and `1---` which creates visual spacing between notes.
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  That seems challenging with fast, complex rhythms. I don't know if I'd want to eyeball anything with a lot of syncopation.
blakesterz 6y ago
Site's dead right now, probably the HN hug of death... "Many people struggle to learn to read and play music, and many give up before they become proficient. Could a better notation system make reading, writing, and playing music more enjoyable and easier to learn? We think so." http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c2PdCemnk34J:musicnotation.org/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c2PdCem...
zebproj 6y ago
These days, I'm so steeped in experimental music, that I was expecting something a bit more "out there" [0]. This feels quite tame by comparison. I like the idea of a chromatic staff. Making notes visually more evenly spaced would probably make certain things clearer, and probably would provide some interesting insights from a musical analysis point of view. The fact that it still uses the same 5-line staff would make it easier to adopt. It's familiar, and you can use existing staff paper. However, speaking as a reasonably proficient sight reader, I don't know how much more improvement this adds. From a readability point of view, this looks about the same to me (which I suppose is half the point). Maybe I'm just a jaded musician, but I just don't find music notation that hard to pick up. Reading music is very similar mental process to reading text. Your brain quickly learns to chunk notes into patterns rather than individual groups, similar to how in reading you don't actually parse out every single letter. 0: https://llllllll.co/t/experimental-music-notation-resources https://llllllll.co/t/experimental-music-notation-resources
- virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
  Whenever I see products on instagram or wherever that say things like "now anyone can play guitar!" I get annoyed. It's not that I don't want people to learn guitar—hell yes learn guitar!! But you can't skip the hard part. You can NEVER skip the hard part. I suspect the authors of this idea know what they're doing better than I do, and I don't have a strong specific opinion on it. But when I see attempts at 'improving' well-established systems it makes me wonder if it's just someone who hasn't learned WHY the 'hard' thing is designed the way it is. Again—I am absolutely all for experimenting with every conceivable way of doing something, as this is how progress is made. In this case, the first thing I thought of is that diatonic staves are the way they are because most (traditional 'western') music is in a single key. So it shouldn't be surprising that the notation optimizes for that. And if you change key, you just write down the new key and continue along. I don't personally see much need for a chromatic scale unless you were, I guess, writing 12-tone music ;) I'm also a big fan of experimental musical notation and, googling around, it seems there isn't a single database of them. Shit, I already have too many side projects......
  - 6y ago
PullJosh 6y ago
I have long thought that math notation is in need of an overhaul, but I mostly just have a general sense of dissatisfaction, not specific proposals or even specific complaints. Does anyone else feel this way? Do better notations already exist? Or am I just too picky?
bjoli 6y ago
I generally hate most new ways of writing music. All way of writing makes the initial year or so of learning music easier at the expense of anything remotely advanced. This does not fall into that trap, and is pretty much compatible with most kinds of new notation there is. I don't think it will catch on though. You brain is amazing at chunking. If I am in F major and I see a long noodle of notes I look at the general structure, rhythm and my brain usually fills the gaps (I work full time in a symphony orchestral). Most of the time that is enough. This seems to remove some of that. An all chromatic notation removes the need for accidentals or even keys. Which is nice, but accidentals and key signaturew alre also an amazing tool to let you actually read LESS music. The few times I play wrong notes it is because whatever I am playing looks like it is in one key, but is in fact another. I am not alone in this. Most musicians connect your inner ear and some music theory with how we read music. Reading is slow. Relying on previous knowledge when reading music is what makes you a good sight reader. Having implicit information is hard at first, but has benefits in the long run. I would be interested to see if someone reading this kind of chromatic scale would gain something similar, and whether it would actually be worth it.

22 points by cassepipe 6y ago

I would much prefer music notation where time - the duration of notes and rests - was indicated by space, rather than symbols. That would be one less thing to decipher. (This website does not appear to cover that option, considering this undesirable)

virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
This quickly becomes intractable and useless for most musicians, as all it does is waste space, and in many cases is impossible to even use. If you can remember the duration of notes based on a few different symbols (which is partly systematized anyways), you can remember the duration of rests based on a few different symbols. Think of it this way: different sized spaces work semiotically the same way, but are much harder to read. Could you tell the difference between 31 and 32 1/32 rests?
- virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
  > different sized spaces work semiotically the same way Actually I'll nitpick myself about this. They aren't the same, semiotically, because traditional musical notation is purely symbolic (the signs have literally nothing to do with the signified) whereas white spaces would be somewhere in between indices and icons, which do share some semblences of some kind with the signified. In this case, width of space maps to duration of time, which is a fairly basic embodied metaphor in the George Lakoff sense.
- throwawayfire 6y ago
  I agree that it wastes space to represent time on one axis, if space is a resource that you want to conserve, and I see how that has historically influenced music notation. But, I have a digital screen that can scroll at a specified pace, so I don't find it necessary to conserve space. > If you can remember the duration of notes based on a few different symbols I can do this but I find it a heavy cognitive load to translate symbols into duration while I am also reading/playing music: that was my point. > Could you tell the difference between 31 and 32 1/32 rests? Yes, if there was an adequately marked time scale/axis. There are already bars: just turn them back into the equal areas they are already abstractly representing. (I'm not suggesting that you notate a rest with only blank space - you can still explicitly notate a rest).
zserge 6y ago
I think Chinese numbered notation does something similar: https://web.stanford.edu/group/scme/cgi-bin/wordpress1/chinese-music-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E9%9F%B3%E4%B9%90/chinese-musical-notation-numbered-system https://web.stanford.edu/group/scme/cgi-bin/wordpress1/chine... Notes longer than quarter look like `1`, `1-` and `1---` which creates visual spacing between notes.
schwartzworld 6y ago
That seems challenging with fast, complex rhythms. I don't know if I'd want to eyeball anything with a lot of syncopation.

blakesterz 6y ago

Site's dead right now, probably the HN hug of death... "Many people struggle to learn to read and play music, and many give up before they become proficient. Could a better notation system make reading, writing, and playing music more enjoyable and easier to learn? We think so." http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c2PdCemnk34J:musicnotation.org/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:c2PdCem...

zebproj 6y ago

These days, I'm so steeped in experimental music, that I was expecting something a bit more "out there" [0]. This feels quite tame by comparison. I like the idea of a chromatic staff. Making notes visually more evenly spaced would probably make certain things clearer, and probably would provide some interesting insights from a musical analysis point of view. The fact that it still uses the same 5-line staff would make it easier to adopt. It's familiar, and you can use existing staff paper. However, speaking as a reasonably proficient sight reader, I don't know how much more improvement this adds. From a readability point of view, this looks about the same to me (which I suppose is half the point). Maybe I'm just a jaded musician, but I just don't find music notation that hard to pick up. Reading music is very similar mental process to reading text. Your brain quickly learns to chunk notes into patterns rather than individual groups, similar to how in reading you don't actually parse out every single letter. 0: https://llllllll.co/t/experimental-music-notation-resources https://llllllll.co/t/experimental-music-notation-resources

virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
Whenever I see products on instagram or wherever that say things like "now anyone can play guitar!" I get annoyed. It's not that I don't want people to learn guitar—hell yes learn guitar!! But you can't skip the hard part. You can NEVER skip the hard part. I suspect the authors of this idea know what they're doing better than I do, and I don't have a strong specific opinion on it. But when I see attempts at 'improving' well-established systems it makes me wonder if it's just someone who hasn't learned WHY the 'hard' thing is designed the way it is. Again—I am absolutely all for experimenting with every conceivable way of doing something, as this is how progress is made. In this case, the first thing I thought of is that diatonic staves are the way they are because most (traditional 'western') music is in a single key. So it shouldn't be surprising that the notation optimizes for that. And if you change key, you just write down the new key and continue along. I don't personally see much need for a chromatic scale unless you were, I guess, writing 12-tone music ;) I'm also a big fan of experimental musical notation and, googling around, it seems there isn't a single database of them. Shit, I already have too many side projects......
- 6y ago

PullJosh 6y ago

I have long thought that math notation is in need of an overhaul, but I mostly just have a general sense of dissatisfaction, not specific proposals or even specific complaints. Does anyone else feel this way? Do better notations already exist? Or am I just too picky?

bjoli 6y ago

I generally hate most new ways of writing music. All way of writing makes the initial year or so of learning music easier at the expense of anything remotely advanced. This does not fall into that trap, and is pretty much compatible with most kinds of new notation there is. I don't think it will catch on though. You brain is amazing at chunking. If I am in F major and I see a long noodle of notes I look at the general structure, rhythm and my brain usually fills the gaps (I work full time in a symphony orchestral). Most of the time that is enough. This seems to remove some of that. An all chromatic notation removes the need for accidentals or even keys. Which is nice, but accidentals and key signaturew alre also an amazing tool to let you actually read LESS music. The few times I play wrong notes it is because whatever I am playing looks like it is in one key, but is in fact another. I am not alone in this. Most musicians connect your inner ear and some music theory with how we read music. Reading is slow. Relying on previous knowledge when reading music is what makes you a good sight reader. Having implicit information is hard at first, but has benefits in the long run. I would be interested to see if someone reading this kind of chromatic scale would gain something similar, and whether it would actually be worth it.