4 ms·

Right, key signatures aren't just shorthand, they're useful information to give the performer up front. In fact, it's so useful to state the key up front, I mi

Right, key signatures aren't just shorthand, they're useful information to give the performer up front. In fact, it's so useful to state the key up front, I might even suggest the opposite; base the notation on relative pitches, as in "movable do" solfege. Then we could replace "all F's and C's are sharp" with just "do is D". Of course, there'd be tradeoffs to this as compared to the traditional notation, but it's fun to think about.

andrewflnr 14y ago
Why would you go to the trouble of designing a new music notation and not make it based on relative pitches? What are the tradeoffs?
- cliffbean 14y ago
  My thought was that a relative-pitch notation might present a steeper learning curve. But I don't really know. I've worked with intermediate-level musicians who are skilled at regular sight-reading, but who struggle to learn to transpose on the fly. A relative-pitch notation might be like requiring everyone to "transpose" all the time, forcing them to learn this skill before they can proceed. On the other hand, maybe you'd teach it differently. Instead of learning transposition as carrying around an offset to add to each pitch, you'd learn it as carrying around a scale to which the relative pitches would be mapped. I wonder whether this would be easier or harder to learn.
  - andrewflnr 14y ago
    You're going to stay in one scale for a long time anyway (C for piano). For that duration, pitches in the notation correspond obviously to fingerings (keys, frets, whatever). This includes other instruments which have a different "natural" key (D for the viola, my other sort of instrument): their notation maps just as nicely. When you get beyond that, "mapping relative pitches to a scale" is, IMO, the correct approach. The "offset to each pitch" thing obscures what's really going on, as if they were all weird derivatives of the key of C. I can see how it might be harder, among other reasons because you have to understand how a scale works more clearly, but I suspect it would be worth it. Of course, it's hard to really know without getting people to switch for a couple generations.
    - zan5hin 14y ago
      This is just painful. Instruments do not have scales. Music is written in different keys, and often modulates to another key and back again during the piece. In order to cover the range of pitches, different clefs are used to make the notation easier to read. Piano music is written in two clefs, bass and treble, centered around "middle C". This is called the grand staff. Depending upon an instrument's range different clefs are used. Violoncellos use bass, tenor, and treble clef. Violas use alto clef. Scales are a function that acts upon the set of pitches used in music. A C major scale has the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. A G major scale (function) has the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F#. "Mapping relative pitches to a scale" is nonsensical. A scale (function) is an absolute set of pitches, immutable. There are two forms of solfège (do, re, mi, ...): fixed and moveable. In moveable the first pitch of the scale is always do. In fixed the pitch called C is always do. Watch "The Sounds of Music" to learn the solfège for a major scale, it's the do-re-mi song. There are other syllables used for the three minor scale forms. To my knowledge (admittedly not complete) Italy, France, and perhaps England used a fixed-do system, whereas the rest of the world uses a moveable-so system.
      - anigbrowl 14y ago
        Instruments do not have scales. Actually, most trumpets, harmonicas, and many classes of flute are restricted to diatonic scales. You'll have a hard time finding a chromatic trumpet outside of a museum. There's more to music than western chromaticism or indeed harmonic theory.
        cpressey 14y ago
        You'll have a hard time finding a chromatic trumpet outside of a museum. This is kind of a confusing statement to me. Most instruments called "trumpets" where I come from are valved instruments which are fully capable of producing chromatics. (Maybe this is technically incorrect and we should be properly calling them "cornets" or something, I don't know.) My point is, you certainly don't have to go to a museum to find one, and I expect, in a museum (of history anyway), any trumpet you'd find would be more likely to to be valveless and non-chromatic.
Stratoscope 14y ago
That would be the ideal notation for a diatonic harmonica player like me. I never really have an idea of what letter note I'm playing, unless I think about what key I'm in, and then I have to count. But I always know exactly where on the scale I am. It's funny, before I read your comment I wrote a longwinded harmonica player's lament elsewhere in the thread, and I was thinking the same thing: A relative notation would be perfect.

andrewflnr 14y ago

Why would you go to the trouble of designing a new music notation and not make it based on relative pitches? What are the tradeoffs?

cliffbean 14y ago
My thought was that a relative-pitch notation might present a steeper learning curve. But I don't really know. I've worked with intermediate-level musicians who are skilled at regular sight-reading, but who struggle to learn to transpose on the fly. A relative-pitch notation might be like requiring everyone to "transpose" all the time, forcing them to learn this skill before they can proceed. On the other hand, maybe you'd teach it differently. Instead of learning transposition as carrying around an offset to add to each pitch, you'd learn it as carrying around a scale to which the relative pitches would be mapped. I wonder whether this would be easier or harder to learn.
- andrewflnr 14y ago
  You're going to stay in one scale for a long time anyway (C for piano). For that duration, pitches in the notation correspond obviously to fingerings (keys, frets, whatever). This includes other instruments which have a different "natural" key (D for the viola, my other sort of instrument): their notation maps just as nicely. When you get beyond that, "mapping relative pitches to a scale" is, IMO, the correct approach. The "offset to each pitch" thing obscures what's really going on, as if they were all weird derivatives of the key of C. I can see how it might be harder, among other reasons because you have to understand how a scale works more clearly, but I suspect it would be worth it. Of course, it's hard to really know without getting people to switch for a couple generations.
  - zan5hin 14y ago
    This is just painful. Instruments do not have scales. Music is written in different keys, and often modulates to another key and back again during the piece. In order to cover the range of pitches, different clefs are used to make the notation easier to read. Piano music is written in two clefs, bass and treble, centered around "middle C". This is called the grand staff. Depending upon an instrument's range different clefs are used. Violoncellos use bass, tenor, and treble clef. Violas use alto clef. Scales are a function that acts upon the set of pitches used in music. A C major scale has the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. A G major scale (function) has the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F#. "Mapping relative pitches to a scale" is nonsensical. A scale (function) is an absolute set of pitches, immutable. There are two forms of solfège (do, re, mi, ...): fixed and moveable. In moveable the first pitch of the scale is always do. In fixed the pitch called C is always do. Watch "The Sounds of Music" to learn the solfège for a major scale, it's the do-re-mi song. There are other syllables used for the three minor scale forms. To my knowledge (admittedly not complete) Italy, France, and perhaps England used a fixed-do system, whereas the rest of the world uses a moveable-so system.
    - anigbrowl 14y ago
      Instruments do not have scales. Actually, most trumpets, harmonicas, and many classes of flute are restricted to diatonic scales. You'll have a hard time finding a chromatic trumpet outside of a museum. There's more to music than western chromaticism or indeed harmonic theory.
      - cpressey 14y ago
        You'll have a hard time finding a chromatic trumpet outside of a museum. This is kind of a confusing statement to me. Most instruments called "trumpets" where I come from are valved instruments which are fully capable of producing chromatics. (Maybe this is technically incorrect and we should be properly calling them "cornets" or something, I don't know.) My point is, you certainly don't have to go to a museum to find one, and I expect, in a museum (of history anyway), any trumpet you'd find would be more likely to to be valveless and non-chromatic.

Stratoscope 14y ago

That would be the ideal notation for a diatonic harmonica player like me. I never really have an idea of what letter note I'm playing, unless I think about what key I'm in, and then I have to count. But I always know exactly where on the scale I am. It's funny, before I read your comment I wrote a longwinded harmonica player's lament elsewhere in the thread, and I was thinking the same thing: A relative notation would be perfect.