Piano Forum
Piano Board => Teaching => Topic started by: johnk on September 28, 2008, 04:12:55 AM
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How does this sort of thing get so much endorsement? Express Stave is MUCH simpler!
www.SimplifiedMusicNotation.org
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Another gimmick IMO. I've seen these types of systems before.
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As piano teachers we all know how much we have to remind students about key signatures and accidentals, so a system that makes the sharps and flats obvious would be helpful. Well they say that it even helps students in reading traditional notation because they regain confidence. Call it a gimmick if you like, but as teachers we should at least consider these systems for some students that seem to be struggling. And I agree, there are other systems out there, like different coloured noteheads for sharps and flats. But to me it only shows that i am not the only person who thinks music notation could be a whole lot easier.
But what I dont understand is how this system gets so much endorsement by so many musical professionals (such as Dame Evelyn Glennie) when here on this forum everyone pooh-poohs such ideas.
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I'm not getting it. They take away the key signature? Note head shape determines sharp and flat?
There are a lot of systems that come out. If it gets, accepted, fine. I doubt this one will. So why spend much time on it? You still have read traditional notation anyway. All the music is printed in it (or nearly all) and they're not going to go back and redo it.
Maybe as a teaching aid, yes. But accidentals aren't so bad.
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If you actually teach some kids some music like this you may change your mind. Reminding kids whehter a note is sharped or not in a key signature is time consuming. Most teachers play along with the student at an octave when teaching the notes of a piece. With my Express Stave student I never have to do this, and i never have to go through the "What note is this" routine. I can just concentrate on counting...
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Doesn't it still take the same amount of brainpower to learn to read note heads with different shapes? I don't see the difference, except not having the same clutter there.
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How utterly confusing. One has no sense of key, modulation, anything. You're practically forced to read one note at a time. This would totally slow me down and confuse me. I find nothing wrong with the traditional notation system. This is coming from an adult student.
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Bob - No, it is not the same - the problem with key signatures is remembering which notes are sharps or flats when there is no reminder. How many times does the teacher have to write in a # or b, or circle notes to remind students? Same with accidentals that must be retained for the rest of a measure. They can easily be overlooked in long measures, and close chords with accidentals can be difficult to see which notes the accidentals refer to. I think it is very helpful to have the notehead shape itself show the accidental quality. Well, alternatively you could write in every # or b. But then you get the student who is mixed up as to whether the # refers to the note before or after. C#D = C, #D - or is it C#, D???
KeyPeg, I agree that this method lumps key signature sharps and flats in with accidentals, so you get less feeling for which notes are innate or foreign to the key. But these guys have apparently done research with lots of people - and I am just amazed by the number of people endorsing it. This is what surprises me. How come so many endorse it when here everyon thinks it confusing or gimmicky?
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But these guys have apparently done research with lots of people - and I am just amazed by the number of people endorsing it. This is what surprises me. How come so many endorse it when here everyon thinks it confusing or gimmicky?
I would hazzard a guess that the research people are taking their endorsements from those with little or no musical experience.
Here you are trying to introduce a system trying to simplify things that most people in this forum already deal with with no problem.
allthumbs
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I guess that I experience the remembering part of key signatures differently. Originally when I played as a teen decades ago, I only had movable do solfege so my mind was sort of "inside" a scale. I had no idea what notes I was playing but if I was in G major (not knowing that I was) and I hit an F, I'd quickly move a semitone up so it would sound "right".
Now that I know better I simply learned to play scales going along the circle of fifths and that pattern stays within my hands. I don't try to remember sharps or flats: I go into the mental mode of being within A major. A sudden appearance of repeating sharps tells me I've modulated and I go into a new mental mode. The accidentals and key signatures give little codes and signals about the nature of the music which you see in a largish sweep. When they are missing, the music becomes harder, not easier, to read for me.
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I would hazzard a guess that the research people are taking their endorsements from those with little or no musical experience.
Well if you look at the names, they are highly qualified musical professionals and academics etc.
Here you are trying to introduce a system trying to simplify things that most people in this forum already deal with with no problem.
But we are all teachers, right? You and I dont have problems with reading traditional music in key signatures, but how about students? There is lots of evidence that generally most piano students never make it to a proficient level. Why are there so many different methods of teaching piano out there? Look at YouTube. SOOO many how-to-play by rote videos, and tabs of various kinds ... As someone quoted, with so many solutions, you know there must be a problem!
The accidentals and key signatures give little codes and signals about the nature of the music which you see in a largish sweep. When they are missing, the music becomes harder, not easier, to read for me.
I also read TN like this, but there are often frustrating times when even I have to count up legerlines, or stumble over multi-accidental chords, or search back through a bar to see whether a note is meant to be a sharp or flat etc. I have a masters degree in piano performance, have played piano concertos, learnt all the Chopin etudes etc, shouldnt I be able to read new pieces without these hesitations? After all they are just the 12 piano notes.
Since I have transnotated a lot of music into Express Stave, I can assert that the clarity it gives in any key is an advantage. If you havent learnt an alternative system you really cannot compare them with TN.
I had no idea what notes I was playing but if I was in G major (not knowing that I was) and I hit an F, I'd quickly move a semitone up so it would sound "right".
A friend who reads piano music ok in the more common keys, explained the same thing - he just plays till something sounds wrong, then adjusts a note by an extra flat or sharp. He doesnt think about it much, cant tell me which notes are the #s or bs in a given key signature, yet seems to get by. He is not a teacher or a professional, but as we ARE, shouldnt there be a more definite way to get the right notes?
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I work for the inventor of Simplified Music Notation, Peter George, and have been involved in getting this project up and running. I'm an ethnomusicologist (MMus) and a diploma-level amateur pianist. I work for the project because I've found the notation very helpful in my own playing and as a musicologist I feel it addresses some unneccesary complications in traditional notation.
I'll try not to get involved in the debate about the relative merits of the system - that's up to teachers and players to decide. But I hope no one will object if I post responses to a few of the points raised.
They take away the key signature?
The key signature is still very much there. The idea with Simplified Music Notation is that ALL the information in the original score should remain so that you can see exactly how the composer wrote it.
Doesn't it still take the same amount of brainpower to learn to read note heads with different shapes?
The idea is that it takes less brainpower/ memory while you're playing, as you don't have to carry information about key signature and accidentals around in your head.
there are other systems out there, like different coloured noteheads for sharps and flats
Incidentally, Peter tried experimenting with colours, but of course this rules out anyone who is colour blind. The notation was designed to make music more accessible to people with dyslexia, memory impairments, etc. so this approach was abandoned.
I had no idea what notes I was playing but if I was in G major (not knowing that I was) and I hit an F, I'd quickly move a semitone up so it would sound "right".
I also rely on my ear a lot when I play (I'm a terrible sight-reader), which is fine as long as you're dealing with diatonic music. But what about contemporary music? Bartok, Debussy, Scriabin, Shoenberg, Ligeti? It's not always possible to guess how it should sound.
Since the late 19th century, music has become increasingly chromatic, complex and unpredictable, while notation has remained fixed. I honestly don't think traditional notation deals at all well with atonal music like 12-tone serialist works - its a mess, and I've met few composers or players of modern music who would disagree. One of the reasons Simplified Music Notation was created was to try to address these problems.
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Thanks for your response, Ginevrastar.
One of the things that your site claims is that this is good for people with visual imparement (I think?) but I found the notehead shapes difficult to see at the size they show on the screen. I note you dont mention the visual here, just dyslexia and memory.
Another point that I think is valid, is that with traditional notation, the accidentals point out the non-diatonic notes (for the most part) whereas when you put all the inflections in the notehead, it takes that extra information away. Unless you added a new sign to indicate those notes outside of the key signature.
This is one thing that the Music Notation Project forum has discussed, and basically has come to a consensus that any chromatic staff can have the option of adding some such signs to remind the player - or singer - of notes outside the key (of course this is only apt if you are in a key to start with.)
I wonder what you think of my Express Stave notation, which shows the naturals as white noteheads and others as black.
My other big question is how did you go about getting so many people to review the system? And how can they afford to have paid staff members ... Is it a paying business already?
Cheers, John
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Ginevrastar, the one thing I'm getting out of this is that traditional music is at a disadvantage for modern music which is non-diatonic. That makes sense. I would feel, though, that the new system(s) are at a disadvantage in traditional diatonic music because those same markers are not there. You can take in the nature of the music, modulations and such, with a sweep of the eye because of the familiar patterns of where accidentals occur and how - and that's all missing.
The other concern is that there must be millions of copies of music written the traditional way. If somebody learns to read according to a new system, will they be able to read the majority of music, or would they end up in some kind of a ghetto. It would be as though we all suddenly converted to the Cyrrilic alphabet and our children could not read our old books anymore.
Do they become bilingual to two systems? But there is also a different mentality or view to music involved, I think. That feeling of context (which belongs inside diatonic, again) is gone.
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Well Schoenberg was a proponent of a chromatic staff, but the arguments made at musicnotation.org are that chromatic staves make even diatonic music clearer. But it is a different mindset. With TN we are aware of modulation to sharper or flatter keys, whereas the chromatic staves see modulation as simply shifts up or down. Simple Music Notation keeps the sharp/flat distinction.
Express Stave does keep some of the feel of keys being sharper and flatter. You get a visual cue in how black or white the music looks, and sharp keys have the black noteheads under the lines, flat keys have them above the lines. Think of how F# and C# are at the low side of the black key groups of two and three, whileBb and Eb are at the tops.
The other concern is that there must be millions of copies of music written the traditional way. If somebody learns to read according to a new system, will they be able to read the majority of music, or would they end up in some kind of a ghetto. It would be as though we all suddenly converted to the Cyrrilic alphabet and our children could not read our old books anymore.
The answer to this is that the people in the 'ghetto' would be the ones that would not have learnt to read tradtional notation, so would have been 'homeless' otherwise. The aim of all the alternative systems is to allow more people to read music. Do you want to deny some people the chance?
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But how much music would be available for them to read? It would be limited to the music that is printed in new notation. Does the idea of new notation provide a bridge? Do students starting on that new notation also learn to read regular notation?
I come from that ghetto. I was in my late 40's before I learned to read music. Don't ask me what I did before.
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I just don't see how music notation as it has existed for hundreds of years is "broken" enough to need fixing.
It's far easier to learn how to read music than it is to learn how to read many spoken languages.
These things are interesting, but I don't see a world-wide re-vamp of music notation. However, it is somewhat entertaining, if you've got time for it.
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Well apparently quite a few people do think it needs fixing. Here is another website with different noteheads for the sharps and flats.
www.PrimaVistaNotes.com
I dont necessarily like all these systems of course, I am just pointing out that a lot of people think the hundred year old notation system (actually a thousand years old) is not as efficient as it could be.
Are all the teachers here basically saying they never have students who have difficulty learning to read music ???
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The original question still remains. Supposing you teach students a different notation system. How will they be able to read the music that exists? Will they be restricted to a small body of music written in the new notation?
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Ginevrastar, the one thing I'm getting out of this is that traditional music is at a disadvantage for modern music which is non-diatonic. That makes sense. I would feel, though, that the new system(s) are at a disadvantage in traditional diatonic music because those same markers are not there.
I have to side with keypeg here.
As another adult beginner (age 55) I don't have any trouble remembering key signatures. If I play a note wrong it's because my finger hit the wrong spot, not because of my brain. To me these simplified systems just switch complexity to a different point. That might work better for some people, or for some types of music, but correspondingly worse for everybody else.
With age comes some fading of vision. I would have trouble seeing either colors or notehead shapes in anything but perfect conditions.
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Thanks for the responses and feedback. This may be a long reply...
But how much music would be available for them to read? It would be limited to the music that is printed in new notation.
There is an awful lot of music out there to transcribe, isn't there? To start with (because you have to start somewhere) we picked a selection of piano works from beginner to diploma level to showcase the notation. But of course, people want the piece they want, and on their own instrument, so we offer a transcription service as well.
Our next big step is developing a plug-in for Sibelius, then maybe Finale. This will allow individuals and other publishers to transcribe pieces themselves.
Does the idea of new notation provide a bridge? Do students starting on that new notation also learn to read regular notation?
Absolutely - SMN is intended to be completely complementary to traditional notation and students should definitely learn the two side by side. As it is based on the familiar 5 line staff and note duration symbols (crotchets, quavers etc) players who can already reach should only need a few minutes to learn it, and it should be easy for anybody to switch between the two.
Basically, it's an aid to sight-reading, and can be used as a learning tool. Personally, I prefer to use an SMN score when it is available, and often transcribe pieces I want to learn - I'd like to see people offered a choice of the two as standard by publishers but that may be a good few years off...
If somebody learns to read according to a new system, will they be able to read the majority of music, or would they end up in some kind of a ghetto.
Again, anyone serious about music should learn both. But I just want to echo what John said: many people are already in a musical ghetto because of the difficulties with traditional notation. I often meet professional jazz or rock musicians who find themselves constantly frustrated because they can't play fluently in traditional notation. This kind of problem robs talented people of an essential way of communicating musical ideas. It also, I'm told, discourages many from pursuing a musical career.
I would feel, though, that the new system(s) are at a disadvantage in traditional diatonic music because those same markers are not there. You can take in the nature of the music, modulations and such, with a sweep of the eye because of the familiar patterns of where accidentals occur and how - and that's all missing.
For analysing music, I agree that these visual clues in traditional notation are important. For playing, the advantage of SMN is that you play each note as you see it, exactly as it appears on the stage. It cuts out the need for that analytical level of cognition while you'replaying, connecting directly from eye to hand.
Of course, everyone has a different way of sight reading...
I wonder what you think of my Express Stave notation, which shows the naturals as white noteheads and others as black.
John, I've been searching online and couldn't find clear instructions or a score to print out - didn't have time for the YouTube link (I'll try to watch this week), and Music Notation project gave a description rather than instructions. Can you post a link please?
how did you go about getting so many people to review the system? And how can they afford to have paid staff members ... Is it a paying business already?
Annelie and Peter have been working on this for over 15 years. They set up a charity to support the R&D - Creative Arts Research Foundation - which they funded from their savings. They sent a lot of sample books out to music professionals, and were surprised by how much positive response they got back. The thing which seemed to strike people was how similar it is to traditional notation, so you don't have to relearn how to read music.
More recently, we set up a non-profit publishing branch to get some books out there - any UK profits will (if we ever make them!) go back into the charity, to support disadvantaged music students. We've sold a fair number of books since we launched last month - mostly to teachers with students who struggle with sight-reading and to adult amateurs.
It's likely to be a long time before we recover our setup costs - nobody makes their fortune out of printing music books! The main drive behind this is to make music learning more accessible to everyone, not just the sight-reading elite.
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This one has a different approach.
www.PrimaVistaNotes.com
And many more pieces for download.
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Thanks for the link - Prima Vista is an interesting example, and it does everything it needs to in terms of being making sight reading easier (although I found the half notes/ minims a bit hard to read).
But one major piece of feedback we got from pro musicians in the development stages of Simplified Music Notation is that you must be able see how the composer wrote the work originally - that's why there the History Signs were added in, to show when double sharps and flats etc. have been transposed to actual pitch. This info is lost in Prima Vista, so although you can play it fine, you can't analyse the harmonic structure of the music.
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Double sharps and double flats have a solution in Prima Vista Notes.
Look for pianist version and composer version explanation:
https://www.primavistanotes.com/HowtoPlay.asp
Attac. is an example.
You can Find it in FAQ page.
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I'm sorry, but how can staring at a tiny black/white dot on a page to deduce whether it is a sharp or flat 'i-note' ( ::)) be quicker and easier than reading a large (by comparison) b or #??? :-\
Oh, and what is the point of putting the key-ish signature at the start of the score if 'all sharps and flats are already indicated inside the piece' ??
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Well...
It is not small on a music chart. It can be spot easily with the direction of the black Vs. the white spot.
The system do not ask you to think about sharps or flats rather then to look for the side of the black key in proportion to the white one. It is a different concept.
The key signature at the beginning of the piece is to tell us in what key do we play. It's just for a reminder to the piano player. It might help while reading.
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It is hard to read such tiny symbols unless you have very good and young eyes.
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How does this sort of thing get so much endorsement? Express Stave is MUCH simpler!
www.SimplifiedMusicNotation.org
Another half educated approach to deal with an obstacle: clash of coordination and reading.
In order to provide healthy balance between these two we have to provide step by step gradual curriculum from ’ground zero’ to advanced level. Rule of thumb suppose to be: as more struggles we offer for student's coordination – the less suppose to be for reading.
Best example in history of teaching: ABC books, picture books, chapter books and novel’s formats in reading.
Otherwise students after such approach would be left in the middle of desert.
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Another half educated approach to deal with an obstacle: clash of coordination and reading.
In order to provide healthy balance between these two we have to provide step by step gradual curriculum from ’ground zero’ to advanced level. Rule of thumb suppose to be: as more struggles we offer for student's coordination – the less suppose to be for reading.
Best example in history of teaching: ABC books, picture books, chapter books and novel’s formats in reading.
Otherwise students after such approach would be left in the middle of desert.
Are you a teacher:-\?
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It is hard to read such tiny symbols unless you have very good and young eyes.
Yes, but I think they have hit on something by making the notes look like eyes. We all have extremely highly developed facial recognition software in our brains, and this may be tapping into it. Think how easily we can see exactly where another person is looking.
Otherwise students after such approach would be left in the middle of desert.
Good point. There are two answers to this. Some people, like those who read Klavar, might be happy to remain just Klavar readers, and there are millions of pieces available in it . Also with your system. What if some student wants to just remain at the stage of vertical stave with the notenames in the notes? You can provide this format for any piece they want to play.
Others will want the alternative notation to lead into reading conventional. Some of the endorsements indicate that with both Simplified Music Notation and PrimaVista music, this leads to better reading of traditional. One of my colleagues reported that a student who learnt to read Express Stave easily then became more confident with traditional notation. Ideally we would hope people could read traditional, but if an individual wants to stay with an easier notation, thats ok too - they are still making music, which is the aim. Reading traditional notation is not the aim.
Again I say look at YouTube. There are a million how-to-play-by-rote videos, some with millions of views. A lot of people out there want to play the piano, but dont read traditional notation.
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What if some student wants to just remain at the stage of vertical stave with the notenames in the notes? You can provide this format for any piece they want to play.
Others will want the alternative notation to lead into reading conventional.
When first ABC with pictures was created, there was the same concern: what if readers would need picture for every letter forever? You know the answer to this question already.
There has to be several formats to provide gradual flexibility for any student, but they work much more effectively also with interactivity and support for focus line.
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I've been pondering the reading (word) question. No, the pictures are not the main thing, M4U - it's the patterns in language and making them visible and obvious - that's what makes a system effective.
When I helped a learning disabled girl, I used the British "Jane and Peter" books. True, there were pictures, and the first books had few words. But they also went from known to unknown, simple to complex, and added one element at a time.
Second experience is my own learning. I am in an English speaking country and so had English readers, but I was also sent German readers by grandparents and taught myself. I found those readers superior. They showed patterns in language. There was one where the Punch character Kasper pours words into a mill, and they come out altered, one letter changed at a time. Some creature has shredded words and the shreds are lying all over the bookshelf so you are putting them back together again with pencilled lines.
I would say that the abstract elements of language were made concrete through imagery such as the shredded words and the word-grinder, and it was also made magical. The theoretical elements of language were handled in a playful fun manner, held much depth to them, and had a sense of magic and imagination.
Simply having a picture of a cat with the word cat is not that fantastic. It's a start.
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I've been pondering the reading (word) question. No, the pictures are not the main thing, M4U - it's the patterns in language and making them visible and obvious - that's what makes a system effective.
Well, in reading music notation recognizing and determining visual PATTERNS is essential especially when beginners have to deal with white and black strips of Grand Staff. They are equally important in music notation (even though many beginners think that black lines are source for information and spaces just ‘break’ between them like in books}
Thumb rule in visual perception is: human being unable to grasp more then 3-4 similarly looking objects at a time. Even 5 lines and more then 5 spaces of Treble or Bass Clef already unsuitable for human’s eyes. Before talking about patterns in actual notation our goal is to teach what space or line where on the piano keys
Simply having a picture of a cat with the word cat is not that fantastic. It's a start.
Why put picture of cat under ‘C’? Person who can read and understand that ‘cat’ starts from C does not need picture. I think, you are not familiar with Soft Mozart.
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Why put picture of cat under ‘C’? Person who can read and understand that ‘cat’ starts from C does not need picture. I think, you are not familiar with Soft Mozart.
I was talking about early readers, not Soft Mozart. You should know that I am very familiar with SM because I tried out several of your programs and wrote about them in this forum. Sometimes I made a mistake on purpose so an apple would fall on the ground so I could feed that cute spider. ;)
In terms of recognizing five lines - that is probably true. However, I learned to "read" music on my own when I was young. I did not think about lines, spaces, or names. I could sing solfege first and I simply followed patterns. I'd find out where the tonic was and climb up and down the scales or arpeggios that presented themselves. I was never aware of the lines or spaces. I looked at the patterns of notes in groups.
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I think all of these alternative notations should deal with one question:
Where does it bring the pianist after a while?
If it is easer to grasp then the results are that the pianist would be able to play at a shorter time then he would if he had learned the traditional way (notes).
Now - when such a student will be able to play he/her could easily go to a different method (traditional if needed)
It will happen mainly because the student will have a lot of confidence since he can already play.
The student will know their ability so challenge a new method and a new piece that half of it - the piano playing - is in their hands already will be easer.
The learning of the traditional notes for that sake will take less time and it will be much better then if started from the beginning.
I can tell you about my daughter (started to play when she was 10)
She wouldn't touch the piano/organ at the start. She did not want a teacher and not wanted to play. (Maybe because her father is playing)
I had a Yamaha keyboard at home and i was teaching her to play the left hand by numbers method. It was the chords that can be played by one finger for major and 2 fingers for minor.
She played chords with the accompaniment and sang the music.
After a while she started playing the melody in the right hand and put them together.
A year after i saw she is playing real chords in the left hand and started to do it on the piano. She also learned the names from the keyboard screen.
The next thing - she took one of my easy methods and picked up Bach minuet. After that when she saw another friend playing the same piece she looked up the notes and by a short explanation of haw it works which was done by her friend she started to play musical notes.
So... That is an example to what i am saying. She might not be Mozart but playing the keyboard is something that she does every day for the last 2 years so as for me i am happy cause music is at her side for ever.
In the case of the 'Prima Vista Notes' and the 'Simplefied Music Notation' it might be even a smother pass since as i said before it is very close to regular music and as john said before . People can stay with the method they learn.
The only thing that matter is if when they will be 25 or 45… they will still play.
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Ok, here's another story:
I learned to think of music via the major and minor scale through singing when I was about eight. That's all I had. When I got to a keyboard I could play anything because I sounded it out via the framework of those scales that I had in my head. From there I had some sheet music, and somebody pointed out that I could find the tonic (do) because it was the note right above the last sharp, or the last flat was "fa" (subdominant). I didn't know what was supposed to be easy or hard, so I just sounded out and worked out the music I had at hand. I think I was about 11.
My third piece was the Mozart 525. Don't ask how I played it with what "interpretation" or how long it took. But one thing I remember clearly: from the beginning I saw musical phrases in the context of the structure of a scale. I would sound out a phrase and play it as a phrase.
A lot of this new software caters to doing one note and another and another. You are working within a different context, and music becomes a different thing. The key signature and the scatterings of accidentals indicating modulations and minor keys are meant to be seen in one swoop and incorporated into the playing as such. I have a feeling that a false divide exists between 'by ear' players and 'reading' players. I am actually starting to be glad that I was deprived of formal musical education and went on this alternate path by circumstance. I've learned to read conventionally now. I read all this hoopla about how hard notation is, and how reading is. Something must have gone wrong with how it's presented or something. It's not that complicated. :-\
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I have a feeling that a false divide exists between 'by ear' players and 'reading' players... I read all this hoopla about how hard notation is, and how reading is. Something must have gone wrong with how it's presented or something. It's not that complicated.
I'm glad sight-reading isn't difficult for you, and fascinated to read about the unusual path you came to reading by. However, different peoples' brains work in different ways. I've been reading music since I was 5 and understand the system perfectly. I can sight-read with no problem on the violin.
But when it comes to identifying 6 notes at once, mentally adding in the key signature and adding or subtracting for accidentals, I simply seize up. This may have something to do with the fact that I play a lot of Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninov (and Bach!) where the harmonic direction is less predictable than, say, Mozart or Beethoven, but in essence I think it's just about the way my brain interprets information.
Notations like Simplified Music Notation and Prima Vista that cut out that whole level of cognition are a massive help. You just play exactly what's on the page - straight from eye to hand.
And I am definitely a 'by ear' player. There are plenty of people out there who can't hear a piece of music and play it back like I can, and who find it incredibly hard to memorise music, which I do easily. Equally there are people like me who can't pick up an unfamiliar piece of sheet music and play it through fluently, like you can.
It's not a matter of how good your teacher is or how you were taught to read - we all interpret and interract with information in different ways.
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Ok, here's another story:
I learned to think of music via the major and minor scale through singing when I was about eight. That's all I had. When I got to a keyboard I could play anything because I sounded it out via the framework of those scales that I had in my head.
You are saying that you have started to play by ear.
I would like to tell you that the majority of the people (not just piano players) can play a tune by ear with a small instruction such as
1. Start on this white key.
2. All the song is played on the white keys.
3. Play each note in relative to the last one. Higher to the right. Lower to the left.
I have done that with many students on the first day they came to me and it always works.
But playing chords, match them to music or understand a key signature is a different story. So if you read notes and you have some knowledge of the key signature and harmony then it helps in reading.
In that case it does not matter if the key signature is written inside the piece since you have the knowledge to distinguish it from the music notes.
After all once you play it and look at your fingers you can tell what key you are in.
The trick is to bring it as fast as you can to your fingers. Once you have obstacles on your way it just takes longer and the chances of having mistakes are higher.
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Simplified notation: For dummies only?
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It some times hard to see beyond the horizen.
But one day it will be clear.
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For elementary students, key signatures are introduced very gradually. Even with just one sharp or flat, you usually have to write in a reminder accidental a few times to begin with. So how can you give these students the experience of playing, say, in 4 flats? A colleague of mine has come up with a neat solution, where the note shape for black keys actually looks like the black key shape. This is not intended to be a permanent notation, but an introduction to the key signature concept. Sharps would be written the same way, and accidentals (notes outside the signature) are written normally.
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That looks promising. I would not want to see it as a "black key" shape, though, but rather as a note that gets raised or lowered by a semitone. Why? Because I do not want to associate music theory, i.e. notes, with any given instrument. Also, later on a Cb or E# is not a black key. But consistent with before, it is a note raised or lowered by a semitone.
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What other shape would you recommend? We would have taught that a flat means lower the note a semitone, the visual reminder on the notes is just that, a reminder of which notes ARE the flat ones, and that they are distributed in two groups of two. I would teach about the white key sharps and flats a little later - well you could point it out now, but not use them in pieces at this point. Thanks for the "promising" remark - I will pass it on.
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That shape is a good shape. Personaly I would not want to associate it with the black key, but a teacher can choose whether to present it that way.
You can lower a C using a flat, but the resulting Cb (B) is a white key. My thoughts are in this area.
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There seem to be loads of these systems around on the internet.
I, for one, cannot really see the point. Forgive me for not reading all of this thread because it is long and my question is probably already answered.
However, I fail to see the point in rewriting the language of music notation: it has evolved over the last 500 years and is not likely to ever be replaced by any other system, however superior they are seen to be by their creators/developers.
For this reason, I see no benefits of teaching an additional system at any learning point, since the traditional notation is not ever likely to be replaced. The current system allows all of the non-interpretive commands to be stated in a simple and concise manner - "why try and reinvent the wheel?", to coin a phrase.
Since I see no additional benefits notational benefits from any of these new systems, then where is the benefit of teaching them. In addition, they seem to be primarily used to teach younger children with, which is going to be confusing to them when, should they wish to continue learning an instrument, they begin to come across standard notation.
I fail to see the relevance of an additional interface. Sure, evidence has been stated that showing some people learn a little faster with this system. So what? Many people are fast learners and a few convenient statistics and anecdotes do not change the fact that the most talented people are going to still be musically talented and quick learners irrespective of the system of notation they are taught.
I feel that these all these are just gimmicks designed to draw people in. Does anyone really believe that someone is going to be a greater musician down the line for having learnt an additional (and, to be honest, redundant) system of notation when they could have spent that marginally extra time (I do not accept that these other systems are in fact faster and simpler, but I will ignore that sideline for the purposes of this discussion) learning traditional manuscript notation and have more time to develop the other vital skills of being a musician?
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As a teacher, i beleive the WAY we teach does make a difference in the success of students. To use my last example, we could teach this piece by saying "B FLAT!" , "A FLAT" and rapping the kid over the knuckles when they dont play a note flat that is supposed to be; or you can use the notation shown above where the student plays successfully first go. Which way is more likely to create a musician rather than a dropout?
You could explain the 4 flats by the order B, E, A, D; or you could explain them as the order they occur on the keyboard - A and B flat together , and E and D flat together.
Alternative ways of notation music are here already. Guitar TAB. Shawn Cheek's whiteboard letter name method. Lots of people learn from them who would not otherwise make music. Widen your horizon!
Of course, if you DEFINE a musician as one who reads TN, then some of the most successful people (rock and jazz players, or Irving Berlin) are not musicians.
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As a teacher, i beleive the WAY we teach does make a difference in the success of students. To use my last example, we could teach this piece by saying "B FLAT!" , "A FLAT" and rapping the kid over the knuckles when they dont play a note flat that is supposed to be; or you can use the notation shown above where the student plays successfully first go. Which way is more likely to create a musician rather than a dropout?
This is a poor way of teaching and I would not subscribe to this in any case. Could you explain exactly how using a slightly different system of notation prevents wrong notes being played? In my experience, playing wrong notes is due to lack of concentration or misreading when first sightreading music. I still fail to believe that there are so many people that give up music because they cannot understand the traditional system, which is not really that hard.
Alternative ways of notation music are here already. Guitar TAB. Shawn Cheek's whiteboard letter name method. Lots of people learn from them who would not otherwise make music. Widen your horizon!
Granted, but these are much less complex and limited systems which develop into learning manuscript system. Unlike these examples, the architectures of the systems described further up are in fact notationally very similar to the traditional form. I could perhaps see the point a bit more, if it was a system that was an entirely new system that had little or no similarity to one that does not exist. Moving around notes to a different part of a stave-like symbol and changing the meaning of the usual symbols on the stave seems like a total gimmick and does not add value, unlike guitar tableture which is an inherently different notation.
Of course, if you DEFINE a musician as one who reads TN, then some of the most successful people (rock and jazz players, or Irving Berlin) are not musicians.
I have never defined a musician as anything. I agree that not everyone does in fact read standard notation. But then, rock and jazz (in general) tend to be based around improvisation and repeating chord patterns and so do not require this type of manuscript. However, if you are going to teach someone Mozart or Chopin, then unless they have incredibly good hearing, they are inevitably going to have to learn to read music.
Reinventing notation seems like a backward step. I feel that it would be more beneficial designing methods to help teach existing systems, rather than overhauling the systems themselves? Unless of course, a new system brings together an entirely new framework under which new musical terms can be described. However, it does seem that the systems proposed above do not add anything that cannot be already written in traditional form.
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We have two different things going on here. One is notations of music that are completely different to traditional and may be considered as an alternative way of notation music. My Express Stave is one of these. The other is notation which is close to traditional and could be used in conjunction with traditional as a way of making it easier to grasp. Such as showing which notes in a key signature are the ones to play on black keys (my friends example or the prima vista eye notes).
I dont quite understand your point. At one stage you say a completely different way of notationg music such as Guitar Tab is ok,I could perhaps see the point a bit more, if it was a system that was an entirely new system that had little or no similarity to one that does [not] exist.
Then you say that improving teaching methods to help learn the traditioanl system would help I feel that it would be more beneficial designing methods to help teach existing systems, rather than overhauling the systems themselves?
I included my friends example as just this, a way of showing a beginner how it feels to play in a key signature but before the long process of gradually introducing the sharp and flat key signatures progressively. You say In my experience, playing wrong notes is due to lack of concentration or misreading when first sightreading music.
Students simply will not know which notes are the ones to play sharp or flat in a key signature at first. It takes a lot of reminding. Maybe i just have a lot of non brilliant students. With the great majority of students, learning to play in all the key signatures takes a decade or more. This could be hastened by methods such as my friends idea above; on the other hand, it could be completely bypassed with an alternative notation.
You do seem to accept a new notation might be useful if it allows you to see music in completely new ways Unless of course, a new system brings together an entirely new framework under which new musical terms can be described.
The alternative notations do do this, in that they show interval relationships very clearly, but without using a key signature system, or the idea of inflected pitches.
People wanting to plkay Chopin can learn pieces with understanding from other notations more quickly than from traditional. I think I have proved this with higher school certificate students over the last few years.
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Sorry if I have not really made myself very clear throughout.
I can accept guitar tabs because they have no similarity to traditional notation. To extend this, I can accept systems which aid teaching which have little to no similarity to traditional notation. These are in no way systems to replace traditional notation.
I am still wondering - in general - are these systems designed with the idea that they could in some way superseed traditional notation? Personally I see this as quite foolish, because they are never likely to be accepted. Is it seen that high end music students will use this instead of traditional notation when reading scores?
I hope that I have not read as being close-minded, simply inquisitive. Having never really come across too many people that have particularly struggled with traditional notation (in all age groups) once past the initial phase of learning and using, it simply comes across to me as an unnecessary extra step in learning.
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Having never really come across too many people that have particularly struggled with traditional notation (in all age groups) once past the initial phase of learning and using, it simply comes across to me as an unnecessary extra step in learning.
The initial phase of learning is not working for about 90% of the piano students (beginners) and among those that pass it many pianists are straggling with it and find them selves playing by ear most of the time.
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The initial phase of learning is not working for about 90% of the piano students (beginners) and among those that pass it many pianists are struggling with it and find them selves playing by ear most of the time.
There are a lot of piano teachers in this teaching forum. So, teachers, do 90% of your students struggle with the initial phase of learning? Do only 10% of your students learn to read music over time?
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A dumbass will allways be a dumbass, and a genius will allways be one. You can simplify music notation, but you can not make it better. Simplifying the notation system would be like an easy arrangement of a more complex piece. It has less elements but is easier. The notation system is perfect and has no useful alternatives. I don't think removing important elements from notation would make them play better, it would simply be an illusion.
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A dumbass will allways be a dumbass, and a genius will allways be one. You can simplify music notation, but you can not make it better. Simplifying the notation system would be like an easy arrangement of a more complex piece. It has less elements but is easier. The notation system is perfect and has no useful alternatives. I don't think removing important elements from notation would make them play better, it would simply be an illusion.
+1
This 90% statistic really seems like a mantra to me. Is there really proper evidence to support this, or is it more like 90% of people who start playing the piano give up because they lose interest or don't work hard enough? This is very different from not being able to understand notation. What exactly is it about traditional notation that is so difficult to understand anyway? I have seen very few advantages with other suggested notations - in fact, they all seem to be based upon the traditional stave and note shapes anyway! Changing the notation and then teaching someone this successfully is not convincing evidence that it is any better: you do not know how they would have performed with traditional notation.
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This 90% statistic really seems like a mantra to me.
That's why I asked my question of what teachers' actual experience may be. Do they find that only 10% of their students become able to read music? Or do they lose 90% of their students?
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This 90% statistic really seems like a mantra to me.
(https://graphjam.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/statistics.gif)
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I don't get it.
Why don't you learn the real music notation?! It's not very complex or difficult to understand.?!?
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The initial phase of learning is not working for about 90% of the piano students (beginners)
What does this "initial phase" entail? Can you define it? How were these statistics derived?
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I don't get it.
Why don't you learn the real music notation?! It's not very complex or difficult to understand.?!?
Thank you. THAT is the WHOLE point johnk and musicrebel4u seem to not understand.
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Thank you. THAT is the WHOLE point johnk and musicrebel4u seem to not understand.
My apologies for infecting this thread as I am not a teacher yet, but studying to be one.
Maybe they had trouble reading real notation themselves, and are looking for ways to diminish the problem. In that case, I commend them for their dedication. Otherwise, I would think these are all just gimmicks.
I can accept guitar tabs because they have no similarity to traditional notation. To extend this, I can accept systems which aid teaching which have little to no similarity to traditional notation. <b>These are in no way systems to replace traditional notation.</b>
I am still wondering - in general - are these systems designed with the idea that they could in some way superseed traditional notation? Personally I see this as quite foolish, because they are never likely to be accepted. Is it seen that high end music students will use this instead of traditional notation when reading scores?
Precisely. If we want to replace traditional notation, why not a whole different concept entirely? Otherwise, it makes very little difference. Which makes it little less than a gimmick. Surely, it won't be accepted by most advanced students because they're already used to traditional notation. But if it benefits beginners and intermediates, and there's a chance of a revolution in the future (very unlikely yeah ::)), why not?
We have to consider that this notation (the traditional one) is used for other instruments, not just piano. The white/ black key problem does not exist in string instruents, for example, but there are other issues like fretting and bowing. And I don't see a reason for making a notation system ONLY for piano BUT based on traditional.
[I use guitar tabs, too. Proves to be for the detriment of my sight reading, though. :-For the sake of playing, tabs+notation works best for me, followed by tabs+figuring out the timing. The real notation is hardest still. That is my experience so far. Make of it what you will.]
A dumbass will allways be a dumbass, and a genius will allways be one.
Oh, great, there is no hope for me then... :'(
Simplifying the notation system would be like an easy arrangement of a more complex piece. It has less elements but is easier. The notation system is perfect and has no useful alternatives. I don't think removing important elements from notation would make them play better, it would simply be an illusion.
Although I agree with most of what you said, and there are no good alternatives as of yet, I cannot agree that the present system is perfect. Perfect is too much. Like in much anything else, it is not perfect, but it is most useful atm. And these things can always change for the better (or worse... ugh...). ;)
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I think that somebody who doesnt have the brains to understand current notation shouldnt be thinking about playing piano at all. Cleaning sewers is okay, but playing the piano....
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I think that somebody who doesnt have the brains to understand current notation shouldnt be thinking about playing piano at all. Cleaning sewers is okay, but playing the piano....
YES! That is my whole point. They wouldn't do it justice anyways.
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And you who think this "very simple notation" will be a hit: If there were any easier way to notate music, it would be way more radical than this. Like Guitar-tabs vs notation.
One more thing: What will you students do when they have leart your notation, and try to play something harder with plenty o accidentals
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Most modern instruments are just as easy to play in one key as any other. It seems to me that it should also be just as easy to read music in one key as another. Traditional notation makes it progressively more difficult to play in each key as you move away from C major/A minor, since there are more sharps and flats to remember. That seems unnecessary to me.
Anyone interested in alternative approaches to notating music that make each key just as easy to read, and represent the interval relationships between notes more accurately, you should check out notations that use a chromatic staff:
https://musicnotation.org
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It's an amazing coincidence that you made it here just in time to advertise how great those alternative notation systems are.
I can't figure why people spend so much time fixing something that isn't broken.
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The first aspect of a chromatic staff is the fact that the vertical distance would be almost twice as large. How many lines would you use on such a staff? How do you deal with huge jumps in either hand. My main concern would be reading everything vertically. I am imagining the eye scanning way way up, and then way way down, trying to take in all the notes. I have not yet seen notation of actual music written in a chromatic staff.
You do not have to remember lots and lots of sharps and flats. Each signature only adds one.
With a chromatic staff, you lose accidentals that give valuable information allowing the musician to orient himself at a glance. What do you do instead? Will there be a small note saying "modulation to dominant" or similar? Since we read notes in clusters and take in various types of information, rather than one note at a time, this concerns me.
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Hi Keypeg, these are fair concerns. As far as vertical distance goes, it may be a bit of a tradeoff, but probably worth it. And some notation systems (Twinline) overcome it by using alternating notehead shapes and a compressed staff that uses even less vertical space than traditional notation. (But there are tradeoffs there as well...)
Other notations space the lines further apart, by say a major third. I think this would help since there are fewer lines to take in as you move up and down. Moving from one line to the next still moves you a third, like in traditional notation. (only now you know it's a major third, whereas in traditional it could be major or minor...)
Also, when you're making jumps of large intervals you are mainly looking to identify the particular note that you will land on. ("I need to hit that high D") rather than reading the interval relationship between them ("I need to play a note a ninth higher"). With a chromatic staff each note always has the same appearance, is on the same line or space on the staff, regardless of the octave. So when you're making big jumps it is easier to identify the note directly by its position on the staff. So that probably helps with moving large intervals up and down.
As far as losing valuable information without accidentals, you wouldn't have to. A new symbol system could indicate when a note is say a D# or a Eb. And/or if it's an accidental that falls outside the current key. But beginners could ignore this and just play the note based on its position on the staff. Also, you could still have some symbol system for indicating the key and key changes. So you don't necessarily have to give up having this kind of information with a chromatic staff. You can have the advantages of both.
You do not have to remember lots and lots of sharps and flats. Each signature only adds one.
Fair enough, but it does seem to take people a long time to learn how to read in all the different keys. It would probably be easier if the musician did not have to remember which set of sharps or flats they were playing under -- easier if the notation more directly indicated which notes to play. (granted there are courtesy accidentals, but it seems like a cumbersome system...)
Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful response, and sorry for the long post!
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I have not yet seen notation of actual music written in a chromatic staff.
Here's some very basic "rough draft" quality examples, automatically generated from Lilypond software. They'll at least give you a sense of what some of these notations look like.
https://www.kelphead.org/chromatic/invention-9.html
And here's more info on this software work:
https://www.kelphead.org/chromatic/
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There are a lot of piano teachers in this teaching forum. So, teachers, do 90% of your students struggle with the initial phase of learning? Do only 10% of your students learn to read music over time?
there is a big difference between "struggling" and being absolutely reluctant, unfortunately. Until today I could not find out why so many people of all age groups are completely unwilling to learn music reading nor did I find a way to convince them that it is important and necessary. perhaps I should study psychology... :P
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The Invention sample is relatively compact music that does not do sudden leaps. Yet already here the chromatic notation makes some gigantic leaps. The eye has to cover a huge vertical space across four staffs, no less. There is no key signature, so I am entirely disoriented trying to read this score. How can I tell where and what the tonic is?
My main concern is how hard this is to read, especially for piano, because of the huge distance between top and bottom. And this isn't even open score. What about when an accompanist has to accompany a choir with open score music? What would that look like? Or, as happened in our choir, where the accompanist had to sight read the closed score of the music in Mozart's Requiement, with the choir's part written right above.
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Most modern instruments are just as easy to play in one key as any other. It seems to me that it should also be just as easy to read music in one key as another. Traditional notation makes it progressively more difficult to play in each key as you move away from C major/A minor, since there are more sharps and flats to remember. That seems unnecessary to me.
Anyone interested in alternative approaches to notating music that make each key just as easy to read, and represent the interval relationships between notes more accurately, you should check out notations that use a chromatic staff:
https://musicnotation.org
Dude, c'mon! What is the problem with learning the normal notation?! Yea, your notation might be great when you transpose a c-major scale to a E flat-major, but what are you going to do when you play a Liszt piece in D-flat major? Re-write the piece into the new notation?!
Seriously, the modern notation has been the same since... Many hundred years back. If there was any easier way to notate it, someone would already have come up with it.
Stop blame your crappy sight-reading on the notation, and practise!
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The chromatic notation is a little bit over the top in a way. What I propose is a movable-do notation based on scale degrees, since most pieces are tonal anyway. waltztime is right, reading in one key shouldn't be more difficult than the other. There is no reason why a grade 1 piano student should just stay in the keys of C major, G major and F major.
Students should master scales, chords and arpeggios in every key, much like how a non-classical guitarist would go about it. It is best that they see the pattern for intervals/ scales/ chords early on (music theory) instead of following the score mechanically, like some people do. Then have the key written at the beginning of the piece or section, and the middle do is the "do" of that key. Anything chromatic will be indicated by the normal accidentals. So it's basically the same, but instead of 5 lines, 4 spaces, it will be 3 lines, 2 spaces on a staff. One line or space for every tone in the scale.
If anyone decides to follow this suggestion, I don't mind as long as you mention that I thought of this first. I think it is best for teaching theory. Personally, I don't see the point of having 5 lines on a staff.
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I have always seen the notation system as reflecting a "movable do". That's what the key signature does. It fixes do (the tonic). In music this movable do moves around. It modulates to the relative minor or to the dominant, so that your "do" might be at the pitch C, then A, then G, in one and the same piece. The notation system we have takes care of this superbly. Would it not be how it's taught, rather than what the writing system is like, which is the question? How would you deal with modulations?
Btw
Most modern instruments are just as easy to play in one key as any other.
Does the poster know this for sure? Certain instruments have properties that make some keys much handier than others.
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I have always seen the notation system as reflecting a "movable do". That's what the key signature does. It fixes do (the tonic).
True, the key signature in the traditional system is adequate for some. I myself have no problem working with different key signatures. But that wasn't always the case. And some of my classmates still believe that pieces in key signatures with many sharps/ flats are harder. So did I. We thought that the easiest major key is C (no sharps/ flats), and B is one of the hardest... The irony is, the easiest key is B, and the hardest is C. Luckily, I stumbled on CC Chang's book and this forum and now, I'm not afraid of black keys.
It is both a technical and psychological problem. The normal notation, which is based on middle C no matter what key you're in, is biased towards white key thinking and playing. Same reason why I'm not impressed with the chromatic staff. Either use a new notation or find other methods to cure the black key phobia.
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"Black key phobia" is one problem in this issue. Not all of us play just one instrument. Is the problem with the notation, or how it and the theory behind it are taught?
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"Black key phobia" is one problem in this issue. Not all of us play just one instrument. Is the problem with the notation, or how it and the theory behind it are taught?
Both, plus the idea behind it. Not that I'm proposing an all-black keyboard too, LOL! Doesn't matter. I'm not selling a method here, just throwing the ideas away. Maybe someone will actually consider it and materialize it. Besides, I'm not particularly interested in faster reading or first sight reading, but just making things a bit easier.
Face it, people don't usually think of learning all the basic scale/ chord theory before playing the piano. Methods would only include "easy keys" and gradually include the others by means of adding key signatures. Hanon includes all scales and arpeggios, but no explanation how they were made. So most people can get away with just playing the notes without learning the theory behind it. As an added bonus, they grow afraid of black keys because these were the last they learned.
Think about this for a second.
traditional notation = 5 lines, 4 spaces + hopelessly centered on C + 7 letters to name 12 tones + key signature + accidentals to express chromaticism/ modulations = white key preference = hard to transpose
How about...
alternative notation = 3 lines, 2 spaces (maybe x2 to include 2 8ves) + movable do + 12 letters to name 12 tones + accidentals to express chromaticism/ modulations = free choice of keys = easy to transpose (just a matter of writing key of __ on top)
This looks like an argument for movable do. So be it. Actually, I study in fixed do, but that's just because it corresponds to the current system. If it were otherwise, I would go by scale degrees all the way.
Edit:
My main problem with other simplified notation mentioned here is that they only address the non-problem of reading black keys. It is really not a problem, IF you know your basic theory. It is useless to have simplified notation if you don't know how keys work, and you're only giving emphasis to the non-problem of reading black keys by attempting to solve it.
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They should start doing like in the film 'The Matrix'. Just link somebody to a computer and transfer all data about pianoplaying into the mind. Perfect sollution for all those people who dont have the brains or are too lazy to read that (already simple) current notation. 'Problem' solved!
Gyzzzmo
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They should start doing like in the film 'The Matrix'. Just link somebody to a computer and transfer all data about pianoplaying into the mind.
Not just piano playing, but everything else! ;D Why not? Uhm... because that will suck the fun out of pianostreet. Imagine if we all knew the truth, there would be no debate. Let us enjoy agreeing and disagreeing while we can! :)
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They should start doing like in the film 'The Matrix'. Just link somebody to a computer and transfer all data about pianoplaying into the mind. Perfect sollution for all those people who dont have the brains or are too lazy to read that (already simple) current notation. 'Problem' solved!
Gyzzzmo
The serious issue here is that in daily life as a piano teacher you have to deal with people who "don't have the brain"(yet :P) (who are significantly a minority) and people who are (or seem to be) lazy. This is where psychology comes into play. How do you encourage someone not to be "lazy"? How do you motivate someone who seems to be "demotivated"? I admit that for years one of my tendencies as a teacher was to actually provide a sort of "matrix" thinking and I regret that. Sometimes I felt that I am contributing unintentionally to the consumer mentality/lazy/"demotivated"/matrix thing. Sometimes I felt like I'm emphasizing too much the other extreme, the self-motivated, interested, intelligent learner, and in this I developed a tendency to ask too much from students. In my pedagogical education unfortunately the "matrix" thinking was very present all the time: "How can we make it easier for the poor overwhelmed kids?" easier, easier...it is not easy but it is after all not so very difficult, and who needs to balance all this out for him/herself and for the students is the teacher, after all.
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Most modern instruments are just as easy to play in one key as any other. It seems to me that it should also be just as easy to read music in one key as another. Traditional notation makes it progressively more difficult to play in each key as you move away from C major/A minor, since there are more sharps and flats to remember. That seems unnecessary to me.
Anyone interested in alternative approaches to notating music that make each key just as easy to read, and represent the interval relationships between notes more accurately, you should check out notations that use a chromatic staff:
https://musicnotation.org
Pointless and stupid. I could see the use for jazz, but it's completly inappropriate for music. It kills the whole idea of tonality and function. Music isn't twelve tones blended in some sort of random way! It simply doesn't work that way.
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Pointless and stupid. I could see the use for jazz, but it's completly inappropriate for music.
hahahaha! Dude... Ah, that was so fun!
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Pointless and stupid. I could see the use for jazz, but it's completly inappropriate for music.
Priceless!
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I missed that. ;D
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Pointless and stupid. I could see the use for jazz, but it's completly inappropriate for music.
Since when was jazz not music? And since when was this thread about bashing jazz? I thought it was about bashing simplified notation. ???
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Since when was jazz not music? And since when was this thread about bashing jazz? I thought it was about bashing simplified notation. ???
cause jazz uses very few key signatures
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cause jazz uses very few key signatures
Jazz uses whatever is faster to know what notes they must hit. So simplified notation could work for that sort of thing.
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I think there should also be a website that offers easier piano's. Like piano's where they removed all white keys so things get less confusing for dummies and the notes are less hard to hit. 8)
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I think they should remove all education at fundamental levels, I mean at least for social groups of less importance and maybe impose some gender and ethnic restrictions aswell while we´re at it. Then we´d finaly get rid of all those stupid music lovers for good and eventually all the ridiculous connoisseurs aswell. Not the mention all the narcissistic naive artists. Maybe we´d even get rid of culture as a whole aswell. Or at least we could measure it´s worth in $ without having to look about aesthetics values in retrospect so I know what to invest in, for christ sake.. .. .
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I hate when people "use music has a mean of expression" or whatever, giving an excuse for untalented people to ruin it. Playing music just for fun when you're talented is okay, but studying it seriously when you're not good enough is horrendous. Those people are using music, but it should be the other way around, music uses us. Music is much greater than any human being. As rachmaninoff said, music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is never enough for music. So yes, some people should stop trying and accept the fact that the life didn't give them what it takes to be a musician.
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Jazz uses whatever is faster to know what notes they must hit. So simplified notation could work for that sort of thing.
That is understandable. Simplified notation for jazz, traditional for classical.
I hate when people "use music has a mean of expression" or whatever, giving an excuse for untalented people to ruin it. Playing music just for fun when you're talented is okay, but studying it seriously when you're not good enough is horrendous... So yes, some people should stop trying and accept the fact that the life didn't give them what it takes to be a musician.
And now you're bashing "untalented" musicians too? Considering that you don't consider jazz as music at all, I am surprised you'd say this because some real/classical musicians do express themselves... and what are "talented" people anyway? Aren't they just ordinary people who learned some skills?
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And now you're bashing "untalented" musicians too? Considering that you don't consider jazz as music at all, I am surprised you'd say this because some real/classical musicians do express themselves... and what are "talented" people anyway? Aren't they just ordinary people who learned some skills?
I'm bashing people who are in college/universities/music schools and have nothing to do there. I aim nobody in particular. It's okay to express yourself also, but you must not do so if it ruins music. As I said, doing music for fun is okay if you're good at it, but just don't go in a music school if you're not meant to be there. And no, I don't know where you got the idea that everybody's "normal", but there are basically talented people, and there are basically disadvantaged people, that is an obvious fact. I'm bashing against those basically disadvantaged people who try too hard, that's all. The fact that jazz wasn't music at all was a joke, btw. I don't particularly like it, but there are limits!
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This is getting a bit off-topic, no? The only disadvantages I know of are not having 10 fingers and having an IQ of less than room temperature. If you have these disabilities, or you just don't like music, then don't go to music school. If you do have the requirements, and you want to play, I see no reason why not. If it takes some sort of simplifying to do so (which is additional effort for the one doing the simplifying), wouldn't it be worth the effort?
I hope that brings us all back to topic. :)
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My main concern is how hard this is to read, especially for piano, because of the huge distance between top and bottom.
Fair enough, but Twinline notation is more vertically compact than traditional notation. Also, Express Stave notation uses the same vertical distance (though for express stave this isn't yet implemented in the Bach examples I linked to). So you might want to check these out. I agree that the vertical distance could make many of these notations more difficult to read, so I like the Twinline approach.
Re: key signatures... The examples are very rough draft, automatically generated, so there's no key signature system in place on them yet. That's why you can't identify the tonic in those examples. You have to view them with a grain of salt, not as a final product.
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waltztime is right, reading in one key shouldn't be more difficult than the other. There is no reason why a grade 1 piano student should just stay in the keys of C major, G major and F major.
Students should master scales, chords and arpeggios in every key, much like how a non-classical guitarist would go about it. It is best that they see the pattern for intervals/ scales/ chords early on (music theory) instead of following the score mechanically, like some people do.
I agree, and a chromatic staff notation lets you clearly see the interval patterns of scales, arpeggios, chords, etc. It reveals the diatonic patterns in the music rather than hiding this diatonic pattern in the staff itself. For me, that's one of the biggest advantages of this approach to notation.
As for a moveable-do notation system, you might be interested in Thumline notation which is moveable-do (but it also uses a chromatic staff, so it is not exactly what you're proposing).
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It reveals the diatonic patterns in the music rather than hiding this diatonic pattern in the staff itself.
For me, it hides it. It is also impracticable for reading because of the huge vertical distance it entails.
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It kills the whole idea of tonality and function. Music isn't twelve tones blended in some sort of random way! It simply doesn't work that way.
Right, the 12 basic tones available on most instruments aren't combined in a random way, they're combined according to diatonic patterns and intervals. A chromatic staff makes those diatonic patterns clear and recognizable so that the musician sees them, understands them, and knows how they go together to form diatonic music.
These patterns are built into the traditional staff, hidden away from the student, making them harder to understand and learn. A chromatic staff makes these patterns explicit since you see them every time you play them.
For instance, to play a diatonic scale you have to know where the half steps and whole steps occur. There's no way to directly see and tell the difference between them on the traditional staff. A chromatic staff makes these fundamental building blocks of diatonic music explicit, easier to see and understand. And other diatonic intervals as well.
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I agree, and a chromatic staff notation lets you clearly see the interval patterns of scales, arpeggios, chords, etc. It reveals the diatonic patterns in the music rather than hiding this diatonic pattern in the staff itself. For me, that's one of the biggest advantages of this approach to notation.
For me, it hides it. It is also impracticable for reading because of the huge vertical distance it entails.
True. btw, I don't use the semitone conversion to find intervals ie. 1 semitone = minor second. I find it much easier to relate everything to the major scale ie. minor second = flatted major second. That's why I prefer a diatonic, but movable do staff. So the question is, what is the more efficient approach to intervals?
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These patterns are built into the traditional staff, hidden away from the student, making them harder to understand and learn. A chromatic staff makes these patterns explicit since you see them every time you play them.
These patterns are built into the key signatures combined with the traditional staff, making them highly visible. When I tried the chromatic staff, everything is invisible and you have to play note for note for note. I can use it if I start circling some of the diatonic things, or put little markers in to tell me things - in other words, duplicate the system that it replaces.
Right, the 12 basic tones available on most instruments aren't combined in a random way, they're combined according to diatonic patterns and intervals. A chromatic staff makes those diatonic patterns clear and recognizable so that the musician sees them, understands them, and knows how they go together to form diatonic music.
Can you give an example of particular instruments? I would think that the tones are built according to the physical proplerties of the instrument itself. Blown instruments will end up emitting certain sounds according to how air escapes, which is regulated through holes that are open and covered. That's physics. String instruments: you have four long pieces of string with no markings at all - only a placement along fifths. The piano and harp are two exceptions I can think of, off the bat.
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These patterns are built into the key signatures combined with the traditional staff, making them highly visible.
The diatonic notes are visible, but the diatonic pattern of intervals that is consistent across all the different keys is hidden because it is built-in to the staff, out of sight, out of mind.
So to be more explicit with what I mean, the diatonic pattern of intervals that makes up the major scale, and the major keys is:
W W h W W W h
W = whole step, h = half step
If I can't distinguish half steps and whole steps by their appearance on the staff (because they are built into the staff, so that the difference between them is hidden), then I never actually see this fundamental pattern that is common to all keys, and is the source by which the notes in each key are derived.
It's two different ways of approaching and understanding different keys. In the traditional system I learn CDEFGAB as the basic set of notes (with the diatonic pattern already built into them), then each key is learned by altering more and more of those notes with sharp or flat signs. "G Major is the same notes as C Major except for F#, and the tonic is now G." etc. In this approach the musician may never know that the notes of each key follow this same diatonic pattern: WWhWWWh.
In a chromatic staff approach the musician sees and learns this basic pattern of intervals that is common to all keys. Then each key is understood as having that basic pattern (major or minor) but starting from a different tonic note. Instead of building this pattern into the staff, the chromatic staff reveals the interval relationships of diatonic music, the same intervals that one has to play on one's instrument.
Maybe that clarifies what I'm saying? Maybe we will just have to agree to disagree about which method makes the diatonic pattern clearer.
You said:
"When I tried the chromatic staff, everything is invisible and you have to play note for note for note. I can use it if I start circling some of the diatonic things, or put little markers in to tell me things - in other words, duplicate the system that it replaces."
Once you learn how the diatonic pattern looks on the chromatic staff, and perhaps are familiar with the key a piece is in, then you would see the notes as following that diatonic pattern. At first go, it will seem strange and like you're just going note to note.
Also, in those "rough draft" examples no distinction is made between notes in the key and accidentals. This seems like it would be a reasonable thing to show in one way or another (perhaps something like courtesy accidentals just to mark which notes are accidentals). This would surely help, especially for those learning for the first time on such a staff.
(And rather than duplicating the system it replaces, I'd see it as combining the advantages of both...)
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Can you give an example of particular instruments? I would think that the tones are built according to the physical proplerties of the instrument itself.
Ah, sorry, when I said "the 12 basic tones available on most instruments aren't combined in a random way, they're combined according to diatonic patterns and intervals."
I wasn't thinking of the physical make-up of the instruments. Rather I meant that the musician and/or composer "combines" the 12 basic tones available to them on their instrument according to diatonic patterns and intervals, to make diatonic music. So most instruments give the musician a palette of 12 basic tones per octave, and the musician selects the diatonic notes from this chromatic palette presented by their instrument.
This is why it is good for the musician to see, learn, and know the diatonic interval patterns. A chromatic staff makes these interval patterns visible and easy to understand and learn.
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Icanpiano, where is this 90% coming from. Are you saying that the teachers in this forum are experiencing a success rate of 10%? Alternatively, have you interviewed the teachers in any particular state or country and discovered that 90% of their students are struggling? How have these numbers been obtained?