Simplified music notation

[tyui]

I've recently discovered a project named Simplified Music Notation (https://www.simplifiedmusicnotation.org/index.php) that tries to make it easier to read (and sight read) sheet music. Basically, instead of writing accidentals, you change the shape of the noteheads, so that the pitch is contained within the note itself (could be useful for reading tone clusters).

What do you think?

[faulty_damper]

Wow, that was actually surprisingly easy to read!  It's so easy that any musician would be able to make the switch like flipping a switch.  I'm not fond of the flats, though.  That doesn't even look pretty and wasn't obvious what it was supposed to be.

[perfect_pitch]

What do you think?

RUBBISH!!! There... I said it. No offense, but I think reading Stravinsky's Trois Mouvements de Petrushka would be a *** nightmare...

Hope this never takes off. I think it's a pathetic attempt to try and coin some idiotic method that ever so tweaks the music notation... but considering that 99.999999% of music doesn't use this method - being taught it and then having to read REAL music notation would just bugger them over.

[iansinclair]

Reminds me a little of the old shape note notation... or perhaps neums, but far less elegant that those.  Oddly, those dropped out of favour a few centuries ago, in favour of our current system...

[Bob]

Why bother?  Just learn the traditional notation.

The triangle/sharp on a leger line is hard to read.

What about courtesy accidentals?

And what do you do when you want to write in an extra reminder to yourself?  The giant flat/sharp/natural sign so you can't possibly miss that note again.

The videos on the main page aren't that helpful.  It's people sight-reading.  They could be reading a lead sheet.   I can't tell.


Play what you see... Traditional notation does that.  Although with anything you don't actually play what you see.  You play what you think it should sound like, what the composer meant (what you think they meant), or how you interpret the notation, etc.

Nothing is lost... So it's like traditional.  Ok.   That might make it more work to sketch something out.  You can't just jot out dashes for the note heads.  You'd have to be careful to make a triangle or diamond.

Easy to learn... assist memorization... So does traditional. And there are tons of teaching materials out there.

It does look simpler on this page though.
https://www.simplifiedmusicnotation.org/plugin.php

Photocopying it would smudge the noteheads a bit.  Those diamond/flats... They're going to start looking like regular noteheads when it gets smudged. 

Someone would still have to learn to sight-read with this.  It's still going to take some effort to read a piece.  Just because it's new doesn't mean it's going to solve anything.

A disadvantage....  I can mentally 'feel' the key by all the sharps or flats in the music or key signature.  This notation doesn't have that.  It's all the same look.

I'm not recognizing names with the endorsements.  Sounds bad, but starting off with a percussionist... Made me wonder.  And community college teachers/performers?  That's not really impressive.

Website's not that impressive.

There's probably not much if any music available. 

Might be a fad.  It's copyrighted for 2008 though.  It looks like a site selling a few method books and a few plugins for Sibelius maybe.

Otherwise, it looks like another example of someone trying to improve music notation.  I don't see it sticking though.

[j_menz]

It strikes me as rather more difficult to read than the traditional method. Key signatures appear to mean nothing, and by the time you get in double sharps/ flats (and what about triple sharps/flats?) it seems overly complicated.  Also, most decent sightreaders recognise chords, scales, arpeggios etc by their relation to a particular key, and I think this rather misses that factor.

Like so many "simplifications", I fear it is easier (by quite a small margin) right at the start, but is more difficult in the long run.

Also, there's not a lot of music written in it, so I suspect there's a commercial tie in there - and they will not have rights to everything one might want (or an interest in setting it for much of that which is out of copyright).

[awesom_o]

Traditional music notation is already in its simplest possible form. 

You can't fix what isn't broken.

[senanserat]

Traditional music notation is already in its simplest possible form. 

You can't fix what isn't broken.

Thats what she said...so I concur.

[faulty_damper]

Traditional music notation is already in its simplest possible form. 

You can't fix what isn't broken.

I disagree.  By combining accidentals with noteheads, it makes one less thing to look at, see, interpret, and execute.  It's also a lot easier to indicate an accidental throughout a measure because we've all read something accidental heavy and forgot which notes were modified.
I'm all for it.
But I've also taught rhythmic shorthand notation which is just so much easier and faster to write than the traditional way of notating rhythm so I'm biased toward anything that simplifies the cumbersome.

[ignaceii]

Someone ever heard of klavarskribo. Vertical music notation that even a child understands the first minutes.
There was an article on it in international piano magazine.
I learned my first music playing with it. Fantastic. It's a kind of tabulator for the piano.
The notes in the score are the keys you have to press.
The distance between the notes is the duration.
Google klavarskribo and watch for yourselve.

[awesom_o]

I disagree.  By combining accidentals with noteheads, it makes one less thing to look at, see, interpret, and execute.  It's also a lot easier to indicate an accidental throughout a measure because we've all read something accidental heavy and forgot which notes were modified.

The problem here is that you look upon the sharp sign and the flat sign as being nouns, when they are in fact verbs.

 By combining the accidental and the note head, we are saying that the sharp sign and the flat sign are actually nouns, when they are not nouns. They are verbs.

[j_menz]

They are verbs.

I'd have said they were adjectives, or part of a compound noun.

[faulty_damper]

Has anyone even given a real reason why it's a bad idea? Not one? Just because it's not traditional? That's not a valid reason.  Imagine the blasphemy when someone invented bar lines.  Or triplet notation.

[timothy42b]

Have you ever seen the kind of music notation used in Guitar Hero and similar games?

I can't read it easily, but it seems to contain all the necessary pitch and rhythm information. 

[Bob]

Has anyone even given a real reason why it's a bad idea? Not one? Just because it's not traditional? That's not a valid reason.  Imagine the blasphemy when someone invented bar lines.  Or triplet notation.

Won't photocopy well.  Too easy to misread if your eyesight is bad.   The smudge factor.


It does make the key signature a little less important.  You don't have to pay much attention to it if you don't want to.  Although it is good to know what key you're in...


With traditional you do have to take in two pieces of information -- note name and flat/sharp/natural if it's there.  Or refer back to the key signature. 

Why not just use a filled in sharp or flat as the notehead?  Same idea.



It's not just the reading though with two pieces of information  -- ex.   B.... flat.  Or,  flat.. .B.    The concept has two pieces of information too.  B and flat.  For reading or for understanding you still waste an ounce of brainpower on B (natural). 


There can't be any courtesy accidentals with this system.  The composer wants to tell the performer, "Yes, I really did mean this note and not this other note."   Or, "Hey dummy!  Make you play it natural in this measure!"  With polite parentheses around the courtesy accidental.



And... Is this really a new idea?  Nobody every thought of it?   300 years ago someone didn't say, "Hey, why not just use noteheads instead of these accidentals?"


Add in printing costs.  Might not be an issue now.  At one point, I remember it did matter and that determined something with notation. 


How about renaming all the notes?  No more flats and sharps.  Just letters. What's that?  A-K?  Make something like a six or seven line staff.  Line or space.  Do away with accidentals entirely.

[outin]

How about renaming all the notes?  No more flats and sharps.  Just letters. What's that?  A-K?  Make something like a six or seven line staff.  Line or space.  Do away with accidentals entirely.

Why use existing letters at all? That's actually confusing because letters are often strongly associated with language. And may also stress the order of the notes on the cost of the relationship between notes in the mind of the beginner. Often you start by drilling the alphabet instead of exploring the notes as tones that are closer of further apart from each other. Using letters also can make it mentally more difficult to internalize things that don't go from left to right because you don't use language backwards.

Maybe we could just start using the names from solfa instead.

Of course the existing notation works well for the composers and advanced players to exchange musical information. But I don't think it's pedagogically very good and might be one reason why so many struggle in the early stages and end up quitting. I think it's a minority that quit because they find playing too demanding physically. Many good teachers have probably spent a lot of time inventing ways to tackle the pedagogical problems with the traditional notation.

I think the problems of teaching with the traditional notation is the main reason why these new innovations come up every now and then. 

[Bob]

Solfege still has raised and lowered pitches. Do di re.   Re ra do. 

Should notation show the function?  Sometimes you just need an Fb.  E natural doesn't cut it.

[outin]

Solfege still has raised and lowered pitches. Do di re.   Re ra do. 

So should we have completely independent names for "black" notes that are not just derived from the "white" notes, thus making all the notes more "equal". Implementing the 12-tone idea to musical notation?

Should notation show the function?  Sometimes you just need an Fb.  E natural doesn't cut it.

That's a good question. Is it worth it to separate musical theory from musical notation? To make it easier to learn to play music on the expence of understanding how the music is created? Some people would say yes, because then people could just use music in a more simple way, reproduce it on an instrument for the pleasure of self and others. Making it much more difficult of course to learn large pieces because the memorizing is on the note level. But it is mostly like that in the earlier stages anyway...

[Bob]

So should we have completely independent names for "black" notes that are not just derived from the "white" notes, thus making all the notes more "equal". Implementing the 12-tone idea to musical notation?

We'll have to redo the keyboard too. Enough of this black and white stuff.  It's racist. It's all based on white notes, isn't it?  And C.  They could all be on the same level (like white notes).... Or two levels like now.... Or three levels.....    Or use technology and have it transpose.  Play it all with the same notation.  Change the key of the instrument, not read a different key.

[outin]

We'll have to redo the keyboard too. Enough of this black and white stuff.  It's racist. It's all based on white notes, isn't it?  And C.  They could all be on the same level (like white notes).... Or two levels like now.... Or three levels.....    Or use technology and have it transpose.  Play it all with the same notation.  Change the key of the instrument, not read a different key.

The whole major-minor tonality thing is racist

The black keys are there to help people conceptualize and find their way on the keyboard. I personally have visual problems with them. It would be easier for me if all the keys were the same colour. I need to often close my eyes to learn something because my learning is so much disturbed by the vision of the black and white on the keyboard. But I am probably in a minority.

There have been alternative keyboards, but of course this one is too established to be changed.

[j_menz]

There have been alternative keyboards, but of course this one is too established to be changed.

There's always -

[outin]

There's always -

I think my choice would be green 

[timothy42b]

There have been alternative keyboards, but of course this one is too established to be changed.

Yes, Wicki-Hayden is promising.  (not sure I spelled it right)

[Bob]

Haha.  That's true, the racism bit -- The black keys do help you find your way around the white keys.  And the white keys got the regular names.  The black keys got stuck with a variation on those regular names... those natural names.  They're never going to get a natural name of their own.  Always sharp or flat *compared* to those white keys. A whole white key perspective thing going on.  And they're smaller.  Don't let those black keys out in front.  They have to be kept away from the front of the keyboard, relegated to the back of the keyboard.  And they're kept a little off/above from where all the white keys. Notice the white keys fill up all the space. The white keys keep the black keys separate from each other, sometimes even separating them with two white keys. Is the effect intentional?  Do you ever hear anyone complaining about their fingers getting caught between the white keys?  Nope.  The way they're set up it's puts all the blame on those black keys.  "Those black keys keep grabbing my fingers."  "Those black keys won't let my finger though."  Thumbs are probably pretty racist too.  There's even a rule about not putting your thumb on a black key.  finger-ism is separate issue.  Who developed this system?  Where did it come from?  Western Europeans of course.  Out there 'colonizing' the keyboard, always trying to expand it.  And then making sure to keep the white and black keys separate.  Even number-wise... white keys are outnumbering the black keys.  The black keys are minority keys. 

To make it fair, the keys will have to be every color we can come up with.  Or every color in one.... which would probably end up black....  All the same size.  They should probably rotate too, so each key gets to be in every position on the keyboard equally.  Pitch-wise, they'll have to have the same pitch.  Otherwise it's unequal.  If you play two pitches, few people are going to say those pitches are equal.  They're going to say they're different.

[faulty_damper]

I think the key signature just makes sense in this simplified notation.  You still have sharps and flats, it's just shaped differently.  Accidentals are notated throughout the measure, and naturals are just the regular, oval noteheads.  It's easy to see that you don't need curtesy accidentals in this system since it's all notated; less thinking.

Anyway, I'll probably use this notation in my own compositions.  Any musician who can't figure it out is an idiot.

[perfect_pitch]

Anyway, I'll probably use this notation in my own compositions.  Any musician who can't figure it out is an idiot.

Good for you... I won't play your compositions however, personally cause I think the notation looks really bloody stupid.

[awesom_o]

Anyway, I'll probably use this notation in my own compositions.  Any musician who can't figure it out is an idiot.

Please post some of your compositions in the audition room! I'm eager to hear the progressive musical ideas which have inspired you to abandon traditional notation.

[faulty_damper]

When I first started learning how to read, I didn't know that an accidental carried on throughout the measure.  Subsequently, every time my sister heard me play, she would always say, "You're playing it wrong."  She never bothered to correct me for months until I finally asked what's wrong, since I was playing it exactly as it's written.  Then the ongoing amateurish argument complaining why it isn't notated throughout.  That just seemed stupid.

Anyway, this new notation makes it so much more obvious to even beginners since there's no need to notate cancelled accidentals.

I'll post my compositions when I stop working on them.

[awesom_o]

I'll post my compositions when I stop working on them.

I know that feeling. It's very difficult to 'stop' working on a piece. To stop improving a piece means that we see the piece as being as close to a finished product as we can get. And we are constantly improving ourselves as musicians.... so it is difficult to see any project as being remotely 'finished'.