Re: [MNP] Protecting your notation?

[Nextstep Musical System]

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 3:20 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
. I've got a notation system that is radically
> different than anything I've ever seen,

Are you aware of the reference head notation?


Enrique.

[Joseph Austin]

Seth,

Interesting question.

Personally, I'd be more interested in *promoting* a better notation than protecting it.

I like to see people offering new notations begin by publishing method books and beginner exercises and repertoire using the new notations.

That's because I think the most likely adopters of new notations are new students, or possibly new teachers.

So the flip side of your question is, 

how does one navigate the existing protections on already available curricula and sheet music so you can make it available in your new notation?

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

On Oct 26, 2012, at 3:20 AM, Seth Hofslund wrote:

Hello everyone,

I'm curious as to what you consider the best or most ideal way to protect your notation systems....

Anyhow, is patenting the only way to go? Does publishing the information on a website/blog, and the corresponding copyright, offer any safeguards from infringement? My custom nomenclature, for instance, has certain 'data compression' characteristics (moreso than the rhyming schemes and others I've seen) that are as far as I am aware entirely unique. Would something like that be protected from straight copying if I were just to publish it on a website? I'm guessing not, but I'm quite fuzzy on the legal aspects concerning this; spent the last two years thinking only about the design, not the legal side. Perhaps not pragmatic but then I'm a bit of an idealist :).

Thanks!

~Seth 
Pinwheel Music Notation (coming...soon?)

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[roy pertchik]

Don't holds it tight, give it away!  Remove barriers, publish it, shout it from rooftops, kiss babies.

On Oct 26, 2012 9:38 AM, "Seth Hofslund" <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello everyone,

I'm curious as to what you consider the best or most ideal way to protect your notation systems. I've got a notation system that is radically different than anything I've ever seen, and while I know there is a very small chance it would be adopted mainstream, I think the fact that it has the fidelity of piano roll notation, while making the intervallic relationships and general order of the music much more visible than the piano roll (thus, ideally allowing it to supplant the piano roll in software, and then carry over seamlessly to printed notation), not to mention the improved visibility of the rhythmic structure of music and more, makes it at least a possibility. I've also integrated certain other aspects of theory, such as general transposition, scale memorization and transposition, etc into the design of the notation and nomenclature. As a plus, the notation also fits all of the MNP criteria.  

Anyhow, is patenting the only way to go? Does publishing the information on a website/blog, and the corresponding copyright, offer any safeguards from infringement? My custom nomenclature, for instance, has certain 'data compression' characteristics (moreso than the rhyming schemes and others I've seen) that are as far as I am aware entirely unique. Would something like that be protected from straight copying if I were just to publish it on a website? I'm guessing not, but I'm quite fuzzy on the legal aspects concerning this; spent the last two years thinking only about the design, not the legal side. Perhaps not pragmatic but then I'm a bit of an idealist :).

[Michael Johnston]

> Personally, I'd be more interested in *promoting* a better notation than
> protecting it.

I have given up attempting to educate and push my own opinion on this.
So, I am now offering Protection. Yes, "Protection." It's a racket of
course, but so far nobody else is doing it.

For $10 per day, I will guarantee that nobody on planet Earth will use
your notation system. Guaranteed, I promise. All fees must be paid in
advance, thanks.

And if this silliness doesn't make you laugh, perhaps you need a good cry.

Cheers!
Michael
--
MICHAEL'S MUSIC SERVICE 4146 Sheridan Dr, Charlotte, NC 28205
704-567-1066 ** Please call or email us for your organ needs **
http://michaelsmusicservice.com "Organ Music Is Our Specialty"

[Jason Maccoy]

It is great to want to "give it all away" for free but if you want to make a business out of it you will need some protection to keep competitors from doing what you are doing.

Music publishers have strict copyright "protections" on their content so that they make sure they are the ones making the money.  Nothing wrong with that.

On the other hand....just because you have a patent doesn't mean you have a business.  You can spend a lot of money on legal stuff before you ever find out if people would buy it or that it works as well as you thought.

We have done a lot of "market validation" with real users and the results have been amazing.  Our "Music-by-Number" approach is easy to learn and can do everything found in Traditional Notation.  We are pursuing funding from Angel or Venture Capitol investors and they ALWAYS  want to know if it is patented! 

So, if you just want to enjoy alternative music notations as a hobby you can but if you want to launch a business you will need to look into at least a "Provisional Patent"...(less than $200).  If you ever want to share your idea with others you can have them sign a Non Disclosure Agreement (Free).

Also, plan on doing a lot of research on "what has already been done" it is staggering how many good ideas have been created for music notation.  The Music Notation Project is an awesome place to get expert feedback, critiques and guidance on how to improve your system.  There are some petty squabbles,  but there are also fantastic exchanges where you get to really torture test your conclusions.  This is a sharp group of music experts and they can offer you a lot of ideas for improvement.


Good luck!

Jason
www.numberednotes.com
Music-by-Number you can play immediately!

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[Ivaylo Naydenov]

No matter how you protect your data (in general) you can never protect it from your own paranoia.
If your intention to present your notation was to advartise it like that way, ok. You've got attention but you are raising the bar of expectations too high. So it is for you to decide.
Just show it, publish it in the MNP's wiki and put your name there.
Custom notation systems are so many that no one will eve bother to steal it from you if we are talking about intellectual rights here.

'Very different form anything else' doesn't necessary mean good, useful, genius or anything in between. ;)

— Ivaylo

[John Keller]

Hahaha best response Michael!

You should copyright instructional beginner material as Joseph said, but
dont try to stop others from using your notation system! No-one can claim it
to be their own invention if you get it on the net first.

I doubt if even Jason's Number Notes could be inforced legally if I chose to
publish a book which has notes written as numbers. Firstly he would probably
never hear about it and secondly a court case would be required.

Look at Express Stave! Try using it! Beginner books coming soon.

John K

[Nextstep Musical System]

The battle on educating people not to protect their ideas and work is
lost before starting, instead it might be worth educating people on{
-what is a patent about,
-that we need to learn to live with patents because they are not going
to disappear, at least in a foreseeable future
-and that there is no difference on a patent about a music notation
and a patent about anything else
}
I wonder if when the piano roll notation first appeared on computer
applications people worried and searched for possible patents before
using it, or they simply used it.

Between pressing a key on my PC keyboard and you reading it on your
screen there are hundreds (if not thousands) of patents, does any user
care about them?

If anybody thinks there is a special way of enforcing a patent about a
music notation other than the same way of enforcing any of those
patents, please let us know.
If anybody thinks there is a special reason for enforcing a patent
about a music notation other than the same reasons for enforcing any
of those patents, please let us know.

[Nextstep Musical System]

P.S.
Of course patents on music notations have a negative side, just as the
rest of the patents and copyright, nonetheless they have a positive
side; the big difference as far as I know is that those about music
notations have been completely irrelevant and everybody has wasted
their time and money.

[Joseph Austin]

I've got no problem with the idea of patents and copyrights.

But for music, the system seems too complicated.

A new notation is relatively useless unless I can use it for existing music.

And then get that transcribed music into the eyes of a potential performer.

The technical issues are difficult enough,

but the legal issues could be overwhelming.

What if I want to create and sell transcription software--what are the rules for my customers to legally use it?

What if I'm a teacher and I want to create my own arrangements for my students?

As I understand it:

If I want to legally listen to a piece, I can buy a mp3 for a dollar or two, or listen to the radio that has paid a nominal fee to a clearing house to broadcast it,

or buy a ticket to a performance.

If our choir wants to perform the piece, our church pays a fee to a clearinghouse and we can perform anything in their catalog.

But if I want to "publish" and alternative "arrangement" (does a re-notating count as an arrangement?) of a copyrighted work,

I need to track down the copyright holder and negotiate permission, piece by piece.

If this is easy or cheap, how come no lesson books have "the most popular song," Happy Birthday?

Whether one hopes to make a fortune from a new notation, or give it away,

I don't see how you can do either effectively without running afoul of the existing protections on the music itself.

How many budding musicians are going to bother with, much less pay for, a new notation to learn public domain works?

I understand that copyright law was developed when the printing press was the common method of distributing music.

It was updated for radio and sound recording and now confronts the internet.

But it seems the updating was focused on audio distribution, not score distribution.

I assume the whole point of new notation is to simplify the use of scores 

and thus enable order-of-magnitude increases in the accessibility of music via score to potential performers and wannabe performers,

thus greatly increasing the number of people who can enjoy performing music themselves, and eventually arranging and even composing,  instead of just listening.

But to get there, don't we need to simplify the "protection" system  for scores?

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

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[Joseph Austin]

John,
I'm looking forward to your Beginner Books.

Joe Austin
DrTechDaddy.com

[Michael Johnston]

> I've got no problem with the idea of patents and copyrights.

One of my favorite lectures on patents is given by a professor at Duke
Univ. She covers how the first challenges for the patent system were the
technical innovations of mechanically reproduced music. There was great
confusion, incompatible systems, claims and counterclaims, celebrity
endorsements, and much more that will remind you of today's situation.

If you haven't gathered, the first of these fights was over the player
piano. It used a roll, with holes or no holes, foot pedals, air drive,
steam (wow!), and more different methods (think operating systems) than
you can imagine.

Pianos had their systems. The first ones did not offer tempo
adjustments. Later systems offered everything! The real fascinating ones
were for the organ and the combination instruments such as the
Orchestrion. Organ, piano, banjo, violin, drums, and more could all be
controlled from a roll -- but not just any roll. You had to have the
right equipment and mostly the player only handled one kind of roll.
There was one exception made in a once-only cross licensing relationship.

If you're interested, here are just a few places to check out.

Duo-Art
http://www.pianola.org/reproducing/reproducing_duo-art.cfm

Overview
http://www.player-care.com/piano_ro.html

Celebrity Endorsement from Gershwin
http://www.richard-dowling.com/GershwinRollsNotes

Welte Performance (they made superior organ rolls)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTmbD5aktUs

More info on my blog about Welte and the museum in Switzerland
http://michaelsmusicservice.com/blog/?p=1233

Here is a Welte roll restored and played on a computer of the great
organist Clarence Eddy. You can see that the Welte system in 1913 could
change tempi, add and remove stops, close the swell box, pretty much
everything.
http://michaelsmusicservice.com/music/Eddy.FestivalPreludeAndFugueOnOldHundred.html

And for an example of the great Carl Reinecke playing on a roll.
Beethoven was alive when Reinecke was born in 1824!
http://www.pianola.org/reproducing/reproducing_welte.cfm

[Paul Morris]

Hi Seth,

What do you want to protect your notation from?  What is it in particular that you are concerned about, or want to achieve or avoid? 

Cheers,

-Paul M

On Oct 26, 2012, at 3:20 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello everyone,

I'm curious as to what you consider the best or most ideal way to protect your notation systems. I've got a notation system that is radically different than anything I've ever seen, and while I know there is a very small chance it would be adopted mainstream, I think the fact that it has the fidelity of piano roll notation, while making the intervallic relationships and general order of the music much more visible than the piano roll (thus, ideally allowing it to supplant the piano roll in software, and then carry over seamlessly to printed notation), not to mention the improved visibility of the rhythmic structure of music and more, makes it at least a possibility. I've also integrated certain other aspects of theory, such as general transposition, scale memorization and transposition, etc into the design of the notation and nomenclature. As a plus, the notation also fits all of the MNP criteria.  

Anyhow, is patenting the only way to go? Does publishing the information on a website/blog, and the corresponding copyright, offer any safeguards from infringement? My custom nomenclature, for instance, has certain 'data compression' characteristics (moreso than the rhyming schemes and others I've seen) that are as far as I am aware entirely unique. Would something like that be protected from straight copying if I were just to publish it on a website? I'm guessing not, but I'm quite fuzzy on the legal aspects concerning this; spent the last two years thinking only about the design, not the legal side. Perhaps not pragmatic but then I'm a bit of an idealist :).

Thanks!

~Seth 
Pinwheel Music Notation (coming...soon?)

[Seth Hofslund]

Great responses everyone. I knew this was a tricky subject and to be honest I had thought only little of protecting any ideas until talking to a friend in the software industry who said it might be wise to do so before revealing too much; and this coming from a guy who is not at all a fan of patents after seeing what they've done to the world of software. 

Truth is the notation started out as a strange phonetic system/grid to help me better learn the guitar. It kept growing and changing - often times radically - and finally I realized that it made sense to try and tackle a whole notation system. Anyhow, I'll try and keep this post short and address some of the questions asked.

>>"Are you aware of the reference head notation?"

Enrique, yes I am. Yours was the most radical concept I had seen and was what set me off on the idea of a notation that expressed much more data with less overhead compared to TN. I don't know where your system is at now or what has changed. It was over two years ago since I last looked at it. I took a quick gander at some of the other notation systems at the time and while there were a number of good ideas in many of them, I felt that they lacked the deeper cohesiveness I was seeking. If you're familiar with programming languages, I felt that many of the notations were analogously doing things like implementing reflection, etc, whereas I wanted the full cohesiveness of say Lisp. That will only make sense to those who've used Lisp to any degree; it's features look almost the same as other languages, but it's the way they all come together (primarily thanks to the syntactic regularity of s-expressions and the code-is-data-is-code approach) that truly sets Lisp apart. I owe you thanks Enrique for lighting the creative fire in me. It was actually one thing in particular about your notation that really got me thinking; - I remember you had some kind of interval naming scheme based on the three tiers of the note traces (sorry if I'm getting the terminology wrong). You had a naming scheme for lower/higher and alternate positions, I believe, and it was the inability to decipher exactly how many steps an 'alternate' interval actually was that set me off looking for another way. 

>>"how does one navigate the existing protections on already available curricula and sheet music so you can make it available in your new notation?"

A good question, which I sadly don't have an answer for as of yet. Would writing software that converts files of a given type into Pinwheel Notation be against the law? If legal, that seems the best route. Let the user of the software be responsible for owning the rights to any music that they wish to translate to or from one notation to another.

>>And if this silliness doesn't make you laugh, perhaps you need a good cry.

LOL. No tears here Michael. Thanks for the laugh. I do realize the catch-22 nature of it all, and protecting something that there's currently no demand for seems to border on the absurd.

>>What do you want to protect your notation from? What is it in particular that you are concerned about, or want to achieve or avoid?" 

Well, on the rare chance that it got the exposure and momentum I dream of, I envision it potentially supplanting the piano roll in software. In such cases, it would be nice to be able to leverage some licensing fee or something. Ideal, not necessary. Truth is I didn't create this with monetization in mind (I may have some off the wall ideas, but creating a notation system strictly with the idea of monetizing it is a bit too far out, even for me :P). 

Now it's time to look more into the notation systems already present. I more or less created this in a vacuum, in fits and spurts, sometimes spending a week trying various symbols and shrinking it all down to 'smaller than I'd ever hope to see' sizes and making sure it all works and the fidelity of the unique symbols remains in tact. Sometimes I'd spend a week or two exploring what would become a creative dead end. Sometimes I wouldn't touch it for months and instead just focus on my playing. I've relearned I don't know how many different naming schemes I've used throughout its development. But I do need to see what else exists. Specifically, what 3x4 notation systems have been proposed? I've heard of naming schemes (Roy, do you have your own notation or is it just an internalized naming scheme that you use?) but full blown notations? I've kept out of the loop more or less intentionally as I didn't want to be influenced by others (I found this helped me a lot in the past with game design. You need a core understanding, of course, but to really innovate need to step away from the 'improve an existing design' and instead consider every element from the ground up, and consider all known and accepted approaches as potentially disposable.)

~Seth

[Seth Hofslund]

>>'Very different form anything else' doesn't necessary mean good, useful, genius or anything in between. ;)

Ha, this is true. I think you will all see it as a unique and hopefully valuable contribution though. I've gone a long way to making it easier to learn music via the way theoretical concepts, transpostion, and scales (all intervallic relationships really) are very easily represented and, perhaps the most innovative aspect of my design, verbally, visually and mentally condensed. I have shown the notation to people who have no musical knowledge whatsoever and within 5 minutes they could easily name the interval between any two notes. With about an hour of conceptual instruction, they can learn any scale (memorization is essentially not required; this is the result of, the heart of the big innovation) and transpose it to any key with essentially no thought (Beginners will find it takes a few seconds to do so, but this is something that becomes an essentially instantaneous process with a bit more exposure to the system). Someone who understands some basic music theory can pick up the concept  Players of isomorphic instruments will love the system as I've made it as easy as possible to map a given scale visually/mentally to an isomorphic key/button/note arrangement (with 1-4 weeks practice, it becomes essentially instantaneous). In other words, I guarantee that a player like Roy could learn a new scale, and visually map it to his instrument, via only a single word. That is the kind of compression I'm talking about. 

In addition, not only are minor/major thirds highlighted by the 3x4 system, but there are a few other visual modifications to make half steps and whole steps (as well as chords internal intervals) very visually apparent. Another cool aspect of the system is that it is instantly transferable to a 6 or 7 (or more, no limit) line guitar tablature notation layout, and sacrifices no pitch or rhythm details or fidelity when compared to its traditional staff layout. It's not quite as easy to *learn* as traditional tablature, as you have to learn the notes and not just the numbers of frets, and I'm not sure it would supplant 'regular' tab for hobbyists, but it provides a real string specific notation for the serious musician. 

Articulation and dynamic expression is the one other area where I've made significant changes, and these are only possible due to the way the whole system works and also thanks to the very sparse staff. 

I've tried to take the best of all known systems and then add a few more innovations. It has the ease of interval identification of numbered notes - easier in a sense, as you never have the issue of going under or over the octave (eg: if you have note 9 and go up a P5, you end up at 16, which you have to mentally convert to 4). Also, there is no visual pattern to a major chord in numbered notation; here there is an easily identifiable visual signature (not line/space spacing). As each note has its own symbol, it reduces any mental translation, especially helpful when things get into the "excessive ledger line territory" (I don't use ledger lines as they're not necessary here). 

Ok, enough of me talking this up without actually exposing anything. :P I think the idea of protection is probably a no go, so I will be working on a document/blog to fully detail Pinwheel (and you'll get to see where it got it's silly name! :P) and make it publicly available. I've still got to hammer out a few design details, but the core of it is there and not likely to change. 

~Seth

[Seth Hofslund]

Ugh. I apologize for the mistakes, grammatical and otherwise. I'm used to posting at forums where I tend to make liberal use of the edit function after the fact :P.

So please excuse the "it's" when I meant its, and other uglies. Also, this line was a thought I forgot about and didn't finish while jumping around the original post:

" Someone who understands some basic music theory can pick up the concept"

I meant to say that they can pick up the concept quickly, almost instantly. There is a very minor learning curve in learning the 12 intervals (although via visual <--> verbal mnemonics I've tried to reduce this, too, as much as possible) but once they are learned that's it. You now have the key to learn any scale in any key in just seconds (there's no learning, per se, necessary, actually). This probably sounds ridiculous but you'll see that it isn't. 

[roy pertchik]

Hi Seth,

I have not tackled the notation system yet.  As you know, I have a fully key transparent, symmetrical, 3x4 naming/numbering system, and visual coloring system for my 6+6 vibraphone.  It is all of a piece, and is very playable.  I eagerly await the development of a notation with similar properties, that is also as information dense as TN, and  I'm looking forward to seeing your implementation.

Roy Pertchik
Design and Construction Consultant
NYS Arch., NCARB Cert.
381 Oxford Ave.
Palo Alto, CA 94306
917 294 6605

~Seth

[Seth Hofslund]

Hi Roy; 

I just tried mapping my notation to your vibraphone and I think you'll be extremely happy with the results. I love how easy it is; the two play together wonderfully. It's almost a 1:1 mapping - surely easier than it is on my primary instrument, the guitar. A question for you: have you thought of differentiating the 4 element in your system (ie differentiating each major third in some manner other than color?). I only ask because if you did, that would truly make it a 1:1 mapping. Actually, now that I look at it some more, a single marking (I'll explain this after I reveal more) placed only on given set of cycling major thirds would pretty much make it the mapping totally clear between your vibraphone and Pinwheel notation. I'm 100% that it could be explained to a beginner and have them reading and playing music within 10 minutes. 

Glad to see that this maps so effortlessly to an instrument that I had not considered at all during its development (well, not directly. Of course I had isomorphic instruments in general in mind the whole time, but tried to keep the approach instrument agnostic). Proves to me the very universal nature of the design.

Now, if only you could design a perfectly isomorphic guitar! (of course the redundancy of numerous pitches is always going to make that a less ideal instrument in an isomorphic sense, even with a non-conventional all strings tuned in fourths arrangement). 

[Paul Morris]

On Oct 30, 2012, at 7:26 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:

I've gone a long way to making it easier to learn music via the way theoretical concepts, transpostion, and scales (all intervallic relationships really) are very easily represented and, perhaps the most innovative aspect of my design, verbally, visually and mentally condensed. 

Hi Seth, 

Sounds promising.  I wholeheartedly agree that making interval relationships clear through isomorphism is key for making notation simpler, more intuitive, and easier to learn.  When you get around to publicizing your Pinwheel system, I'd suggest including a comprehensive interval chart like the one I've provided for TwinNote[1], to demonstrate its consistency in the appearance of intervals.

As far as other 3x4 notation systems, Joe Austin's is one that comes to mind[2].  It sounds like your system may have a somewhat similar approach, at least to the extent that it is also based on a 3x4 note pattern.

I look forward to more details on your system!

Cheers,

-Paul M

[1] http://twinnote.org/learn/intervals/

[2] http://drtechdaddy.com/2010/09/24/tonnetz-based-4x3-notation/

[Paul Morris]

On Oct 30, 2012, at 9:04 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Now, if only you could design a perfectly isomorphic guitar! (of course the redundancy of numerous pitches is always going to make that a less ideal instrument in an isomorphic sense, even with a non-conventional all strings tuned in fourths arrangement). 

Have you seen the Harpejji?   http://www.marcodi.com/

-Paul M

[Paul Morris]

On Oct 30, 2012, at 5:00 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:

That will only make sense to those who've used Lisp to any degree

Hi Seth,  If you like Lisp, you might like LilyPond.  You can tweak its output using Scheme (a dialect of Lisp)[1].  With some effort I was able to get it to produce sheet music in TwinNote by using some Scheme functions.[2]  Feel free to ask me any questions about it.  

Cheers,

-Paul

[1] http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.15/Documentation/extending/scheme-tutorial

[2] http://twinnote.org/software/lilypond/

[Nextstep Musical System]

On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 7:26 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have shown the notation to people who have no musical knowledge
> whatsoever and within 5 minutes they could easily name the interval between
> any two notes.

Hi Seth,
Technically you have already disclosed your notation, so if that was a
concern for you it should not be anymore.
So far everything you say sounds familiar.

B.R.
Enrique.

[Ivaylo Naydenov]

Hi, Seth
well form what you've already revealed seems like you know about the (pin)wheel of the basic six colors and their six mid-tones, thus all twelve we have.
Seems like you have assigned 12 signs (in other systems those are letters or other geometric symbols) to the 12 tones. You mention the intervals and that is where I would like to see some further explanation that you have form your PoV.

Mr. R. Pertchik has unique transformations of a very well known instruments, as also Mr. P. Vandervoort and Mr. W. Okawa (both followers of Mr. P. von Janko) in piano keyboard design (isomorphic as you call it).
Me personally do expect to see if really any of your design concepts for a Notation system would fit those kind of instruments. I second any of your final releases on the subject because i do have my own design of a isomoprhic piano keyboard that is based on the work of the Misters spoken above yet it has a very different (distinctive, new) design features that incorporate new performance possibilities concerning inversions of intervals, of whole chords and more.

I see you are some kind of a software developer that also plays guitar. i know you might have concluded to some new ideas and that is for sure so if you are interested I want to send you my work (think it still has a download link here at the forum though in a very old topics list). Anyway my idea is that once I got the money to make a prototype of my Janko² like keyboard I might need some guy that understands the whole concept and make a software version of the keyboard, notation systems and so on. Meanwhile you could see my Plain Notation at the MNP's Wiki.

I encourage you to upload your system there too. I'm sure none of us makes any cents or billions of that conceptual info there. ;)

— Ivaylo

[Seth Hofslund]

I had not heard of this before. I love it - thanks for introducing it to me Paul!

Pinwheel maps perfectly onto it, with the 4 element cycling in two unique patterns horizontally and vertically (this is where having the right note heads makes all the difference versus say numbered notation or the non-uniform 4x3 cycling of the Reference Head system [although the reference head approach does have some nice mental/visual properties that are I think impossible to emulate with a uniformly cycling 4x3 pattern]; the pattern is self evident from the note heads and very very visual). There are also immediately evident patterns moving diagonally up + right, over two and up two to the left, etc. These are just the 'immediately recognizable' patterns, with either the 4 or 3 element being the same or cycling in normal forward motion. All intervals become - with a basic understanding of Pinwheel - immediately transparent. 

After finalizing Pinwheel I'm going to have to see if they'd be interested in making a Harpejji with Pinwheel symbols. I really feel it would be mutually beneficial as the two fit together like hand and glove. (It's honestly a bit painful to see archaic TN mapped onto such a beautiful isomorphic layout).

[Seth Hofslund]

Paul, 

Thanks for the links. I've not had much time lately and haven't gotten to do check out all of the notations (and individuals' websites) yet, but those links save me a lot of time. Visually, my system is quite similar to Joe Austin's. I do keep a more traditional horizontal staff, and my approach to rhythm is different. The other primary difference is I've spent a lot of time designing the notation in Inkscape (as vector graphics) to test the visual fidelity of the unique symbols as they are shrunk down to the oft-smaller-than-I'd-like real world sizes. What good are twelve unique symbols if you can't distinguish them instantaneously in real world settings, right? 

I think Enrique is right in that most of my design is not something completely new and never-before-thought-of, but I feel that it's the way it all works together that does in fact make it 'completely new' - in a sense. I still think my approach to intervals and the compression technique I use for scales, chords, (any note grouping, really) is unique. It's one of those ideas that technically could be applied to any notation system, but it would become so cumbersome in a system that is not visually/semantically designed for it that I'm pretty sure it would prove to be more work than it is worth in such systems. I'll be revealing what exactly this compression business I keep going on about is actually about soon(ish) after I unveil Pinwheel (there are still a few design decisions nagging me). 

Also, I loved getting a good look at intervals as you show them in TwinNote. The truth is, intervals are probably more immediately apparent in TwinNote than in Pinwheel (or Joe Austin's system) thanks to the simpler design; you've got two note shapes and two note colors - I've got 4 and 3, respectively. The question then becomes is there enough value in having 12 unique symbols to justify their existence and the (mostly minor, in my estimation, but perhaps others disagree) setbacks they introduce compared to more concise designs without a unique symbol for each note. The benefits to having 12 unique symbols that I've seen are: 

*Completely erases the process of mental translation of converting a note head in a given space/line to an actual note. There is a true 1:1 correlation. In some cases, this will actually make intervals clearer than even the clearest more concise notations; identical note two octaves apart, for instance, have a somewhat great vertical distance that might incur a bit of mental overhead to process even in a clear system like TwinNote, but with unique symbols, this is negated. 

*The notation can be 'flattened' - that is, written on a single horizontal plane, if necessary (eg: a line of notebook paper). While that attribute might appear to be marginally useful at first, I think it actually proves to be quite useful as it allows the notation to immediately be used in something like guitar tablature, where pitch identification on a single plane is inherent in the notation's approach. Also, even though vertical separation intervallic cues are eliminated in such a system, the symbols can - with proper design - still show intervallic relationships when flattened. 

*Maps effortlessly to isomorphic instrument layouts. While the layout of the instrument and its intervals will change the emergent patterns, visual patterns will emerge regardless of instrument (this is something that does not happen cleanly with a 4x3 system that is non-cycling, and is my only criticism as such of Enrique's reference head approach. On the flipside, his approach makes certain things more visually apparent - a half step is more visually intuitive in his design than in Pinwheel, and try as I might I have not been able to conceive of a way to make a uniformly cycling 4x3 system present that information as clearly. I do have some symbol modifications to help, though.)

*Kind of the inverse of the first point, it also has a 1:1 mapping in the reverse order; when speaking of note names, their symbol (and location on the staff) are immediate (once first learned). No mental translation required. This is a big benefit in comparison to TN, but the inclusion of an isomorphic staff in most alternative notations comes pretty darn close to this, so in comparison it's not a great selling point when comparing Pinwheel to other notations. 

*It allows music to be read differently, I feel. Given that each note is a unique symbol, analogous to the unique characters in an alphabet, musical phrases can start to be read as "words." I know something similar happens with enough exposure to any system, including TN, but I have to wonder if the brain doesn't still process it differently. In working with Pinwheel, my n=1 evidence is that the brain does indeed process it differently. It just feels different. The ultimate design would have a vertical element that denotes relative scale degree, while the unique symbol denotes absolute pitch (I feel this is far superior to the reverse design where vertical element denotes absolute pitch and the unique symbol denotes the relative scale degree, as all music of a given structure would appear identical. Given chord progressions would always look the same, and the structure of music would become extremely evident. I've not yet been able to make this design workable though; I technically can do this with Pinwheel but it requires a change to the note symbols and staff in such a way that a lot of clarity is sacrificed).

So the question is if those benefits outweigh the drawbacks in clarity and immediate visual simplicity. I tend to think they do in general, and especially for certain instruments, but others may disagree. 

Perhaps a greater question is if the benefits of my imagined 'ultimate notation'  - where relative pitch is displayed by vertical position and absolute pitch by unique symbol - outweigh the drawbacks. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. It seems that the beginner would find it more difficult, as even though a given symbol maps to a given pitch, that symbol is not always in the same vertical location. I think advanced musicians would actually find it easier as the structure of the music - chord progressions, relevant scales, voice leading, all of it - would become much much more evident, and would outweigh the minor drawback of variable vertical position for a given pitch. This of course could be (at least somewhat) mitigated - or, conversely, amplified - by the design of the unique symbols. The more orthogonal they are - and yet identifiable - the easier it should be to read note groupings as 'words.' Another key design decision is in the layout of the staff; when we read a written language, we don't have lines regularly interrupting our reading. I think that excessive staff lines are counterproductive to reading a vertical grouping of notes as a word. Yet, that's a bit of a catch-22 as how can the absolute vertical position be determined easily and intuitively without lines or some kind of demarcation that ultimately inhibits the fluid read-notes-chords-and-phrases-as-words approach? In written language we don't have this to worry about as we only work in the horizontal plane, and the duration of one word never exceeds or carries into the next. [Completely random side thought: That just got me thinking about designing - or at least contemplating - methods of flattening the notation and yet still conveying all necessary information. I'm going to ponder this and try my hand at a design, though I could see this turning into a multi-year refinement process, too. Eek! I'd love to see the structure of music be as apparent as the structure of a written sentence.]

Anyway, back to my original musing. I wonder if such a relative/absolute system would or could ever catch on? 

One more random thought - as someone became more advanced the 'vertical position denotes relative pitch' approach would actually facilitate reading note groups as words in a roundabout way. Once one knew all keys, seeing the vertical relative layout of say, a Major 7th chord starting on the 4th degree, you'd read the vertical grouping as a word; in this case a word representing "Major 7th chord" and would instantly know the right chord to play given the key (again, assuming one knew all keys). The super easy transposition approach that Pinwheel facilitates makes this an easy process that even beginners could grasp (although beginners would not find this an instantaneous process, unfortunately.) Conversely though, they could just read each unique symbol in the chord and play it that way, and that's exactly what I'd imagine they do until they begin to learn and understand the underlying theory and structure of music. Once you have a grasp on structure and theory, you would reach the point you stop focusing on the trees (the individual unique note symbols at a given relative position) and instead see the forest (the 'word'; chord or phrase grouping).

Actually, we can conceive of something similar in regular notation. Let's just assume that everything was written in a single clef - say treble clef - and the first line E did not represent E but represented 'root note'. Let's also assume, just for ease, only the use of sharps. So F# would not represent the pitch F# but instead "major second", G# = major third, and so on. Now, write ALL music in this relative key of E, and simply mentally transpose on the fly (yeah, it's ugly in TN, but possible!). That's basically what I'm proposing, except of course in a system where absolute pitch still *is* present via the unique symbols. This truly feels like it would be the ultimate notation. I would love to be able to scientifically compare such an approach to the same system of 12 unique symbols, but with both vertical position and unique symbol denoting the pitch (as is the current design of Pinwheel) and see how many more sight reading errors, if any, the relative approach would have. Of course, it would be amazing to see if the relative approach offered unique benefits to improvisation (and just general understanding of music. Surely it would let us compare and contrast various pieces and passages with MUCH greater ease) and such for more advanced musicians, although outside of anecdotal reports, I don't know how you could really quantify that. 

~Seth

[Ivaylo Naydenov]

Seth,
I haven't much time to read your post (too big I think, maybe it's an excerpt of a treatise we'd like to read) so may I give you a well known advices:
A picture is worth a thousand words
Simple is the ultimate sophistication (Keep it simple)
If you have to explain it, it just ain't that good

Be advised also to take care for the blind people (or those with poor eyesight) in music community because they cannot see colors, graphic symbols or anything related to eye-seeing. They have to be able at least by hearing a sound, name or whatever audio-symbol to recognize the proposed Notation or Concept.

Just simple remarks, keep up the good work!

— Ivaylo

[Seth Hofslund]

Hi Ivaylo,

I've tried to consider as much of that as possible, even going so far as to reject my original naming scheme that utilized both L and R as leading consonant sounds due to the difficulties not only in pronunciation but in differentiation for Japanese speakers.I don't use colors for two reasons; that which you mentioned and the annoyance and difficulty in writing the notation. If hollow and full notes - as per TN - are ok and are not seen as 'shading'; then I don't think it would be possible to consider my approach shading (at least as it is described per the MNP guidelines. No shades of gray are necessary.)

A picture is coming, I promise :P. And the explanations aren't necessary per se to understand the notation; I think you'll all look at it and 'get' the basic concept right away. The explanations are more related to the notation and nomenclatures integration with theory; and unfortunately there's no way around at least *some* of that. I was just looking through a basic music theory book the other day and it took some 200+ pages to explain the staff, accidentals, rhythm, the very basics of chord construction, the major scale, etc. I had forgotten just how much there really is to learn in TN from the absolute beginner's standpoint. I think any of our systems are an improvement, and I imagine we could reduce the mental workload in both learning and remembering this information by at least an order of magnitude. A comprehensive basic music theory book in 20 pages? I don't think that would scare too many away! :)

Cheers,
~Seth

[Ivaylo Naydenov]

Ok, I see you maybe are Japanese or have learned to speak that language. You can never avoid language differentiations on one or another consonant or vowel. They aren't the same even to a specific accent of persons form one language origin!
For example Spanish speaking people do pronounce V and B the same exact way! They pronounce Z and C the same exact way (when C is in front of a vowel) and so on. And we are speaking here of about one whole continent of people.
There are more than one alphabet to deal with different basic sounds. One of which is Cyrillic – the alphabet of my people (mostly and wrongly known as Russian alphabet). There are many differences and one cannot satisfy all of it in whatever Notation System that names the tones, symbols, etc..
Musical tones are always the same even being grouped together in a given Temperament as: 5 (Pentatonics), 6 (ET), 7 (Modes), 12 (TET), 19 (μTT), 24 (2×TET), 31 (μTT).
Thus music theory is not exactly theory but a system of right or most spread out rules of communication, nomenclature of Music's base elements (tones, intervals, chords) and so on. Music has no theory to obey it to. One native music might be impercipient for a listener form another part of the world. That is why they need so much explanation on Western Music Theory you say on that book... because the heritage of its origin is full of misconceptions concerning the Modes, Piano Keyboard Design and what's happened in the last few centuries in Music.

You are right, we all here feel the need of a Change. And please do not forget that a changing or a different point of view doesn't necessarily mean good, simple (genius), elegant... But we should find the right way, I'm sure!

— Ivaylo

[Seth Hofslund]

Not japanese, that was just the most obvious/known consonant issue that I was aware of. Hopefully my proposal does not have some equally difficult sounds for speakers of other languages. 

Also, regarding theory, you're definitely correct. In fact, I look forward to having my conceptual boundaries expanded by all of you who are more proficient in the various forms of it. I am by no means an expert. 

I'm curious as to what you personally feel about a system wherein relative pitch was displayed on the vertical axis, (with or without absolute pitch being denoted, via unique symbols or some other manner). This emphasizes tonality in some form or another, and forces the writer/composer to think in terms of tonality when notating pitch. Perhaps this is limiting in the sense that the perception of tonality is then 'cast in stone' by the choice of the composer (yes, you could still interpret it in other manners via transposition. What I was just thinking though is that it might limit the composer to what he knows - thinking limited to the paradigm that he was taught - rather than the comparative tonal freedom of a system that really only emphasizes absolute pitch rather than harmonic relationship).

~Seth

[Nextstep Musical System]

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 4:48 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Perhaps a greater question is if the benefits of my imagined 'ultimate notation' - where relative pitch is displayed by >vertical position and absolute pitch by unique symbol -

This has already been shown on the Reference Head Notation {
the RHN is a distinctive technique for notating music but not a
specific implementation or an instance of said technique, like when we
say “Staff Notation” it may include any variant using a staff of x
number of lines, note heads (any shape) and duration figures; or
cipher notation.
}
probably when you speak of the RHN your thinking of some
implementation I have shown here, implementations may have its names
as Notetrace or Nextstep Musical System or whatever may have in the
future.

I can see you are striving to present your system; I understand it, as
I was not ready to present mine neither when I first posted here some
years ago, but understood it was not nice to be posting without
showing and-- the result was a disaster---, however it helped me to
organize ideas for its presentation to other audiences.

[Ivaylo Naydenov]

I tend to criticize the so called Absolute pitch because even it has ever been Relative. Just remember how many times they did change the reference Hz freq. of a tone La (being now 440Hz, 220Hz and ×2 or ×½ etc.).
Yes, I do realize that once that has been done, you optionally could assign certain symbols to all the tones in the ET system, being they 12, 19, 24, 31. And when 12 is quite arbitrary acceptable when you get to 24 it could get rather confusing or distracting. I do believe that human mind is capable of emphasizing that much of a symbols and to be able to distinguish one from another (alphabets, hieroglyphs, dingbats, etc.) but when you get to them being grouped in intervals (harmonic in particular) or more over to chords (4, 5 tone groups one at a time) the written form of so many symbols in time (measure, tempo, time representing lines) is getting quite complex.

I have seen many Notation System that try to deal with the concept of "where relative pitch is displayed by vertical position and absolute pitch by unique symbol" and they all are very confusing. Not that it is impossible to do that much of information. In fact writing words is almost the same thing, well not that much of a same to be honest. It takes almost three years to teach a child to write properly in a specific language and even more time to teach an illiterate adult to do that! It is the like as to getting a degree in Writing in English per say. Education to a given System is always time consuming, no matter to what subject it refers to.

Then it comes to relate that to the performance on a specific music instrument. Tabs are very simple and intuitive way of writing music specifically for a guitar or any of those fretted string instruments. Does it work for a violin? What about an harp?

Traditional Notation System (NS) nowadays works quite good (but not even close to perfect) for a conventional piano keyboard instrument (pianos, most of accordeons) yet most difficult instruments for every NS is to satisfy wood\brass instruments!
That means that a good and simple NS does not have to be a TAB-like notation for any instrument. It has to be at least simple and meaningful to quickly recognize the base structure of music (melody and harmony) in time: intervals, tonal reference.
I really do want to see simple and elegant writing form of "absolute pitch by unique symbol in a vertical set of relative pitch positions" but seems like there is not enough simple geometric shapes whilst alphabet symbols are too heavy for the task.

Hope your system, Seth, could manage to do that. I've seen system with triangles, pointing in different basic directions, filled, hollow, encircled, enclosing a circle and so on but that is way too complex when they got to be written on paper or seen on screen enough small to be possible to be followed in time during performance and basic time reference!

— Ivaylo

[roy pertchik]

>I've seen system with triangles, pointing in different basic directions, filled, hollow, encircled, enclosing a circle and so on but that is way too complex when they got to be written on paper or seen on screen enough small to be possible to be followed in time during performance and basic time reference!

YES!

--

[Seth Hofslund]

Hey everyone. One quick question: are there any standard pieces that you guys are translating to your notation to show it off? If not, perhaps we should find a few pieces: something easy, moderately difficult, and very difficult, so that we can easily compare and contrast the various notations (at least on a simple, visual level). 

[Nextstep Musical System]

On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 4:38 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey everyone. One quick question: are there any standard pieces that you
> guys are translating to your notation to show it off?
>

There has been a common practice in this group of testing notations by
“transnotating” from TN; while notations should be tested by comparing
how easier they make transcribing.

The easier it makes transnotating from TN it could be considered a
reform, the easier it makes transcribing it could be considered an
alternative.

I am lucky I transnotate from the piano roll where there is no such
concept of simple, moderate or difficult, those level of difficulty
belong to performance and the first goal of any proposal should be
taking away those concepts from notation.

Moore’s Law states that computing power doubles every eighteen months
and at least a music notation reform or alternative is proposed every
year.

Don’t complicate your presentation, “happy birthday” will do.

[Michael Johnston]

> Hey everyone. One quick question: are there any standard pieces that you
> guys are translating to your notation to show it off?

Don't forget http://musicnotation.org/wiki/Category:Musical_Examples

[Nextstep Musical System]

P.S.
Music terminology is complicated by itself and people like me may
complicate it even more, so this is basically what I mean:
Transcribe music = to notate music WITHOUT the help of said music
already notated in any form.
Transnotate music = to notate music WITH the help of said music
already notated in another form.

My excuses to the English and Music academia where I do not belong.

[Paul Morris]

On Oct 31, 2012, at 4:48 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Paul, Thanks for the links.

Hi Seth, You're welcome.  It's good to hear about your thinking and approach.  I've replied to some of your points below.

I've not had much time lately and haven't gotten to do check out all of the notations (and individuals' websites) yet, but those links save me a lot of time. Visually, my system is quite similar to Joe Austin's. I do keep a more traditional horizontal staff, and my approach to rhythm is different. The other primary difference is I've spent a lot of time designing the notation in Inkscape (as vector graphics) to test the visual fidelity of the unique symbols as they are shrunk down to the oft-smaller-than-I'd-like real world sizes. What good are twelve unique symbols if you can't distinguish them instantaneously in real world settings, right? 

I think Enrique is right in that most of my design is not something completely new and never-before-thought-of, but I feel that it's the way it all works together that does in fact make it 'completely new' - in a sense. I still think my approach to intervals and the compression technique I use for scales, chords, (any note grouping, really) is unique. It's one of those ideas that technically could be applied to any notation system, but it would become so cumbersome in a system that is not visually/semantically designed for it that I'm pretty sure it would prove to be more work than it is worth in such systems. I'll be revealing what exactly this compression business I keep going on about is actually about soon(ish) after I unveil Pinwheel (there are still a few design decisions nagging me). 

I think it helps to approach these systems as works in progress that can be tweaked and revised over time.  Also these kinds of design decisions can benefit from discussion and outside input.  So take your time if you like, but I don't think anyone will hold it against you if you change your mind later.  :-)

Also, I loved getting a good look at intervals as you show them in TwinNote. The truth is, intervals are probably more immediately apparent in TwinNote than in Pinwheel (or Joe Austin's system) thanks to the simpler design; you've got two note shapes and two note colors - I've got 4 and 3, respectively. The question then becomes is there enough value in having 12 unique symbols to justify their existence and the (mostly minor, in my estimation, but perhaps others disagree) setbacks they introduce compared to more concise designs without a unique symbol for each note.

Glad you liked the interval chart for TwinNote.  This is a good question you raise about the 6x2 and 3x4 approaches.  For me being able to recognize an interval quickly and easily is a high priority because it allows you to more easily read music by interval patterns. 

(And playing by interval patterns parallels playing by ear and improvising, which are largely a matter of playing by intervals.  Also, most people hear by intervals not absolute pitches, so having a notation that makes intervals clear and easy to recognize complements and builds on that.)

The benefits to having 12 unique symbols that I've seen are: 

*Completely erases the process of mental translation of converting a note head in a given space/line to an actual note. There is a true 1:1 correlation.

Hmm...  To me this seems like a more or less even trade-off.  With a chromatic staff that cycles on the octave each staff position is unique.  So either you have to learn 12 positions on the staff or 12 different types of note.  Either way you have to do a mental translation / conversion (that gets easier and more automatic the more you do it).  

Some people may prefer recognizing 12 differently shaped notes, and others may prefer recognizing 12 different positions on a staff.  Or I suppose you could have both 12 staff positions and 12 note types.  In TwinNote you basically have 6 staff positions and 2 note shapes, so you're using some of both, but not too much of either.

In some cases, this will actually make intervals clearer than even the clearest more concise notations; identical note two octaves apart, for instance, have a somewhat great vertical distance that might incur a bit of mental overhead to process even in a clear system like TwinNote, but with unique symbols, this is negated. 

Ok, but if a note is in the same staff position in every octave, then octaves are pretty clear, (especially if the vertical distance is compressed as in TwinNote).  

*The notation can be 'flattened' - that is, written on a single horizontal plane, if necessary (eg: a line of notebook paper). While that attribute might appear to be marginally useful at first, I think it actually proves to be quite useful as it allows the notation to immediately be used in something like guitar tablature, where pitch identification on a single plane is inherent in the notation's approach. Also, even though vertical separation intervallic cues are eliminated in such a system, the symbols can - with proper design - still show intervallic relationships when flattened.

That's a good example of how you could use this with guitar tablature.  Jose Sottorio had an approach for writing his notation in this flattened way.  His staff had two lines (very much like TwinNote and Twinline), and so writing a note shape in some orientation to two lines could give you a unique symbol for each of the 12 pitches.  Easier to draw than describe, but I digress...

 *Maps effortlessly to isomorphic instrument layouts. While the layout of the instrument and its intervals will change the emergent patterns, visual patterns will emerge regardless of instrument (this is something that does not happen cleanly with a 4x3 system that is non-cycling, and is my only criticism as such of Enrique's reference head approach. On the flipside, his approach makes certain things more visually apparent - a half step is more visually intuitive in his design than in Pinwheel, and try as I might I have not been able to conceive of a way to make a uniformly cycling 4x3 system present that information as clearly. I do have some symbol modifications to help, though.)

*Kind of the inverse of the first point, it also has a 1:1 mapping in the reverse order; when speaking of note names, their symbol (and location on the staff) are immediate (once first learned). No mental translation required. This is a big benefit in comparison to TN, but the inclusion of an isomorphic staff in most alternative notations comes pretty darn close to this, so in comparison it's not a great selling point when comparing Pinwheel to other notations. 

*It allows music to be read differently, I feel. Given that each note is a unique symbol, analogous to the unique characters in an alphabet, musical phrases can start to be read as "words." I know something similar happens with enough exposure to any system, including TN, but I have to wonder if the brain doesn't still process it differently. In working with Pinwheel, my n=1 evidence is that the brain does indeed process it differently. It just feels different.

Sounds like singing in shape-note notation [1] where the shapes align with the scale degree or the note's position-in-the-key, so that this becomes a cue you can tune in to.

Although you're talking about the shapes being the absolute pitches instead, so that's a different approach.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_note

The ultimate design would have a vertical element that denotes relative scale degree, while the unique symbol denotes absolute pitch (I feel this is far superior to the reverse design where vertical element denotes absolute pitch and the unique symbol denotes the relative scale degree, as all music of a given structure would appear identical. Given chord progressions would always look the same, and the structure of music would become extremely evident. I've not yet been able to make this design workable though; I technically can do this with Pinwheel but it requires a change to the note symbols and staff in such a way that a lot of clarity is sacrificed).

Interesting.  I tend to think of three aspects that can be emphasized in the notation of pitch, three ways that notes can be read or understood:

1. absolute pitch identities (single notes)

2. relative pitch relationships (between notes, intervals)

3. relative scale degree / note positions within a given key or scale, in relation to a tonic note

I think it's important to distinguish between 2 and 3, as they are similar but not equivalent.

It sounds like you're talking about the lines and spaces of the staff representing #3, with the note shapes indicating #1.  The shapes of the notes wouldn't help you with #2 (except for the octave) until you had memorized the interval relationships between the different shapes.  I guess the intervals could be seen via their position on the staff.

The tough case for a system that emphasizes #3 is how to handle key changes.  

One other consideration...  It would be much easier to use a notation system that emphasized #3 if your instrument also worked that way.  So if the same key or fret was always the tonic note no matter what key you were playing in.  But most instruments do not work this way, they are more like a standard staff where the pitches are always in the same place, but the tonic moves around depending on the key you're in.  Just something to think about.

So the question is if those benefits outweigh the drawbacks in clarity and immediate visual simplicity. I tend to think they do in general, and especially for certain instruments, but others may disagree. 

Perhaps a greater question is if the benefits of my imagined 'ultimate notation'  - where relative pitch is displayed by vertical position and absolute pitch by unique symbol - outweigh the drawbacks. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. It seems that the beginner would find it more difficult, as even though a given symbol maps to a given pitch, that symbol is not always in the same vertical location. I think advanced musicians would actually find it easier as the structure of the music - chord progressions, relevant scales, voice leading, all of it - would become much much more evident, and would outweigh the minor drawback of variable vertical position for a given pitch. This of course could be (at least somewhat) mitigated - or, conversely, amplified - by the design of the unique symbols. The more orthogonal they are - and yet identifiable - the easier it should be to read note groupings as 'words.' Another key design decision is in the layout of the staff; when we read a written language, we don't have lines regularly interrupting our reading. I think that excessive staff lines are counterproductive to reading a vertical grouping of notes as a word. Yet, that's a bit of a catch-22 as how can the absolute vertical position be determined easily and intuitively without lines or some kind of demarcation that ultimately inhibits the fluid read-notes-chords-and-phrases-as-words approach? In written language we don't have this to worry about as we only work in the horizontal plane, and the duration of one word never exceeds or carries into the next. [Completely random side thought: That just got me thinking about designing - or at least contemplating - methods of flattening the notation and yet still conveying all necessary information. I'm going to ponder this and try my hand at a design, though I could see this turning into a multi-year refinement process, too. Eek! I'd love to see the structure of music be as apparent as the structure of a written sentence.]

Anyway, back to my original musing. I wonder if such a relative/absolute system would or could ever catch on? 

One more random thought - as someone became more advanced the 'vertical position denotes relative pitch' approach would actually facilitate reading note groups as words in a roundabout way. Once one knew all keys, seeing the vertical relative layout of say, a Major 7th chord starting on the 4th degree, you'd read the vertical grouping as a word; in this case a word representing "Major 7th chord" and would instantly know the right chord to play given the key (again, assuming one knew all keys).

This is basically what I mean in terms of reading by interval relationships.  But you can do this on a staff that maps to absolute pitches, as long as the interval relationships between the notes are clear (#2 above).  As long as the interval relationships are easy to recognize then it's easy to identify a maj 7th chord when you see one, no matter where it appears on the staff.  

And even with a relative pitch staff you would need to recognize maj 7th chords based on any scale degree, so you'd need to recognize them at any vertical position on the staff anyway.  In other words, that approach would make patterns clearer across keys, but not necessarily within them (although you could do both).

The super easy transposition approach that Pinwheel facilitates makes this an easy process that even beginners could grasp (although beginners would not find this an instantaneous process, unfortunately.) Conversely though, they could just read each unique symbol in the chord and play it that way, and that's exactly what I'd imagine they do until they begin to learn and understand the underlying theory and structure of music. Once you have a grasp on structure and theory, you would reach the point you stop focusing on the trees (the individual unique note symbols at a given relative position) and instead see the forest (the 'word'; chord or phrase grouping).

Actually, we can conceive of something similar in regular notation. Let's just assume that everything was written in a single clef - say treble clef - and the first line E did not represent E but represented 'root note'. Let's also assume, just for ease, only the use of sharps. So F# would not represent the pitch F# but instead "major second", G# = major third, and so on. Now, write ALL music in this relative key of E, and simply mentally transpose on the fly (yeah, it's ugly in TN, but possible!). That's basically what I'm proposing, except of course in a system where absolute pitch still *is* present via the unique symbols. This truly feels like it would be the ultimate notation. I would love to be able to scientifically compare such an approach to the same system of 12 unique symbols, but with both vertical position and unique symbol denoting the pitch (as is the current design of Pinwheel) and see how many more sight reading errors, if any, the relative approach would have. Of course, it would be amazing to see if the relative approach offered unique benefits to improvisation (and just general understanding of music. Surely it would let us compare and contrast various pieces and passages with MUCH greater ease) and such for more advanced musicians, although outside of anecdotal reports, I don't know how you could really quantify that. 

Ok, that's some of my thoughts in the way of feedback.  You're clearly thinking this through thoroughly.  I look forward to seeing your notation system!

-Paul M

~Seth

On Tuesday, October 30, 2012 9:11:01 AM UTC-5, Paul Morris wrote:

On Oct 30, 2012, at 7:26 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:

I've gone a long way to making it easier to learn music via the way theoretical concepts, transpostion, and scales (all intervallic relationships really) are very easily represented and, perhaps the most innovative aspect of my design, verbally, visually and mentally condensed. 

Hi Seth, 

Sounds promising.  I wholeheartedly agree that making interval relationships clear through isomorphism is key for making notation simpler, more intuitive, and easier to learn.  When you get around to publicizing your Pinwheel system, I'd suggest including a comprehensive interval chart like the one I've provided for TwinNote[1], to demonstrate its consistency in the appearance of intervals.

As far as other 3x4 notation systems, Joe Austin's is one that comes to mind[2].  It sounds like your system may have a somewhat similar approach, at least to the extent that it is also based on a 3x4 note pattern.

I look forward to more details on your system!

Cheers,

-Paul M

[1] http://twinnote.org/learn/intervals/

[2] http://drtechdaddy.com/2010/09/24/tonnetz-based-4x3-notation/

[Paul Morris]

Hi Seth,  That's a good idea.  It would be helpful to be able to compare the same music in different notations, and music of different styles and levels of complexity.  But we haven't decided on any particular pieces per se.  

In addition to the musical examples page that Michael linked to, there's also:

http://musicnotation.org/wiki/Category:Sheet_Music

Particularly Bach's Invention 9 which can be seen in a number of notation systems on Kevin Dalley's site:

http://kelphead.org/chromatic/invention-9.html

http://musicnotation.org/wiki/J.S._Bach%27s_Invention_9

Cheers,

-Paul M

On Nov 2, 2012, at 4:38 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey everyone. One quick question: are there any standard pieces that you guys are translating to your notation to show it off? If not, perhaps we should find a few pieces: something easy, moderately difficult, and very difficult, so that we can easily compare and contrast the various notations (at least on a simple, visual level). 

[Ivaylo Naydenov]

Speaking of note shapes as part of the concept '12 notes = 12 note shapes, 12 positions on the staff' I would like to see an example of a 3, 4 and 5 tone chord (or any harmony) written in that manner.
Some chords like a simple song. Can anybody point me to such an example? Tahnks!

— Ivaylo

[Seth Hofslund]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the thoughts and feedback. 

Regarding this point:

>>Sounds like singing in shape-note notation [1] where the shapes align with the scale degree or the note's position-in-the-key, so that this becomes a cue you can tune in to.
Although you're talking about the shapes being the absolute pitches instead, so that's a different approach

I want to try and solve both of those issues simultaneously. I am working on my ability to play/learn by ear, and I've taken to Bruce Arnold's ear training method which emphasizes hearing everything against the key, rather than the intervallic relationship one note has to the prior - or following - note (this could be thought of as hearing everything against the tonic and that is fundamentally correct, but the method of hearing is still different - you aren't hearing the interval from the tonic to the note in question so much as learning the signature harmonic consonance/dissonance of a given scale degree against the key).

Arnold's hearing against the key approach makes a lot of sense to me and has a lot of benefits; for one, if you screw up one note while transcribing, the subsequent notes are not guaranteed to be off! There are a number of other arguments that can be made as to why it is superior than interval based ear work, but I'll save those for a future thread lest I end up writing another small book! :P Anyhow, given that this is how I hear and think music, I'd of course love to see that reflected in the notation itself. That might be why my 'ultimate notation' as I envision it would make the relative/scale degree relationship visible at all times. I honestly believe that hearing and thinking of music in this way leads to a greater, and deeper, understanding of music and would love to see academia move away from the emphasis on intervals (at least when they are isolated from the tonality, per se, as they always are at least in any college-level ear training I've come across).

>>It sounds like you're talking about the lines and spaces of the staff representing #3, with the note shapes indicating #1. The shapes of the notes wouldn't help you with #2 (except for the octave) until you had memorized the interval relationships between the different shapes. I guess the intervals could be seen via their position on the staff.

You're right. I try to mitigate the difficulty of learning/remembering the intervals by using the relationship of the shapes/shadings as the name of the intervals themselves (in a condensed form). This makes it a very intuitive visual process, especially with a nomenclature that supports it through a mnemonic-inspired design. I also took into account the fact that sometimes note names and intervals will be nothing more than english text, and it's not always possible or suitable to have the unique symbol accompanying it, and tried to create the nomenclature such that its very design would aid in the process of any intervallic processes when handled this way.

>>This is basically what I mean in terms of reading by interval relationships. But you can do this on a staff that maps to absolute pitches, as long as the interval relationships between the notes are clear (#2 above). As long as the interval relationships are easy to recognize then it's easy to identify a maj 7th chord when you see one, no matter where it appears on the staff.  

This is true. To those who are very fluent at reading TN, do you read chords primarily in that manner; as the root note + type of chord which is inferred from its visual shape? As a guitarist, I usually deal with chords being notated explicitly. My sight reading skills with TN are far from excellent so I'd love to hear the opinions of those who are better at it than I. Beginners are going to read each chord note by note, while the more advanced you get, the more chunking you'll mentally do (not only of chords, but of phrases, etc). I ask because with Pinwheel for instance, you can quickly see each note in the chord and read the whole as a group of symbols without actually understanding the intervallic relationship of the whole group. Granted, with time these patterns (eg: 7th chord, 1st inversion) too can be learned just as they can with TN or any notation (although it is a bit harder here because I only use one line per octave) but the thing I wonder is how effective one can become at reading groups of notes as symbols - and mapping that to a given chordal fingering - even if you aren't aware of the relationship of notes. The reduced overhead of mapping a symbol that represents a given note, and the ability to read these symbols as a group without necessarily thinking of each or of the relationship of them has me wondering if this could be as effective a method of reading in comparison to say TN where you almost have to know the shape of the chord you're reading to read quickly and effectively. The closest language analogy I can think of is reading spanish - given the extremely regular pronunciation rules in spanish, a non-speaker can still read large groups of letters as words and pronounce them correctly, even without knowing what the words themselves are saying. Obviously, I think it would be advantageous to learn and quickly recognize the common chordal visual patterns, but perhaps this system makes that less of a necessity for quick and accurate reading. I've just not spent enough time reading Pinwheel to know something of that depth, and besides that would only be n=1 anecdotal proof anyhow. I'd love to see how it pans out over a larger body of students.

One more thought on the potential benefits of a position = relative, symbol = absolute pitch system (although this is not what the base form of Pinwheel will be, I'd like any software that reads/writes Pinwheel to be able to translate pieces into this relative form by entering the key(s) and indicating where they are in effect in the piece).

A quote from the wiki article on sight reading: "Errors in sight-reading tend to occur in places where the music contains unexpected or unusual sequences; these defeat the strategy of "reading by expectation" that sight-readers typically employ."  

It would seem that unexpected or unusual sequences should be much more readily apparent in a notation where position = relative pitch. It's much easier to see when something is visually out of position, rather than calculate when it is mentally out of key (especially given the klunky key signature approach of TN).

~Seth

One more thought - I had typed this earlier, erased it, then decided to restore it but don't know how to nicely fit it into my post so I'll just shoe-horn it in here:

I've experimented a bit with a position=relative, symbol=absolute version of Pinwheel and this totally works. I just have not spent enough time living in it to overcome the increased difficulties in reading due to the variable position of unique symbols based on the given key (and as you said, key changes are difficult as the change is obviously sudden, and sometimes drastic). I don't know how much of this is due to the expectation of position as an absolute pitch indicator though, and the years of experience of dealing with it as such. I still surmise that with unique symbols, in time, one learns to read the symbols more so than their position, and I have to wonder if I spend more time with it - or if someone was exposed to this from the beginning, before being indoctrinated into the position = absolute pitch mentality of TN and most notations - that it wouldn't be just as easy to read in due time, while having the added benefits of the structure of the music becoming much more apparent.

[Nextstep Musical System]

Hi Ivaylo,
I know you already told me not to invent for you, but anyway
originally I did not invent for anybody (just me), and that turned
into one of its beauties, because now I do not require anybody to use
it,- for me to use it. Being a ‘de facto’ alternative to the piano
roll notation it shares that unusual feature for a music notation.

But now I have put the preacher clothes and no hard feelings, though
unlike preachers I still appreciate more suggestions and critic eyes
than passive receptive ears.

Here is an excerpt showing where the notation of pitch is both
symbolic and positional; I have put side by side just positional and
symbolic notations hoping everybody can appreciate the power of
symbols vs. just positions; as usual my tests are not staring at the
score but as looking at sings while driving.

Here I show also one more novel feature of the reference head
notation, which is using a minimum of heads, just where there are note
changes, meaning{
There are heads = move your fingers;
No heads = do not move your fingers;
}

Finally as preachers would say, if anybody believe in the RH symbolic
notation of pitch and the power of symbols raise your hand.

B.R.
Enrique.

[Ivaylo Naydenov]

Thank you Enrique!
I took a look at the excerpt and on the example with the piano roll (5+7) pattern in background I think there is no need for unique symbol per tone. They are obvious, like a TAB for guitar.
Not that this way it is confusing but it is not necessary.

Otherwise on a isomorphic piano keyboard (like Janko 6×N, where N is 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6) distinctive tone symbols might be a requirement. Well... not precisely, because as it is in my Plain Notation System one can simply choose a Key (reference) tone and make its line dash or in the case of ala piano roll notation to make a pattern of a desired scale or mode (for example I consider the Dominant major the true major scale, hence its name Dominant, I have explained from my POV why the name is such and such).

I do think and I highly advocate the '12 tones ≡ 12 unique note symbols' either geometric shapes or letters, or whatever is picked! It's a matter of which and how simple the symbols must be, cause there are hardly more than 3-4 simple to draw (or display) symbols. I think your system needs a little bit more detail work to be clean and easy on the eyes. How many other symbols do you use or are there any of those for the rest of the tones!?

— Ivaylo

[Nextstep Musical System]

On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 9:47 AM, Ivaylo Naydenov <adxo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you Enrique!
> I took a look at the excerpt and on the example with the piano roll (5+7)
> pattern in background I think there is no need for unique symbol per tone.
> They are obvious, like a TAB for guitar.
> Not that this way it is confusing but it is not necessary.
>

If you can take a 0.5 sec blink to a 7 note chord in a compact PR
notation and know who all the notes are --- congratulations --- I
cannot, however I can do it having just the necessary heads as a
reference, that combination of head and trace form distinctive and
proprietary symbols for the notation of pitch (I have tried even 24
microtonallity).

The information is obvious in almost all backgrounds but is to be seen
if it is functional; it does not matter whether it is a 5-7, 6-6 or
whatever; the beauty of symbolic notation is that it does not require
any background like staff notation does, then backgrounds could be
used for other purposes (shown a lot on that) or not.

Agree these excerpts are far from best quality; nonetheless have not
seen yet any other functional notation of any kind so uncluttered,
with that amount of information and that level of efficiency. If you
know about it please let me know.

[John Keller]

Enrique, you have a mistake or a few in this notation example. In Bar 1 you
write the top note E flat correctly as a solid circle with the trace on top.
In bar 3 you write the octave higher same note E flat incorrectly as open
circle with the trace at the bottom.

Your reference heads have been changed to what we suggested. - centred on
the keyboard centres of symmetry, L and D for solid. oblong and circle
respectively. The open oblong and circle are meant to be centred on B and F
respectively, but you sometimes put the circle on E instead of F.

I am not impressed when people show examples with obvious mistakes :)

John K
(Express Stave)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nextstep Musical System" <mtall...@gmail.com>
To: <musicn...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2012 1:24 AM
Subject: Re: [MNP] Protecting your notation?


On Sun, Nov 4, 2012 at 4:07 AM, Ivaylo Naydenov <adxo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Speaking of note shapes as part of the concept '12 notes = 12 note shapes,
> 12 positions on the staff' I would like to see an example of a 3, 4 and 5
> tone chord (or any harmony) written in that manner.
> Some chords like a simple song. Can anybody point me to such an example?
> Tahnks!
>

> � Ivaylo

Hi Ivaylo,
I know you already told me not to invent for you, but anyway
originally I did not invent for anybody (just me), and that turned
into one of its beauties, because now I do not require anybody to use

it,- for me to use it. Being a �de facto� alternative to the piano

roll notation it shares that unusual feature for a music notation.

But now I have put the preacher clothes and no hard feelings, though
unlike preachers I still appreciate more suggestions and critic eyes
than passive receptive ears.

Here is an excerpt showing where the notation of pitch is both
symbolic and positional; I have put side by side just positional and
symbolic notations hoping everybody can appreciate the power of
symbols vs. just positions; as usual my tests are not staring at the
score but as looking at sings while driving.

Here I show also one more novel feature of the reference head
notation, which is using a minimum of heads, just where there are note
changes, meaning{
There are heads = move your fingers;
No heads = do not move your fingers;
}

Finally as preachers would say, if anybody believe in the RH symbolic
notation of pitch and the power of symbols raise your hand.

B.R.
Enrique.

[Nextstep Musical System]

On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 12:37 PM, John Keller <jko...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> Enrique, you have a mistake or a few in this notation example.....

> I am not impressed when people show examples with obvious mistakes :)
>

Right, especially me; thanks John for your observation, yes I have
changed the correlation of the heads with the standard pitch, and
already spoke about it in a previous post answering to Joe a while
ago, it is more ‘consistent’, being the piano keyboard so important it
gives more ‘stability’ and ‘ease’ to remember; I tried again all three
meaningful combinations and the suggestion was accepted.

Yes, there are a couple of heads that escaped while hastily moving the
heads of an old excerpt to show Ivaylov, I will try to be more careful
as it seems to be interpreted as a lack of respect or being what most
matters ; and it shadows much more important things to notice and make
a comment about.

B.R.
Enrique.

[Joseph Austin]

Enrique, Seth,

My apologies for just getting around to this post.
But per my previous posts, "happy birthday" may present copyright issues;
I'd suggest examples be taken from the public domain!

Joe Austin
DrTechDaddy.com

On Nov 2, 2012, at 8:17 AM, Nextstep Musical System wrote:

> On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 4:38 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hey everyone. One quick question: are there any standard pieces that you
>> guys are translating to your notation to show it off?
>>

<text omitted>

> Don’t complicate your presentation, “happy birthday” will do.
>

[Joseph Austin]

Seth,

I'm way behind reading this thread so these thoughts may have already been mentioned by others, but:

1. re 3x4, have you had a look at my StaffTonnetz (DrTechDaddy.com), or Euler's orignal Tonnetz for that matter?

2. Re Isomorphic guitar, have you had a look at Harpejji (http://www.marcodi.com/)

BTW, I speak LISP.  I'd be happy to discuss the relationship of music and programming.

I'm really more a programmer that a musician.

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

On Oct 30, 2012, at 9:04 AM, Seth Hofslund wrote:

Hi Roy; 

I just tried mapping my notation to your vibraphone and I think you'll be extremely happy with the results. I love how easy it is; the two play together wonderfully. It's almost a 1:1 mapping - surely easier than it is on my primary instrument, the guitar. A question for you: have you thought of differentiating the 4 element in your system (ie differentiating each major third in some manner other than color?). I only ask because if you did, that would truly make it a 1:1 mapping. Actually, now that I look at it some more, a single marking (I'll explain this after I reveal more) placed only on given set of cycling major thirds would pretty much make it the mapping totally clear between your vibraphone and Pinwheel notation. I'm 100% that it could be explained to a beginner and have them reading and playing music within 10 minutes. 

Glad to see that this maps so effortlessly to an instrument that I had not considered at all during its development (well, not directly. Of course I had isomorphic instruments in general in mind the whole time, but tried to keep the approach instrument agnostic). Proves to me the very universal nature of the design.

Now, if only you could design a perfectly isomorphic guitar! (of course the redundancy of numerous pitches is always going to make that a less ideal instrument in an isomorphic sense, even with a non-conventional all strings tuned in fourths arrangement). 

On Tuesday, October 30, 2012 7:01:00 AM UTC-5, RoyP wrote:

Hi Seth,

I have not tackled the notation system yet.  As you know, I have a fully key transparent, symmetrical, 3x4 naming/numbering system, and visual coloring system for my 6+6 vibraphone.  It is all of a piece, and is very playable.  I eagerly await the development of a notation with similar properties, that is also as information dense as TN, and  I'm looking forward to seeing your implementation.

Roy Pertchik
Design and Construction Consultant
NYS Arch., NCARB Cert.
381 Oxford Ave.
Palo Alto, CA 94306
917 294 6605

On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Seth Hofslund <imagi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Great responses everyone. I knew this was a tricky subject and to be honest I had thought only little of protecting any ideas until talking to a friend in the software industry who said it might be wise to do so before revealing too much; and this coming from a guy who is not at all a fan of patents after seeing what they've done to the world of software. 

Truth is the notation started out as a strange phonetic system/grid to help me better learn the guitar. It kept growing and changing - often times radically - and finally I realized that it made sense to try and tackle a whole notation system. Anyhow, I'll try and keep this post short and address some of the questions asked.

>>"Are you aware of the reference head notation?"

Enrique, yes I am. Yours was the most radical concept I had seen and was what set me off on the idea of a notation that expressed much more data with less overhead compared to TN. I don't know where your system is at now or what has changed. It was over two years ago since I last looked at it. I took a quick gander at some of the other notation systems at the time and while there were a number of good ideas in many of them, I felt that they lacked the deeper cohesiveness I was seeking. If you're familiar with programming languages, I felt that many of the notations were analogously doing things like implementing reflection, etc, whereas I wanted the full cohesiveness of say Lisp. That will only make sense to those who've used Lisp to any degree; it's features look almost the same as other languages, but it's the way they all come together (primarily thanks to the syntactic regularity of s-expressions and the code-is-data-is-code approach) that truly sets Lisp apart. I owe you thanks Enrique for lighting the creative fire in me. It was actually one thing in particular about your notation that really got me thinking; - I remember you had some kind of interval naming scheme based on the three tiers of the note traces (sorry if I'm getting the terminology wrong). You had a naming scheme for lower/higher and alternate positions, I believe, and it was the inability to decipher exactly how many steps an 'alternate' interval actually was that set me off looking for another way. 


>>"how does one navigate the existing protections on already available curricula and sheet music so you can make it available in your new notation?"
A good question, which I sadly don't have an answer for as of yet. Would writing software that converts files of a given type into Pinwheel Notation be against the law? If legal, that seems the best route. Let the user of the software be responsible for owning the rights to any music that they wish to translate to or from one notation to another.


>>And if this silliness doesn't make you laugh, perhaps you need a good cry.
LOL. No tears here Michael. Thanks for the laugh. I do realize the catch-22 nature of it all, and protecting something that there's currently no demand for seems to border on the absurd.

>>What do you want to protect your notation from? What is it in particular that you are concerned about, or want to achieve or avoid?" 

Well, on the rare chance that it got the exposure and momentum I dream of, I envision it potentially supplanting the piano roll in software. In such cases, it would be nice to be able to leverage some licensing fee or something. Ideal, not necessary. Truth is I didn't create this with monetization in mind (I may have some off the wall ideas, but creating a notation system strictly with the idea of monetizing it is a bit too far out, even for me :P). 

Now it's time to look more into the notation systems already present. I more or less created this in a vacuum, in fits and spurts, sometimes spending a week trying various symbols and shrinking it all down to 'smaller than I'd ever hope to see' sizes and making sure it all works and the fidelity of the unique symbols remains in tact. Sometimes I'd spend a week or two exploring what would become a creative dead end. Sometimes I wouldn't touch it for months and instead just focus on my playing. I've relearned I don't know how many different naming schemes I've used throughout its development. But I do need to see what else exists. Specifically, what 3x4 notation systems have been proposed? I've heard of naming schemes (Roy, do you have your own notation or is it just an internalized naming scheme that you use?) but full blown notations? I've kept out of the loop more or less intentionally as I didn't want to be influenced by others (I found this helped me a lot in the past with game design. You need a core understanding, of course, but to really innovate need to step away from the 'improve an existing design' and instead consider every element from the ground up, and consider all known and accepted approaches as potentially disposable.)

~Seth

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[Ivaylo Naydenov]

@ Enrique:

I tried to find on the MNP's Wiki more about your system but with no success, anyway. From what I see in the .pdf example I conclude that you might be using a circle, a triangle and a square each with two possible positions for time or duration attached lines which line also helps the tone recognition task. Thus we have 6 tones. Then you seem to have those geometric shapes filled and again two possible time duration lines for those correspondingly → another 6 tones and voila! all the 12 tones are assigned with unique symbols (a basic shape, filled or hollow each with a line for the duration of the tone-note). I think that idea is simple so I tend to give it some tests these days in Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape.

So, am I interpreting it the right way or did I just made it all up?! Oh, maybe I am wrong cause seems you have a duration line that is attached to the center-right of the note-shape... oh, by that you are reducing the note-shapes (no triangles). Thus we have a hollow circles and squares plus filled circles and squares each with a three duration line positions (up, center and down) → 4 note symbols × 3 duration lines attachments = 12 tones. Hope now I am getting it right?! :)
The first assumption was 6 ns × 2 dla = 12 tones again.

Without a piano roll or whatever staff reference in the background how would you deal with the so called octave spans for each tone if it happen to be written in an octave lower or higher? How to emphasize the register of a certain tone?

I like simple ideas. I probably will try make some arguably better designs of your concept if you allow me to do so. I'll put the source vector file for common download here if you will, may I? Need just some clearness on the concept to know if I am getting it like you've intended it to be like?


— Ivaylo

[Joseph Austin]

Ivaylo,

Have you seen my version of Bach WTC Prelude 1 in C?

http://drtechdaddy.com/2010/09/24/tonnetz-based-4x3-notation/

(Turn it sideways if you're rather see the chords vertically!)

As I recall, that piece uses all 12 chromatic tones.

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

[Joseph Austin]

Enrique,

The way I would prefer to "test" a new notation would be as a pedagogical tool:

how well can a student perform a piece from the given notation?  

How much instruction does it take before s/he can perform it at all?

How "complex" can a piece be before the student can no longer sight-read an unfamiliar piece from the given notation?

("complexity" could include pitch span, number of simultaneous notes in melody and harmony, number of accidentals in the key, frequency of key changes and non-key tones, etc.)

And I would encourage "test pieces" to include polyphony, rhythm, syncopation, and other timing challenges as well as harmony and melody challenges.

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

~Seth

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[John Keller]

Joe,

 

Is there an easy way with this notation to see for example if the chord is major or minor (ie if the minor 3rd same colour is above the major 3rd same shape) or to see root movement or whether a progession from one chord to the next is forwards or backwards on the key circle. These are examples of what I would like to see in chord progressions.

 

Cheers,

John K

Express Stave

----- Original Message -----

From: Joseph Austin

To: musicn...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2012 1:50 PM

Subject: Re: [MNP] Protecting your notation?

[John Keller]

My 5 yo students played the Chinese Melody in concert last Sunday having been given it two weeks prior. My 6 and 7 yos played Love Me Tender with about 3 weeks practice. They read from the sheet for the notes but i reinforce the rhythm by singing the tunes and playing an accompaniment with a beat.

 

John K

----- Original Message -----

From: Joseph Austin

To: musicn...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2012 1:55 PM

Subject: Re: [MNP] Protecting your notation?

[Seth Hofslund]

Hi Joe,

I'm curious as to when you finalized your 4x3 design. It looks like your first blog post on it was September of 2010. I have a feeling we were coming to a similar design around the same time. I was just looking through my emails to myself (I used these as a form of backup) containing inkscape .svg files of the various iterations of Pinwheel (then unnamed, merely referenced as "new notation) and the earliest I see is back in March of 2010. I'd have to check the old computer when I get home to see if the file dates were actually earlier than that as I don't think I uploaded it immediately.

That was a pretty primitive version though, which only utilized a 4 way rotation and two cycle color scheme (white/black) notes. It wasn't until some time around July of 2010 that I came across the idea of the 4x3 cycling. I remember that epiphany quite clearly; I thought I had solved it all! In retrospect it should have been a pretty obvious solution but I was already attached to the earlier forms of the notation and that attachment is what delayed the refactoring as such. It was from that point on that I vowed not to get too attached to the notation until it was "complete" because I knew doing so would actually limit my creativity. I made the Buddhist motto "If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him" my design motto. No attachment to anything I've done; it can all be scrapped at a moments notice if a better design comes along. I've contemplated a lot of dead end ideas since then. Right now, it's my approach to rhythm which I'm putting to the test; it may be put to the chopping block. Before I reach that conclusion though I do think I'm going to need more outside opinions; some fresh eyes and fresh perspectives. Ironically, it's the fact that I don't feel perfectly comfortable with any rhythm approach that is making me hesitant to unveil Pinwheel. 

The key thing I've taken from Lisp, besides the way the design integrates with itself at basically every level (well, I'm aiming for that, anyhow!) is homoiconicity. I've not programmed at all in years but would love to discuss the relationships between the two in more detail. If you want, start a new discussion here and I'll definitely join in!

Take care,
~Seth

[Ivaylo Naydenov]

@ Joseph
Hi, Joe
yes I saw your piece and to me it seems too complicated: cannot understand the duration of the notes, the symbols are not clear on the example above, though I am quite familiar with the Euler's Tonnetz concept (I am design engineer and used to learn a lot about Euler's formulas, equations and so on).

@ Enrique
Hi, Enrique
I took some tome last night to try to figure out how your notation system would deal with the recognition of note durations. It got too complicated to me. I tried to make an example with 16th and variable duration notes and seems like without any vertical reference at 4/4 beat or something I couldn't find any appropriate solution to clarify the signification of the notes duration:
ok, a whole bar note (in 4/4) would have a line long just across the two vertical bars of 4/4, no problems here, it's simple and obvious
but when I populate the bar with 16ths or triplets or "pointed" notes (in your system they do not need point prolongations in time) things tend to get unrecognizable to how long a note phrase would be or intended to be
piano rolls in DAW programs and plugins have vertical bars in different color for orientation with every 4 bar in slightly darker or lighter color (on a screen it would work just perfect)

Hm, maybe not so big deal when thinking that paper would get out of use in near future for such a purposes. Who knows...

— Ivaylo

[Seth Hofslund]

>>Hm, maybe not so big deal when thinking that paper would get out of use in near future for such a purposes. Who knows...

I think any notation that requires a computer or some advanced display method (or an inordinate amount of time to recreate as such on paper) is doomed. Not because of some need to have a handwritten form available, but because the necessity of such display implies an overly complex design.

[Ivaylo Naydenov]

Hi, Seth
indeed, you are right! The thing is that at least any display is required to view whatever information there is, same with the music notations. We all know that nowadays there are high quality audio multitrack recordings that do not require notation but good hearing and good performance capabilities as of course the midi-recordings and quantization in real time. Thus we have the so called piano-roll notation, there is a separate thread on the forum here.
Does then your notation system not require any form of displaying or writing?

[Joseph Austin]

John,

I don't know about "easy".

I tend to memorize the solfeggio notes that make up the principal chords, e.g.  ( iii vi ii V(7)  I  IV)

and if I use the "shape-note" interpretation of the noteheads, I can "recognize" the chord that way.

The minor and major third intervals are easy to spot, and they define most of the chords.

Noting that the fifths cycle around in the same color sequence but opposite direction sequence of the semitones,

I suppose one could memorize this sequence and use it to discerns progressions.

Since my notehead symbols are really monochrome, I suppose one could use actual color to encode the circle of fifths,

assuming a person could recognize 12 distinct colors.  I seem to recall some posts exploring that a while back.

I tried it myself once, interpolating between computer colors R Y G C B M, but couldn't "resolve" the green-blue end satisfactorily.

There's no disputing the value of the Circle of Fifths as a theoretical tool,

but I wonder if that is really the clue to the musical effect of chord progressions.

I would rather look for consonance-dissonance contrasts--which could take us in a whole new direction!

Joe

DrTechDaddy.com

[Joseph Austin]

John,

I think you are setting a fine example of using notational innovations to improve music education.

As for rhythm, I'm starting to wonder whether rhythm is an essentially two-part production: the conversation between the left and right foot, or the atria and the ventricles!

It's typically taught (for keyboard and voice) as a single line of stress and quiet to a fixed count,

but I think it might more usefully be taught as the interleaving of two or more patterns.

Which could have a significant impact on the way we notate rhythm--not so much emphasis on the relative *duration* of notes 

but focus on the relative *start* times of notes in different polyphonic parts.

In other words, notate to "absolute" time position within a measure instead of relative to the neighboring tones.

BTW, this thread seems to have wandered rather far from it's original topic.

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

Enrique, yes I am. Yours was the most radical concept I had seen and was what set me off on the idea of a notation that expressed much more data with lessoverhead compared to TN. I don't know where your system is at now or what has changed. It was over two years ago since I last looked at it. I took a quick gander at some of the other notation systems at the time and while there were a number of good ideas in many of them, I felt that they lacked the deeper cohesiveness I was seeking. If you're familiar with programming languages, I felt that many of the notations were analogously doing things like implementing reflection, etc, whereas I wanted the full cohesiveness of say Lisp. That will only make sense to those who've used Lisp to any degree; it's features look almost the same as other languages, but it's the way they all come together (primarily thanks to the syntactic regularity of s-expressions and the code-is-data-is-code approach) that truly sets Lisp apart. I owe you thanks Enrique for lighting the creative fire in me. It was actually one thing in particular about your notation that really got me thinking; - I          remember you had some kind of interval naming scheme based on the three tiers of the note traces (sorry if I'm getting the terminology wrong). You had a naming scheme for lower/higher and alternate positions, I believe, and it was the inability to decipher exactly how many steps an 'alternate' interval actually was that set me off looking for another way. 

[Joseph Austin]

Seth, 

I'm still catching up--sorry if this duplicates an answer you've already received.

I've used 7-shape shape-notes for site-singing hymns.  Each symbol represents a diatonic scale degree--is that what you call "relative"?--

and the staff lines are traditional "absolute" pitch.  It works fine for voice reading, because I'm assuming voice is an "isomorphic" instrument.

(I just ignore the staff lines, actually. ) 

When singing from TN, I mentally translate the staff position to solfedge degree--that's the way I was taught to sing in elementary school--

the key signature just tells you where to find "do".

I haven't had a lot of experience with changing keys in shape-notes, but I'd imagine it's no different than changing keys on an instruments.  

Singers don't sing the note names, of course, 

so it doesn't matter what you call it, only what it sounds like!

With my StaffTonnetz, I've experimented with both ways: 

symbols matched to pitch or symbols matched to scale degree.

I personally prefer symbols matched to scale degree (shape-notes), because this is the way I think about the music.

Then I can "color" the staff to represent the piano keyboard. (lines for black, spaces for white.)

I suppose one could do something similar in guitar tableture: instead of just dots, use 12 symbols to indicate the scale degree represented by that fret in the prevailing key.

(That's assuming the reader has perfect eyesight!)

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

[John Keller]

Hi Joe,

 

I totally agree that the main point of a rhythm notation should be where in the bar/beat to play rather than how long to hold notes. In traditional notation this is covered by grouping of notes. I think the system can be extended so that you can always see where notes are relative to the beat.

 

An example is how I notated the right hand of Love Me Tender. Always beam quavers in beats (not 4 together) and eliminate single flags. Rests and ties can be notes without heads. For little kids I call a one beat note "play", and two (beamed) quavers "ea-sy". When i first showed this music to one 6 yo, she got what the opening meant straight away -say "ea-sy" but only play on the "-sy".

 

Cheers, john K

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[Joseph Austin]

Ivaylo,

TOO complicated?  You think it's more complicated than TN?

I used it to learn the piece, and finally succeeded after two previous failed attempts using TN,

so it worked for me!  No sharps or flats! And no pages to turn!

But I offered this example to illustrate how Staff-Tonnetz notation represents chords, and hence how it exposes the intervals within chords

- notes a minor third apart are the same color

- notes a major third apart point in the same direction

For the example, I highly compressed Bach's original composition, in which they aren't full chords but arpeggiated patterns.

So it is not really the best example of timing notation.

In general in my notation, each horizontal line represents the duration of one note of minimal note value.

In the last two measures (second column) which are not compressed, this minimum duration would be a 1/16 note.

A notehead indicates when the tone starts.

The tone ends when the next note in that part starts, 

unless there is a quote (continue) symbol,

or when %  occurs in the same column, indicating the start of a "rest".

In the bulk of this particular score, I compressed the 8 notes of the melody (repeated) into a single 5-note chord,

so each line in the first column represents a whole measure: sixteen 1/16 notes.

To actually play it, you would have to know the pattern

Admittedly, this particular compression only works for this particular piece,

but it allows me to condense 35 measures to one page!

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

[Joseph Austin]

John,

You may know i've been experimenting myself.

This is the closest I could get in Finale to what I actually had in mind

for a very syncopated example.

1st line: ties for duration

2nd line: note-on only ("rest" really means "continue holding previous note")

[Joseph Austin]

Seth,
Finalized? not yet!

But Summer-Fall 2010 sounds like the right timeframe for starting, however.

The tri-color arrangement was first proposed (to my knowledge) by Roy Pertchik, who patented it.
He also had his 3x4 naming scheme out there around the time i was developing the graphics.
But the 3x4 idea itself (array of major and minor thirds) goes back to the Tone Tonnetz of Euler, c. 1739.

The historic details are a bit fuzzy in my mind right now, but my original goal was to develop a way of creating music notation with "text"
so I could edit it with a word processor and post it on the internet, without requiring specialized software.
Of course, it would require a "music font," which I developed using available free on-line software (FontStruct).
Since fonts can now be imbedded in web documents, I considered the project was a conceptual success.

Another goal was to develop a "shape-note" notation: a distinct symbol for each scale degree. Seven-shape systems already exist, and Finale actually has enough notehead symbols to create a 12-shape system. There was a thread on that here a while back.
But of course Finale is not Free--not the version that does shape notes, anyway.
Putting it all together, somehow I came up with the idea of using 3 colors and 4 shapes and arranging them according to the Tone Tonnetz .

To go forward to the "production" level, I'd been planning to use better font generator,
and to write a translator that will take a "piano-roll" spreadsheet and convert to an html file.
Then "anybody" will be able to print similar music, and I could even approximate KlavarSkribo, ExpressStave, ReferenceHead, TwinNote, etc.
And I suppose, "PinWheel", although I don't know what it looks like yet!

I too have a concern regarding rhythm. Especially for contemporary popular music, TN's rhythm idiosyncrasies are even worse than it's pitch deficiencies.
My current idea is to replace notation of duration with notation of starting (and ending) "count"--more like MIDI on/off times--
in the spirit of Enrique's Note Trace.
So we would end up with a "time staff" in a dimension orthogonal to the "pitch staff".

I'm also concerned about form--the arrangement of lines and pages in correspondence with the phrases and sections of the music itself;
most significantly, ending lines on phrase boundaries rather than measure boundaries.
Music is Poetry, yet we print it like prose!

The aspect of TN most closely related to programming is the notation for sequence: repeats, alternate endings, etc.
Again, the "tyranny of the bar line" introduces complexity and redundancy into sequencing notation.
A more "computer friendly" notation would facilitate mechanical performance of digitized scores.

Beyond that, we could be exploring notational approaches that would facilitate computerized analysis of music.
An audio performance or recording, a traditional printed score, or even a MIDI file, are not particularly easy to reduce to a form convenient for analysis algorithms.

Joe Austin
DrTechDaddy.com

[John Keller]

The first line is very hard to see where to play, 2nd line better. Here are two of my own Finale versions, minus shape notes and ties.

 

john K

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To: musicn...@googlegroups.com

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for further discussion, see:

http://drtechdaddy.com/2012/05/29/absolute-timing-notation/

http://drtechdaddy.com/2012/07/27/absolute-timing-notation-note-on-only/

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

On Nov 6, 2012, at 2:54 PM, John Keller wrote:

Hi Joe,

 

I totally agree that the main point of a rhythm notation should be where in the bar/beat to play rather than how long to hold notes. In traditional notation this is covered by grouping of notes. I think the system can be extended so that you can always see where notes are relative to the beat.

 

An example is how I notated the right hand of Love Me Tender. Always beam quavers in beats (not 4 together) and eliminate single flags. Rests and ties can be notes without heads. For little kids I call a one beat note "play", and two (beamed) quavers "ea-sy". When i first showed this music to one 6 yo, she got what the opening meant straight away -say "ea-sy" but only play on the "-sy".

 

Cheers, john K

---

---

[Ivaylo Naydenov]

Hi, Joe
well... yes. By complicated i do not mean compared to the TNS but all by itself. There are hardly visible triangles within triangles hollow, filled... I couldn't understand the duration of the notes in time, there are some vertical numbering of the rows, like in a Tracker program like Renoise or Impulse Tracker. Maybe it works for you but I find it too complicated for me.

Many years back I tried to find basic shapes for unique note designation and even for the 12 TET it got too tough to do it:
1. Circle (most likely an ellipse),
2. square,
3. 45° rotated square,
4. 5. 6. 7. equilateral triangle (rotated in 4 basic positions)

All in all 7 distinctive and recognizable shapes. Five left to go. The so called octaves and how to see them clearly is not such a big deal because in my seven-lines staff (seven lines, six lanes) they are quite obvious.
The problem persist on those 5 notes left. How to designate them to simple distinctive symbols?

I dig further to see how Seth managed to solve this problem!

[Seth Hofslund]

I'm hand transcribing a few pieces into Pinwheel as we speak. Haven't had much time and it's a laborious process. I'll be posting pictures soon; and probably show both of my rhythm approaches - one more traditional and one less so. Still, a lot of the work on Pinwheel has been on the 'backend' so to speak - how to make easier the process of thinking of chords, intervals, transposition, mapping a given grouping of the 12 TET to an isomorphic instrument, etc. That's why I'm hesitant to show examples of the notation just as a picture without some more background so that its full merit can be discerned. Still, the actual visual element of the notation is simple enough that I don't think I'll need to explain much to anyone for it to be clear. 

I digress...

I like your thoughts on notation Joe. I hadn't really considered the bar line tyrannical although I've been quite bothered by the concept of note duration ever being tied to something larger than a single beat (or rather, tied to an essentially arbitrary number of beats) - ie a whole note = 4 beats, why? Ludicrous imo. A whole note, if it should even exist, should be a whole measure's worth of beats, whatever that may be for a given piece. I'm curious to hear more thoughts of yours on rhythm. Specifically, in your opinion what aspects of rhythm should an ideal notation aim to implement? (despite the fact that implementation and realism will undoubtedly prune the list, be idealistic with suggestions!)

With my notation I explicitly show duration, which is quite helpful in arpeggios and chords where the various notes are held for different lengths. I've also tried to minimize exceptions to the rule and maintain referential transparency as best as possible (I've not found a completely satisfactory method of being able to determine where, specifically, a note's strike time is in relation to the beat, without cluttering up the notation, which is contrary to one of my other main goals, to keep the rhythm and articulation notation - and staff itself - as uncluttered as possible as this best facilitates the easy reading of the 12 unique symbols). For an example of reducing exceptions to the rule, you will never see a note head except when a note is being struck. TN and its ties, are imo, an ugly solution. Each symbol's presence or lack thereof should ideally mean one thing, and not be reliant upon other factors. Ties break that (and the immediate visual ambiguity between ties, slurs, and phrase marks is another big fail, imo). 

Pinwheel isn't perfect in this regard. I'm trying to find the balance between visual clutter and referential transparency and perfect orthogonality of symbols and such. I'm not sure there is a perfectly elegant solution that is still easily human readable.

~Seth

[Ivaylo Naydenov]

Seth,
I hope you show your system soon as its examples are finished and if you can please write some legend apart to what is what for clarification and best meaning.

What I do want to see is how you solve or have visualized the unique note symbols, various note duration in a measure per bar (also triplets and the so called "pointed notes") or non measured sequence, rests (if possible in the examples), dealing with so called octaves and chords and harmony indispensable is a must. Maybe your system doesn't need note names or interval names but I would like to see if you have thought on that subject too.

— Ivaylo

[Joseph Austin]

John,

Yours looks cleaner--I wonder if part of the reason is that all your stems are in the same direction?

I agree, the "note-on only" notation is easier to read.

I'm not sure it could be done in Finale, 

but I'd replace a quarter note with an eighth note barred to a headless stem.

Of course the barred group is just a way to mark the counts;

an alternative would be subordinate-level bar lines between counts,

which is what I actually do in StaffTonnetz.

Another important point, in my view, is to maintain timing relationship between notes in the treble and bass parts.

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/musicnotation?hl=en

[Paul Morris]

John and Joe,

Thanks for the images / illustrations.  They are a big help for understanding these proposals for improving on traditional rhythm notation that you're discussing.  Grouping notes by beats seems like a good approach.  Also, I think that Klavar's rhythm notation would be worth looking at, as it implements a number of these proportional "note-on/note-off" ideas.  Here's the description from Wikipedia:

"Duration and rhythm are shown graphically. A piece of music is divided in bars of equal length, which are subdivided into “counts” or beats. Short horizontal bar lines show the division between the bars, dotted lines indicate the counts. All notes are provided with stems (stems to the right: play with the right hand, stems to the left: left hand). These are placed so as to indicate in the measuring system exactly when a note must be played or sung. A note always lasts till the next one of the same hand or part appears, unless a stop sign or continuation dot is used. Therefore there is no connection between shape or colour of a note and the duration of a note. The various kinds of 'rest' signs, different note heads, tied notes and different clefs are thus rendered unnecessary."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klavarskribo

To play devil's advocate, one question is whether a strictly time-proportional system like Klavar's can effectively communicate more dense and complex rhythmic passages (tuplets, syncopations, etc).  Also if you have one or two particularly dense measures with lots of short notes, then you have to make that measure quite large in order to distinguish the notes proportionally, but then to keep a strict proportionality you have to expand all the other measures in the score, and your score ends up being quite long and sparse, requiring more page turns.  You could allow measures to be different lengths, and only have proportionality within measures, but then the duration of notes is not proportional across different measures. But maybe that's not so bad.

These are just some things to consider with a proportional "note-on/note-off" approach.  Typically each approach has some advantages and disadvantages, so it's a matter of identifying what these are in order to then weigh which you would prefer overall.  And people may weigh these things differently of course.  Good to hear your thoughts and the illustrations help a lot.

Cheers,

-Paul M

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/musicnotation?hl=en<Rhythm Syncopation 2012.tiff>

[Paul Morris]

PS. Illustrations and discussion of Klavar's rhythm notation are on page 7 of this PDF:

http://www.klavarmusic.org/Explanation.pdf

[Joseph Austin]

Paul,

I was heavily influenced by KlavarSkribo in designing StaffTonnetz.

As I've said before, my original intention was not so much to create a new notation as to devise a way to print  notation as text,

and the vertical orientation of KlavarSkribo inspired my approach.  I also borrowed the stop/continue idea from KS.

As for timing, I got interested in that from trying to play Beatles music, which is highly syncopated.

Actually, it seems most pop/rock is syncopated.

Which is why I think timing notation needs reform.

And when playing keyboard, keeping both hands going,

thinking of timing as "durations" of notes in the individual parts doesn't really work for me;

I need to think in terms of the beat and when the individual notes come in.

Even when singing, It's easier to synch with the beat than "count" the duration.

I also noted the challenge of occasional quick notes in an otherwise slow piece.

My current solution is to expand the timing of the relevant measure.

For an occasional few notes, I just use a smaller font and "squeeze them in" (similar to grace notes);

I also use an alternate ink color to highlight such places.

With full scores (piano, band) it's not as frequent a situation as you might think,

because at least on of the parts is usually moving!

Indeed, one possible solution is to include a "drum track" as part of the score.

For simple rhythm parts, this could reduce to a single "staff line" 

with the different parts below, on, or above the line, or possibly different head shapes or colors.

I've considered using something like a clock-face "notehead" on a timing track to indicate the beats.

[Joseph Austin]

Ivaylo,

The "triangles in triangles" is just my monochrome approximation to "gray"!  There is one shape, triangle, four orientations, and three "colors:" black gray white.

The timing approach is borrowed from KlavarSkribo.  Paul Morris posted this ref Nov 11:

[ Illustrations and discussion of Klavar's rhythm notation are on page 7 of this PDF:

http://www.klavarmusic.org/Explanation.pdf ]

As for the 12 shapes in Finale, Paul posted this back on July 2:

Re: [MNP] Support for chromatic staves in LilyPond

[Joseph Austin]

Seth,

We've started a new thread Rhythm consideration.

As for human readability, the human mind is a marvelous instrument--with sufficient training, it can even read Traditional Notation!

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

[Ivaylo Naydenov]

Joe,
thanks for the example Paul has made in LilyPond. Good and nice try though the symbol designs seem inconsistent as like borrowed form different visual styles.

[Joseph Austin]

On Nov 12, 2012, at 4:58 PM, Ivaylo Naydenov wrote:

Joe,
thanks for the example Paul has made in LilyPond. Good and nice try though the symbol designs seem inconsistent as like borrowed form different visual styles.

[Joseph Austin]

Ivaylo,

Yes. The diatonic symbols are the traditional shape-note symbols, but the others may be borrowed from the rhythm set.

I think he took what was in the standard font that comes with Finale.

You may be as well off using letters.

There was a thread a while back offering several naming schemes for the 12 degrees starting with distinct letters.

My suggestion was:

DO pe RE ja MI FA ba SO ki LA no TI

where the black key names (of the pentatonic major scale) are from the mnemonic:  black key notes play jazz

Joe

On Nov 12, 2012, at 4:58 PM, Ivaylo Naydenov wrote:

Joe,
thanks for the example Paul has made in LilyPond. Good and nice try though the symbol designs seem inconsistent as like borrowed form different visual styles.

[Paul Morris]

On Nov 12, 2012, at 4:58 PM, Ivaylo Naydenov <adxo...@gmail.com> wrote:

thanks for the example Paul has made in LilyPond. Good and nice try though the symbol designs seem inconsistent as like borrowed form different visual styles.

On Nov 12, 2012, at 8:03 PM, Joseph Austin <drtec...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes. The diatonic symbols are the traditional shape-note symbols, but the others may be borrowed from the rhythm set.

Yes, in that image I was just demonstrating the possibilities for using LilyPond for alternative music notation.  Showing that you could re-map the staff to the 12 chromatic pitches and customize the note heads.  So it was not a serious proposal, but just demonstrating what's possible with LilyPond.

I think he took what was in the standard font that comes with Finale.

Yes, but from the standard "Feta" font that comes with *LilyPond* (not Finale).

LilyPond continues to amaze me with its flexibility and extensibility.  I've recently made some more progress on various aspects of it (for using it for TwinNote, but that also could be used with other notations too).  I'll share more about that in another thread.

Cheers,

-Paul

[Paul Morris]

On Nov 12, 2012, at 3:17 PM, Joseph Austin <drtec...@gmail.com> wrote:

Paul,  I was heavily influenced by KlavarSkribo in designing StaffTonnetz.

Ah, ok.  I do see the influence now.

As I've said before, my original intention was not so much to create a new notation as to devise a way to print  notation as text,

and the vertical orientation of KlavarSkribo inspired my approach.  I also borrowed the stop/continue idea from KS.

As for timing, I got interested in that from trying to play Beatles music, which is highly syncopated.

Actually, it seems most pop/rock is syncopated.

Which is why I think timing notation needs reform.

And when playing keyboard, keeping both hands going,

thinking of timing as "durations" of notes in the individual parts doesn't really work for me;

I need to think in terms of the beat and when the individual notes come in.

Even when singing, It's easier to synch with the beat than "count" the duration.

That makes sense, syncopation as in the Beatles or other more recent popular music informed by blues or jazz -- is not always served well by traditional notation, which is probably more suited to the more even rhythms of older classical music that it was designed for, or should we say "grew up with."

I also noted the challenge of occasional quick notes in an otherwise slow piece.

My current solution is to expand the timing of the relevant measure.

For an occasional few notes, I just use a smaller font and "squeeze them in" (similar to grace notes);

I also use an alternate ink color to highlight such places.

Good to know that's how you handle this.  Seems like it might work well enough.

With full scores (piano, band) it's not as frequent a situation as you might think,

because at least on of the parts is usually moving!

Indeed, one possible solution is to include a "drum track" as part of the score.

For simple rhythm parts, this could reduce to a single "staff line" 

with the different parts below, on, or above the line, or possibly different head shapes or colors.

I've considered using something like a clock-face "notehead" on a timing track to indicate the beats.

Interesting.  Thanks for clarification on how you approach these issues.

[Ivaylo Naydenov]

Joe,
black key notes play jazz is a funny concept. 12 syllables for each note name in 12TET is a concept I had more than 12+ years ago when I was in school. I have it exposed in the MNP wiki page plus a notation and nomenclature that I do not consider as simple as I wanted them to be... so I am still searching and making changes on the fly. I just try to keep it simple and readable yet meaningful and comprehensive.
And I do not use Finale, Sibelius nor LilyPond. But custom fonts are a good idea! Thanks.

[Joseph Austin]

Paul,

You make a significant point in observing that TN "grew up with" the Classical style.

Suppose we now come up with the "perfect" notation for contemporary music.

Just think, a century or two from now, our descendants will be "reforming" the kludge that ours evolved to!

[Nextstep Musical System]

Joe, I can see you are one of the most interested in an alternative to
the notation of musical events related to time, I mean musical
timing:
Noun 1. timing - the time when something happens
(though you emphasize in rhythm); I can see staff notation variants
stick traditional, but do you have already a specific method that you
feel comfortable with?

Enrique.

[Joseph Austin]

Enrique,
I'm not totally comfortable yet!

But I'm mostly satisfied with a notation in which the staff marks out an even beat
and the noteheads indicate the START of notes with respect to the count, as in KlavarSkribo.

I was trying to learn a Beatles song on piano and discovered the melody was highly syncopated with respect to the bass line, which was pretty much an even beat.
We are taught to count 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a, etc.,
and I discovered that associating each note-start with the correct count was the most successful approach.
Don't we all end up writing the counts above or below the measures on our scores? So why not make that into a formal notation?

When you are trying to coordinate two or more separate parts like that, the actual DURATION, or even the Inter-Onset-Time, of the individual notes
is largely irrelevant. The one and only thing you need to know is what COUNT the particular note starts (and ends) on.
In other words, de facto, you watch the baton or listen to the drums and come in on the proper beat.

Then I noticed that one seldom mentioned aspect of TN is that notes are not only divided at the bar but are often further divided at the count.
So in a syncopated passage, instead of 1/8, 1/4, 1/4, 1/4, 1/8 you might see: 1/8, 1/4, 1/8_1/8, 1/4, 1/8, with four 1/8 counts beamed together and the middle 1/4 tied across counts 2-3. So I say, when playing from a score, you aren't really counting the DURATION, you're counting the BEAT!

So even in TN, in some sense the count takes precedence over the duration!

The reason I'm not totally comfortable yet is in cases when the note density varies a lot.
If you have occasional bursts of fast notes (e.g. trills, grace notes) in an otherwise slow piece,
or contrasts between fast and slow sections, or even a lot of dotted or especially double-dotted notes,
the information density goes down if you try to maintain time-proportional spacing.

So I'm thinking I need to allow timing marks that allows the count-resolution to vary,
e.g. some slow parts might just have 1 3 while fast parts have a full 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a.
It's easy enough to write; I'm just not sure how to make it easy to follow, that is, how do you cue the CHANGE in the timing scale?

Recall, for my purposes, I'm trying to "type" the score, with as it were a monospace font,
so each notehead always takes the same amount of space, and I"m trying to maintain some degree of time-proportional spacing.


BTW, speaking of "time" or "timing"
there are two senses of "time":
a. an INSTANT at which an event occurs, e.g. two o'clock.
b. the DURATION between two events: e.g. two minutes.
Mathematically, these are "duals", like "points" and "lines" in geometry,
in that two instants determine a duration, and an instant and a duration determine another instant.

I'm suggesting we ought to be notating INSTANTS, not durations.

Joe

[Seth Hofslund]

>>It's easy enough to write; I'm just not sure how to make it easy to follow, that is, how do you cue the CHANGE in the timing scale? 

This has been one of the things holding me up with Pinwheel. My approach to rhythm is such that each beat is enclosed within two thin 'bar lines' (far thinner than traditional bar lines, though, just present enough to demarcate the beats), and the beat itself is subdivided small enough to accomodate the quickest notes in the beat; so a 1/8, 1/16,1/16 grouping over a 1/4th bass note would look roughly like this:

|O_OO|
|O___ |

the underscores indicate duration (although I have the duration stem extending from the middle of the note like in Hummingbird)

now, in the next beat, say the melody becomes two 1/8th notes, over a quarter note bass again.

|OO|
|O_ |

so combined you get

|O_OO|OO|
|O___ |O_ |

The problem is clearly indicating the difference in beat subdivision in a way that is non-obtrusive yet still allows for quick reading. I've got some approaches that seem to work but am trying to refine it. 

It would be wonderful if each different beat subdivision could always be the same size, this way you could read them easily just by the distance from one beat line to the next; but things like hemiolas, grace notes, etc, make that difficult to realize. If so, it would not be time proportional but instead sort of the opposite; time inverse. Beats with only whole notes would be the width of a single notehead. 

As it is, I'm finding that I can get about 30% horizontal compression with Pinwheel. There are just some clarity issues that I'm not sure are inherent to the design or are just difficulties for me still since I haven't spent that much time actually reading Pinwheel. That seems to be a recurring problem while designing something new and different; it's hard to tell, without putting in a lot of time learning and familiarizing yourself with an experimental design, if the design is actually flawed or if it just takes some familiarity to overcome the initial oddness of it. 

~Seth

[Joseph Austin]

Seth,

So in your approach,

each individual count is time-space proportional, with the count subdivided into equal invervals,

but the number time scale can vary from count to count.

Without actually trying it, I'd suspect that one could get used to reading music that way.

Seth,

One addition I'd considered is to include a "timing track" that indicates the actual duration or count of each note position.

Something like the 1 e & a 2 e & a we write above the score,

or maybe bars and dots similar to flags, or even a pie or clock-face to specify the actual count.

I actually do use two or more lines of numbers and fractions for counts and suboounts, which at least works for reference.

But by the time I've scored a piece of music, I "know" how the rhythm goes, so I'm not depending on the notation so much,

so I can't comment on how easy it is to "read".

In my present situation, I don't have an opportunity to try it with students.

I should mention that I have one other preference that could render a variable-postions-per-count approach problematic:

I like to break my lines on pharases, not necessarily bar lines.

I'm not sure whether phrases break in the middle of a beat, but especially with multiples of 3 beats per measure,

the off-beat notes are often associated with the following beat rather than the previous.

Furthermore, in order to visually represent the form (of simple songs), 

I would like the beats  and counts of a line to align with the counts of the lines before and after.

The end result of these constraints would be to make most measures the same physical size,

exccpet possibly intros and endings.

---

I'm looking forward o seeing an example of PinWheel.

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

[Music Integrated Solution]

On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 9:36 PM, Joseph Austin <drtec...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Enrique,
> I'm not totally comfortable yet!
>

I am, however I will not make emphasis now on the RH native timing
notation, I can use the PR space-time such as it to introduce the RHN
and then go into its native timing methods which I think overcomes the
problems of the space-time bounding of PR, but again it is a lot of
new concepts and there is no need of throwing them all at once.

I also agree with you that TN timing notation is much more complicated
than pitch notation, and have the intention of explaining it
transcribing from a MIDI file where we can see simple sequences of
notes turn so complicated to notate.

This was the last post I think did not mentioned it here
http://musicintegratedsolution.blogspot.com/

[Joseph Austin]

I’ve been planning for some time to start a discussion on rhythm notation.

One motivation is that TN rhythm notation is more a “kludge” than pitch.

Consider the variety of graphical elements needed:

time-signature fractions, bars, note-head fill, stems, flags, beams, dots, ties, tuplet slurs and digits, 

and a parallel set of rest symbols.

But a more serious concern is: how does one “read” syncopated rhythm?

Or polyphonic rhythm?

I’ve put together some bullet points to suggest an outline for such a discussion.

I’m hoping soon to offer some examples of “rhythm-izing” Chroma-Tonnetz in particular,

but the techniques should apply to broad spectrum of MNP notations.

My bullets cover several areas of concern: pattern, layout, units, absolute vs relative, and math.

=====

Principles of Rhythm Notation

PATTERN

·      Music is poetry;

·      It should not be formatted as prose

·      rhythm is a pattern in time

·      pattern is characterized by repetition, periodicity

·      pattern is discerned holistically—the forest, not the trees

·      therefore layout is crucial to discerning visual patterns

·      analogy: poetry: layout in stanzas, lines, feet

·      _

·      LAYOUT

·      music should be laid out on a page in lines and stanzas

·      each line is a musical phrase

·      line breaks should match phrase breaks

·      page breaks should match section breaks

·      corresponding beats of consecutive lines should be aligned

·      _

·      UNITS

·      lines consist of rhythmic beat-units analogous to poetic feet

·      notation should treat beat-feet as units

·      notation should not connect (tie, beam) units of different “feet”

·      _

·      the two “natural” rhythmic patterns are:

o   cadence of walking, marching: Left, Right, Left, Right

o   e.g. | q q q q | q q q q |

o   heartbeat: lub DUB – lub Dub –
e.g. q | h – q | h –
where q = quarter note, h = half-note

o   “anacrusis” is not just a property of the first measure
but of every phrase

o   anacrusis is a symptom of beat-units that start on an un-stress:
iambic, anapestic.

·      3-time (compound meter) music typically begins phrases on an un-stress

·      Therefore: line breaks at phrase breaks will not necessarily break at measure bars!

·      _

·      ABSOLUTE vs RELATIVE

·      for sensing rhythm, occurrence relative to the beat-pattern (absolute)
is more important than “duration” (relative or differential).

·      SO: rhythm notation should primarily identify the beats and counts on which notes are struck, rather than the duration for which they are held.

·      _

·      MATHEMATICAL INTERPRETATION

·      An issue:  “compound-meter” music is usually said to consist of “three quarter notes” per measure

o   This is mathematically untenable

o   Three counts in a measure should be called “three third-notes”,
not “three quarter-notes”

o   (MIDI “solves” the problem by considering the “quarter-note” the unit)

o   TN also names the counts of a measure starting with “one”:
”one, two, three; one, two, three.”

o   it would be more computationally convenient to start with “zero”;
“zero, one, two, zero, one, two

then we could use standard modular arithmetic.

Joe Austin

DrTechDaddy.com

[Keislar, Doug]

Hi Joe,

Interesting thoughts (most of which you've put forth in this forum before).

I think your idea of aligning beats, phrases, etc. makes sense for simple music such as most hymns and a lot of popular songs. 

Classical music may be a different story.  As a relatively simple example (compared to, say, some 20th-century classical music), see the introduction to the Pathetique sonata:
http://imslp.org/wiki/File:TN-Beethoven,_Ludwig_van-Werke_Breitkopf_Kalmus_Band_20_B131_Op_13.jpg
This could be viewed, in one sense, as a four-bar phrase followed by a six-bar phrase.  You won't be able to force each into a single line, or to make the two align.  Of course, you could also "zoom in" and consider shorter time spans (say, one or two measures) to be phrases.  So there's a question of analytical interpretation, which works against hard-and-fast rules. 

Also, as you can see in the last line of the TN here, one measure can easily occupy a whole line.  Proportional rhythm notation (which I don't think you advocated below) will have a hard time with this, as will your idea of aligning beats of successive lines.

So I'd say your ideas make sense as loose typesetting conventions for simple music, especially for beginners.  They might be less suitable as hard-and-fast rules in the general case.

Doug

---

From: musicn...@googlegroups.com [musicn...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Joseph Austin [drtec...@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 6:14 PM
To: musicn...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [MNP] Rhythm considerations

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[Music Integrated Solution]

Joe,

I understand your passion with alternative rhythm notation, but I do not understand how a notation system that inherits TN rhythm notation could be an appreciated alternative for our times. Obviously the same is no alternative.

 

While looking for an alternative at least try not to inherit some of TN RN inconveniences and problems:

- The faster the music the more it additionally clutters the scores.

- Disastrous for conversion engines of score writers.

 

For example I would introduce the undefined beam, which is an equivalent of any number of beams, I find unnecessary or redundant that both the number of heads and the number of beams increase. 

Combining this kind of idea with others (I played with) could move the symbolic notation of rhythm from manual times to our times.

  

[Music Integrated Solution]

Let me say in other words TN pitch notation has inconveniences, but rhythm notation has problem.

 

[Doug Keislar]

P.S. Here is a link to a recording of the entire piece:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_No.8,_Op.13_(Beethoven,_Ludwig_van)#tab1
The sheet music image whose URL I previously posted corresponds to the first 1 minute 48 seconds.

[Joseph Austin]

Doug,

Perhaps Pathetique is “free verse”???

I’m sure whatever “rules” we could come up with, we could find composers who “break” them.

The question is, can we improve the visual presentation so as to improve it’s ability to convey the way the music should be performed or understood?

I think it’s unfortunate that so many publishers, especially publishers for students, 

obscure the structure of the music to save a few pennies on paper.

But the larger question, on which I hope to encourage discussion, is: 

what is the nature of rhythm, and how can that nature be best represented visually?

Joe

[Doug Keislar]

Joe,

Yes, the larger question is a very important one.

Your idea of emphasizing onset times rather than durations is definitely worth exploring more.  I couldn't agree more that for many types of music the most obvious and critical feature of rhythm is the position of an onset with respect to a beat (and the position of that beat within the bar) -- not how long the note is held.  This is of course true for percussion but also for instruments that are more or less percussive, including piano and plucked-string instruments like guitar.  (On a side note, I've found that a good way for a pianist to improve their rhythm is to practice on a synthesizer using a timbre that has a much shorter decay time than a piano tone.  It strips the rhythm naked, so to speak.)

It's probably not a coincidence that Western music notation originally arose to serve the needs of Medieval chant, which is not exactly music to get up and dance to.  It is a kind of music where timing isn't metronomic and where duration is important -- you need to know how long you're going to have to hold your breath, etc.

Doug

[Joseph Austin]

A mathematically simple way to notate rhythm is to express onset time is as fraction of the measure.

For example, in the first measure of Pathetique,

http://imslp.org/wiki/File:TN-Beethoven,_Ludwig_van-Werke_Breitkopf_Kalmus_Band_20_B131_Op_13.jpg

counting from 0, 

we have durations:

1/4+1/16+1/32=11/32, 1/32, 3/32, 1/32, 1/4, 1/8, rest 3/32, 1/32.

the final note being the pick-up to the next measure.

So, counting from zero, the note onsets would be:

0/32, 11/32, 12/32, 15/32, 16/32, 24/32, rest 28/32;  31/32

or reducing fractions:

0, 11/32, 3/8, 15/32, 1/2, 3/4, [7/8], 31/32

It’s similar long-short patterns in three different denominations!

The lower-termed fractions are the major beat positions—the beauty of mathematics!

This correspondence is a result of choosing zero as the starting numerator;

this cue would be lost if we adopted the traditional way of numbering starting at 1:

It would then be: 1/32, 12/32, 13/32, 16/32, 17/32, 25/32, [29/32], 32/32.

To find the beats, you would need to memorize the offset sequences:

I suppose we are all familiar with counting beats 1 2 3 4.

But it gets more complicated at finer divisions of the measure:

eights: 1, 3, 5 ,7 

sixteenths: 1, 5, 9, 13 

thirty-seconds: 1, 9, 17, 25, 

Another thing:

I’ve always disliked why “dotted” rhythms are notated,

3/32, 1/32 beamed together.

Visually, the long and short are a unit.

But aurally, the short is “heard” as a pick-up to the next long,

not a “resolution” of the previous one.

So to me it would make more sense to connect the short note to the following one,

not the preceding.

Getting back to Beethoven:

The pattern repeats in measure 2, 

gets elaborated in measure 3, 

then a contrast in measure 4.

Then “part 2” further “echoes” the rhythmic patterns of first four bars, and the overall structure,

but expanded to six measures.

Agreed, Beethoven is not “row row row your boat”.

Listening to the piece, I’m struck by the recurring rhythmic pattern.

In other words, for me, the repeated or varied rhythmic patterns are as significant 

as the chord and scale progressions in creating the overall impression of the piece.

The question, then, is: 

is the feel of the aural pattern captured in the printed score?

Not very well, in the instance you referenced.

The final measure takes 3x the space of the three previous measures.

In the first three measures, the approximately equal separation of the chords 

and scoring the first chord as a pair of tied chords

obscures the sense of the sustained note vs. the quickness of the pick-ups.

Some performers make this more dramatic with a very slow—Grave—tempo,

which belies the predominant graphical impression of the prevailing 32nd note beams.

Of course, it would be foolish to try to print the score in linear time:

given that the 9-plet 1/128ths in measure 4 and the regular 1/128ths in measure 9 have a least common multiple of 1152, we would need 144 note spaces and 1152 part resolution per measure to score it with mathematical precision.

Now I suppose reading fractions would take some getting use to.

But frankly, reading stems and ties and dots and beams takes a lot of getting used to also.

And there are ways of writing “numbers” and “fractions” graphically 

other than using arabic digits—I hope to illustrate some soon.

Of course, mathematical fractions get more complex in 3/4 and other “compound” meters:

Do you discard the final 1/4 measure or divide the measure into 1/3rds?

That is, do you write:

0/4, 1/4, 2/4, 0/4, 1/4, 2/4, ...

or

0/3, 1/3, 2/3, 0/3, 1/3, 2/3, … 

or maybe just the traditional

1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, which obscures the mathematical fact that there are 2 x 1//4 between 3/4 an 1/4.

Bottom line:

Notating note-onset as fraction of a measure has mathematical “elegance",

and in “lowest terms” form, the fractions highlight notes “on” and “off’ the beats

by the denominator value.

I would have to try “reading” it with music I’m otherwise unfamiliar with to get a sense of how viable it is.

One of the difficulties of performing “solo” experiments is,

by the time I create the score, I’m so familiar with it that I’m not really “reading” it.

To circumvent this problem, I’m trying to generate “scores” directly from MIDI files,

and then pick tunes I’m not familiar with, so I am actually “reading” the rhythm and not just remembering it.

Joe Austin

[Keislar, Doug]

All good points. I look forward to seeing what you come up with for non-numerical, graphical ways of indicating numerical relationships. Approaching notation from a usability perspective, we need to remember that many people find math to be frustrating. Some people are visually oriented, others mathematically oriented, although of course there's an overlap.

Doug

________________________________________

From: musicn...@googlegroups.com [musicn...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Joseph Austin [drtec...@gmail.com]

Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2015 7:25 PM

To: musicn...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [MNP] Rhythm considerations

On Aug 27, 2015, at 7:08 PM, Doug Keislar <do...@musclefish.com<mailto:do...@musclefish.com>> wrote:

Joe,

Yes, the larger question is a very important one.

Your idea of emphasizing onset times rather than durations is definitely worth exploring more. I couldn't agree more that for many types of music the most obvious and critical feature of rhythm is the position of an onset with respect to a beat (and the position of that beat within the bar) -- not how long the note is held. This is of course true for percussion but also for instruments that are more or less percussive, including piano and plucked-string instruments like guitar. (On a side note, I've found that a good way for a pianist to improve their rhythm is to practice on a synthesizer using a timbre that has a much shorter decay time than a piano tone. It strips the rhythm naked, so to speak.)

It's probably not a coincidence that Western music notation originally arose to serve the needs of Medieval chant, which is not exactly music to get up and dance to. It is a kind of music where timing isn't metronomic and where duration is important -- you need to know how long you're going to have to hold your breath, etc.

Doug


On 8/27/15 12:16 PM, Joseph Austin wrote:
Doug,
Perhaps Pathetique is “free verse”???

I’m sure whatever “rules” we could come up with, we could find composers who “break” them.
The question is, can we improve the visual presentation so as to improve it’s ability to convey the way the music should be performed or understood?

I think it’s unfortunate that so many publishers, especially publishers for students,
obscure the structure of the music to save a few pennies on paper.

But the larger question, on which I hope to encourage discussion, is:
what is the nature of rhythm, and how can that nature be best represented visually?


Joe

On Aug 27, 2015, at 12:45 AM, Keislar, Doug <<mailto:do...@musclefish.com>do...@musclefish.com<mailto:do...@musclefish.com>> wrote:

Hi Joe,

Interesting thoughts (most of which you've put forth in this forum before).

I think your idea of aligning beats, phrases, etc. makes sense for simple music such as most hymns and a lot of popular songs.

Classical music may be a different story. As a relatively simple example (compared to, say, some 20th-century classical music), see the introduction to the Pathetique sonata:
http://imslp.org/wiki/File:TN-Beethoven,_Ludwig_van-Werke_Breitkopf_Kalmus_Band_20_B131_Op_13.jpg
This could be viewed, in one sense, as a four-bar phrase followed by a six-bar phrase. You won't be able to force each into a single line, or to make the two align. Of course, you could also "zoom in" and consider shorter time spans (say, one or two measures) to be phrases. So there's a question of analytical interpretation, which works against hard-and-fast rules.

Also, as you can see in the last line of the TN here, one measure can easily occupy a whole line. Proportional rhythm notation (which I don't think you advocated below) will have a hard time with this, as will your idea of aligning beats of successive lines.

So I'd say your ideas make sense as loose typesetting conventions for simple music, especially for beginners. They might be less suitable as hard-and-fast rules in the general case.

Doug

________________________________

From: <mailto:musicn...@googlegroups.com> musicn...@googlegroups.com<mailto:musicn...@googlegroups.com> [<mailto:musicn...@googlegroups.com>musicn...@googlegroups.com<mailto:musicn...@googlegroups.com>] on behalf of Joseph Austin [<mailto:drtec...@gmail.com>drtec...@gmail.com<mailto:drtec...@gmail.com>]

Sent: Wednesday, August 26, 2015 6:14 PM

To: <mailto:musicn...@googlegroups.com> musicn...@googlegroups.com<mailto:musicn...@googlegroups.com>

DrTechDaddy.com<http://drtechdaddy.com/>

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