Re: [MNP] Digest for musicnotation@googlegroups.com - 2 updates in 1 topic

[John M. Honeycutt]

Hi there. You might be interested in seeing another tablature solution to the problem of identifying sharps and flats. In my solution, I color all flat noteheads BLACK; and all sharped noteheads GRAY. Natural note heads remain uncolored (white). This is made possible by showing the rhythm by placing the notes on a timeline and stretching the notes to a size proportional to their time values. You will find examples of this on my website: musiciw.com. As an example, you will find tablature notation for the Moonlight Sonata on the site. (I'm 92 now, and have lost the ability to continue the research.) The site is musiciw.com (For Music innovators Workshop) 

On Mon, Feb 20, 2023 at 7:51 PM <musicn...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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• Chromatic look on a diatonic staff - 2 Updates

Chromatic look on a diatonic staff

"stuar...@gmail.com" <stuar...@gmail.com>: Feb 20 01:15AM -0800 In 2022, I incorporated a new feature into my Alternative Notation design “WYSIWYP – What You See Is What You Play” and its associated Simplified Notation app (SNapp). The original design has separate notehead shapes for sharps and flats. This new feature uses a single combination notehead for both (e.g., C# and Db) and is implemented as an additional user preference option in SNapp.   This new approach to sharps and flats is not strictly a chromatic design but it gives the “look” of one in that each of the twelve chromatic notehead center points has its own unique vertical position on the octave. The design remains essentially diatonic however as the naturals are presented as full size overlapping noteheads (just like Traditional Notation). The sharps and flats are “squeezed” in between them in an analogous way to the keyboard where the black keys overlap their adjacent white keys and are roughly half the width.   In the figure below, the diatonic naturals are represented by the hollow circles, while the other five chromatic degrees are represented by black rectangles. This results in a clear mapping of circles to white keys on the keyboard, while black rectangles map to black keys. (Unchanged in the design are staff lines on C and F, and the grey stripe notetails that represent the note duration in terms of beats which are indicated by the “tick” marks.)   [image: Chromatic scale with sharp combo noteheads with labels.jpg]   I am attaching a document that has the full description of this new approach and how it further develops WYSIWYP as a keyboard tablature in addition to being a full function notation.     *Comparison to a chromatic design with similar noteheads*   Avid students of the MNMA website may notice the resemblance of this new WYSIWYP feature to the following chromatic design where the rectangular noteheads are half the height of the circular noteheads:   [image: Chromatic Nydana by Dan Lindgren 2011.jpg]   With this chromatic design, the twelve degrees’ noteheads are differentiated by their *color* (black filled or unfilled) and by *shape* (circle or rectangle), but there is no consistent pattern of shape and color that distinguishes the diatonic degrees from the other five chromatics. The same is true of many other Alternative Notation designs that employ different shape and color notehead patterns.   Unlike other Alternative Notations, the new WYSIWYP design feature is consistent in both color and shape within a diatonic context*.* The diatonic naturals are circles without color fill while the other five chromatic flat/sharp combinations are black filled rectangles. This simple and consistent one-to-one mapping results in less mental processing of notehead appearance and thus a more direct route from sheet music to fingers on the black and white keys of the keyboard. In other words, it’s a keyboard tablature.   While Nydana and WYSIWYP have notehead shapes in common, the underlying frameworks are different. Chromatic designs give equal emphasis to each of the twelve degrees. WYSIWYP emphasizes the seven diatonic degrees such that the five sharp/flat degrees are seen as adjustments to the naturals and not as equal members of a chromatic group. This emphasis is reflected firstly by a staff octave where each diatonic degree has a full vertical position (overlapping 50% with adjacent degrees), while the remaining five chromatic degrees have only a half-position (occupying the adjacent natural degrees’ overlap space). And secondly, emphasis is reflected by its use of a common notehead (in terms of shape and color) for the naturals while using a different common notehead for the remaining five sharp/flat combinations. Thus, just as the keyboard appearance is dominated by the larger and more numerous white keys, so too is the WYSIWYP staff by the diatonic naturals.     I welcome your thoughts and constructive feedback, but I humbly request all readers to stay on topic in this forum conversation.

John F <j.r.fr...@gmail.com>: Feb 20 11:36AM -0800 Hi Stuart, very nice! The little black rectangles- - combination noteheads - give a more intuitive indication of their pitch than the triangles, and are visibly a better balance to the open circles. I'm about to try learning Moonlight Sonata (slow movement) in SNapp, as the key signature and accidentals wear me down in TN. I'll let you know how I get on.

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[stuar...@gmail.com]

Good day.

I find your alternative notation to be a very interesting approach to providing an effective keyboard tablature.  In your “Intro to the Music Innovators Workshop” document you say:

“Scores of students have used and tested the experimental notations during the development process and have greatly influenced the results.”

I’m wondering if your Music Innovators Workshop team, or any instructors using your designs, have published their experiences with students?  Perhaps in music educators journals or conference proceedings for example.  I am very much interested in collecting data that supports the efficacy of Alternative Notations. 

thanks, Stuart