Slavery
Clark Battle
> As I said above, a chromatic piano (especially an acoustic one
>with real wooden keys) should have good chances to succeed because it
>resembles what the people expect a piano to be like. And then other
>chromatic instruments could succeed as well: harps, flutes, saxophones,
>xylophones. Then the growing family of successful chromatic instruments
>could be a footstep for a chromatic notation.
Have you seen Jim Schmitt Saxes & Flutes? Brilliant! He's in the same boat.
Its a chromatic system competing with a deeply established standard. $10k!
http://users.gotsky.com/jimschmidt/default.html
> My conclusion is simple. To be successful, and have a chance to
>replace its old model, a new keyboard or a new notation should resemble what
>the general public think a piano or a staff should look like. Simple as
>that.
I dont expect that chromatic keyboards will ever "replace" anything. People are not going to stop playing piano... ever. Orthogonal keyboards are great but aspiring that they will somehow supplant pianos is mistaken. However, a small share of a large market is plenty. That said, many keyboards have different advantages:
W/H - Easy to see the sharps and flats in any key signature. Educational.
Harmonic Table - Chromatic arrangement with single finger triads and two finger scales/modes.
Janko - Similar to piano. Familiar.
Piano - Deeply entrenched legacy.
We can say "this keyboard is better because it has that feature". But really its simply a matter of personal preference. One advantage is not absolutely better than any other. Counting features is irrelevant. In music, the fingers are the slaves of the heart.
Clark
PJP...@aol.com
Credit for the design goes to Hungarian pianist and composer Emanuel Moor, who came up with it in the 1920s.
"Dual keyboard pianos feature two keyboards, or manuals," the program noted, "which are placed one above the other. The lower keyboard, with 88 keys, resembles that of a typical piano, while the upper keyboard of 76 keys is one octave shorter in the treble but sounds one octave higher than the corresponding key on the lower keyboard. ... Both keyboards can be played simultaneously and a single hand positioned diagonally can play chords that extend over two octaves, thereby expanding the possibilities for playing complex compositions."
This design looks like the easiest to make a kit for, (to cannibalize 2 midi controllers and fit the keyboards as close together as possible); for keyboardists who are looking to expand harmonic reach........
regards Paul P.
It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money & Finance.
Jim_Plamondon
> > As I said above, a chromatic piano (especially an acoustic one
> >with real wooden keys) should have good chances to succeed because it
> >resembles what the people expect a piano to be like.
> >replace its old model, a new keyboard or a new notation should resemble
> >what the general public think a piano or a staff should look like. Simple as
> >that.
music education is appallingly high -- i.e., nearly everyone tries to
learn to play a musical instrument, and nearly everyone fails -- then
maintaining backward-compatibility with existing designs is simply a
means of perpetuating this failure.
The situation is precisely analogous to that of the command-line
interfaces of old-style computers, before the emergence of Graphic
User Interfaces abstracted the computer's operations. Memorizing
command-line options was essentially impossible for most people. By
abstracting the command interface into menus, dialog boxes, icons,
etc. made it possible for people to SEE their options, rather than
having to memorize them. Breakthrough reductions in cognitive load
almost always require dramatic changes to user interfaces, which -- by
definition -- are not backwardly compatible.
Being backwardly-compatible with what existing musicians know is
almost totally irrelevant, because there are simply too few of them to
matter. Only 13.2% of the US population plays a musical instrument as
a leisure activity at least once a year. Once a YEAR. Raise that bar
up to "at least once a month," and the percentage drops to just 5.4
percent (data from US Census bureau; see http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s1213.xls).
With a US population of 300 million, that's about 16 million people.
More people than that have bought Guitar Hero in just the last two
years, fer cryin out loud. A huge number of people want to experience
the benefits of music-making, but traditional control interfaces and
notations erect too high a barrier for them to cross.
My point is not that music controllers should be dumbed down to the
level of Guitar Hero's controller and notation (which lack the
expressive power needed to describe and perform tonal music
flexibly). Rather, my point is that this forum's members should
recognize that the POTENTIAL market for music-making controllers and
notation is vastly larger than its current market.
I sumbit that this forum should absolutely NOT consider "backward
compatibility with previous notations" to be an advantage in any
proposed new notation. That's a dead-weight loss -- a cost that
reduces overall consumption from its potential maximum. I submit that
this forum's objective should be to GROW THE MARKET -- to dramatically
increase the use of music notation by making it simpler and more
accessible WITHOUT dumbing it down, even if attaining that goal
requires breaking compatibility with notation's previous incarnations
(and instruments).
But I can see how reaonable people might disagree with me on this
point. ;-)
--- Jim
Doug Keislar
You wrote:
I sumbit that this forum should absolutely NOT consider "backward compatibility with previous notations" to be an advantage in any proposed new notation. That's a dead-weight loss -- a cost that reduces overall consumption from its potential maximum. I submit that this forum's objective should be to GROW THE MARKET -- to dramatically increase the use of music notation by making it simpler and more accessible WITHOUT dumbing it down, even if attaining that goal requires breaking compatibility with notation's previous incarnations (and instruments).
Doug
Michael Johnston
> compatibility with previous notations" to be an advantage in any
> proposed new notation.
Hmm, that does not seem obvious to me. There are very few precedents of
non-compatibility in notations through history. When the Venetians
developed the slanting lowercase letters that came to be known as
"Italic," it saved space and was quicker to write but it didn't break
compatibility. The two systems lived together and today they still do as
upright and italic.
The only system of notation that I can think of that behaved in history
as you suggest is the replacement of Roman numerals by Arabic. There was
no backward compatibility there and the addition of the zero cinched the
transformation. A new music notation that meets this difficult test has
not come to my attention yet.
> increase the use of music notation by making it simpler and more
> accessible WITHOUT dumbing it down, even if ...
So our goal would be to promote and increase the number of people
reading music? I disagree. That's outside of our scope. We are here to
evaluate and deal with systems that improve and might replace TN. If
ease of teaching and potential popularity come in as one consideration,
OK, but that is a prediction. I have heard from every single inventor
that his system makes learning easier. So? Just about any system
invented from scratch would be easier to learn than TN. Surely, we can
agree that this goes without saying.
> Thumline's rhythmic notation is adopted
> whole-cloth from traditional notation.
This has been the weak point in most of the systems I've examined.
Either the inventor didn't want to address the problems of rhythm or he
saw no problems. If we as a group believe that TN's rhythmic notation is
as good as it gets, we should state this. Otherwise, evaluation because
incredibly lopsided as System A using TN's rhythmic component is
compared with System B which was provided by the inventor.
Does anyone here think the pitch component is the only thing that should
be improved?
Does anyone here feel that we might have better cooperation and more
interest if we approached pitch and time separately? (I've always
thought they should be considered together.)
Cheers!
Michael
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