Standard Notation Improvements to Facilitate Sight Reading

[MrCreosote]

Is there software that will scan sheet music and render it with improvements?  (This would be similar to opening Visual Basic code in a GUI which color codes, italicizes, boldens, indents, etc. according to rules that makes the code much easier to read and understand.)

As far as conventional notation, issues include:

• Sharps and Naturals:  hard to differentiate the symbols
• Ledger Lines:  when far above the staff, have to count to determine the note
• The 5 staff lines are all the same

I'm also going to purchase a platform to put all my sheet music in a tablet or laptop so I can eliminate the piles of music I keep within reach of my piano.  Very frustrating when trying to find something.  I've tried filing cabinets which don't cut it. 

The biggest problem right now is sharp and natural symbolts which on some scores are nearly impossible to differentiate.  Next at ledgers far above the staff - I notate the letter next to the note - almost impossible to sight read since have to count ledger lines.

Thanks

Tom   

[John F]

Hi Tom,

I don't know of anything that does "rendering with improvements," but there are quite a few music editors, and I think some of them allow some low-level manipulation of the graphical output, from what I've gleaned on this board. They use XML files or their own proprietary file types to code a description of the score, and from that code it would obviously be possible to output varations on the norm. I think some print with fonts for things, including notes and other symbols, so if you can somehow find a way to create the font elements, you'd solve it that way perhaps. Anyone on here know which editors might allow this? 

However, I would doubt very much that the starting point would be scanning physical scores or images - at least the last time I looked into it, they were pretty clunky, so you might spend as much time altering their output as you would annotating paper copies.

I agree with your points. I'm glad someone said the sharp and natural can look very similar - I was beginning to think it was just me! And how anyone reads extended ledger lines is beyond me.

Regards,

John F

[gguitarwilly]

Hi Tom,

I found a modest tweak that helps reading traditional notation.

Take a sharp pencil and draw slashes through all notes that are raised by a sharp, and backslashes through notes that are flatted.

If any notes on high or low ledger lines  happen to get marked this way, this helps in quickly spotting the right note.

cheers, Willem

Op vrijdag 3 november 2023 om 02:15:56 UTC+1 schreef MrCreosote:

[drtec...@gmail.com]

Wilhelm,
I have long been using a similar system, but using color, which can be applied with colored pencils:  red for sharps and blue for flats. It has the advantage of not interfering with flags or other notational graphics.  If I’m printing the score with a computer, I also use shape noteheads, which identifies the scale degree independently from the staff position.

 

Joe Austin, aka DrTechDaddy
“Music is Poetry,
why print it as prose?”

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[Pashkuli Keyboard]

I use slashes in my PMN (Plain Music Notation) to direct the reader about the intended direction of intervals, especially when no clef\separator note is given.

For slashes to replace "accidental" symbols… might be a bit tricky to get the angles, especially in notations with score lines – the eye can easily be tricked, so I would not recommend them.

The notes pitch is determined by the note-head (note-letter), so they fall in a single row (renova – where all 12 notes can be placed).

It is how intervals can be measured when the notes get sent over a text message from a phone\tablet.