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Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

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Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#21

Post by nandemo »

jerf wrote: post #17
danteembermage wrote: post #6

I think a killer feature for this (or a competitor...) would be auto-turning pages using the ambient audio. "While I am playing piano and have no hands I have to deftly change the music, therefore I need another human " is a huge pain point for performing pianists.

I'd think out of the box on this, and just give the user another channel to control the page turning. The most natural choice I could see would be some sort of eye or head tracking. Though I suspect that rather than trying to guess where they are in the sheet music, I'd just give them a visual target off to the right or left that if they gaze upon/turn towards it the page turns forward (or back). The problem with sol…

> I'd think out of the box on this, and just give the user another channel to control the page turning. The most natural choice I could see would be some sort of eye or head tracking.

I think the most natural is a pedal, which has actually been implemented.

Grandparent's suggestion of ambient audio seems rather inadequate. Pianists don't turn pages always at the very end of the page. They read ahead, and how much they read ahead depends on the particular passage.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#22

Post by jayanderson »

WalterSear wrote: post #14

If only someone would rethink music notation successfully.

I agree. The janko keyboard layout for the piano appeals to me because no key is different from another. For instance if you learn one major scale on the janko keyboard you now know them all. Doing something similar for music notation is hard, but would be incredibly useful if done well. See http://musicnotation.org/ for some attempts.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#23

Post by _ouxp »

dangrover wrote: post #10
stygianguest wrote: post #9

The main problem with sheet music is copyright law. Its differences across Europe will make anyone's head hurt. If that weren't enough, the established publishing industry is extremely conservative. In my experience the musicians --that is users-- would be the last and least hurdle.

This times a million.

Just for some context, Dan is the guy who built Etude.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#24

Post by oblique63 »

WalterSear wrote: post #14

If only someone would rethink music notation successfully.

Agreed. I'm currently working on a startup that's focusing pretty heavily on that (http://www.tabrat.com/), and let me tell you, even if somebody were to get it 'exactly right', it would still be quite the uphill battle to get it adopted. That's assuming it's a legitimate re-imagining that deviates from the current system of course, and not some C++ style superset. Nothing wrong with teaching an old dog new tricks (in fact it's what we're planning to do in the meantime), but it wouldn't really be anything new, because that is exactly how music notation evolved to be how it is today (excluding tablature for fretted instruments, which should be considered a good, albeit limited, innovation in it's own right).

The people that use notation the most, and take it the most seriously, are usually the ones that have invested a ton of time learning to sight read and knowing how to properly express their ideas in it; hence they are almost certainly going to be hesitant about switching to a new format. We musicians tend to be a conservative bunch; after our first few years playing/experimenting, we pretty much solidify what we like and hardly ever deviate from it afterwards.

I (a guitarist) for example, only really play 2 brands of strings, I have already made vast generalizations in my head about what amp/guitar/pedal brands I like and don't like (as opposed to judging on a product-by-product basis like I would for most other things), and I don't see that changing soon. Likewise, once you develop your notation style, it would probably be hard to really think of trying something new when you've just come up with a cool riff and get caught up in the heat of the moment trying to build on it.

Although I can't wait to see the day the next evolution in songwriting starts getting widely adopted, I can't say that what we have now is really that bad. Traditional staff sheet music does makes it easy to 'visualize' what a piece sounds like, and that's a feat that even well notated tablature can sometimes struggle to convey.

As for my startup? We just want musicians to be able to precisely jot down something like this on a moment's whim (fx and all): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU52hGo3nNc

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#25

Post by mutagen »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #20
WalterSear wrote: post #14

If only someone would rethink music notation successfully.

What would you change? I'm curious.

That musicnotation.org site outlines the major issues with traditional music notation. Traditional notation is very piano-centric, making learning to read it on a chromatic instrument more difficult than it needs to be. Nearly all stringed instruments have no distinction between sharp, flat and natural notes.

That being said, there are hundreds of years of tradition behind current notation and that kind of momentum is unlikely to change. Guitar players came up with tablature, which is great except for the lack of rhythmic information in the notation.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#27

Post by Bud »

zach wrote: post #2

Congrats, Dan! What a great write-up. So glad to see how far this has come. Leaving aside the practical matters native to the iPad, I think not having an extensive classical selection is one of the best ways you could be dinged. It speaks the app's value and a desire to use the app more. And it leaves the door open for a followup story.

It's not the place of any app to solve the problem of needing a full classical library. Various websites, from Art Song Central to IMSLP to Choral Public Domain Library have already attacked this need with vigor. There are a LOT of good PDFs out there already that can be used right now in forScore without any need to pay Steinway or anyone else for things that are in the public domain already.

http://imslp.org/

http://www.choralwiki.org/wiki/

http://artsongcentral.com/

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#28

Post by jerf »

nandemo wrote: post #21
jerf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd think out of the box on this, and just give the user another channel to control the page turning. The most natural choice I could see would be some sort of eye or head tracking. Though I suspect that rather than trying to guess where they are in the sheet music, I'd just give them a visual target off to the right or left that if they gaze upon/turn towards it the page turns forward (or back). The problem with sol…

> I'd think out of the box on this, and just give the user another channel to control the page turning. The most natural choice I could see would be some sort of eye or head tracking. I think the most natural is a pedal, which has actually been implemented. Grandparent's suggestion of ambient audio seems rather inadequate. Pianists don't turn pages always at the very end of the page. They read ahead, and how much the…

"which has actually been implemented."

Yes, I implicitly added a requirement for myself that I not merely duplicate off-the-shelf tech, because that would be boring. One characteristic of that solution is that it requires additional hardware, whereas head tracking (and maybe eye tracking) could be done with the same setup pictured in the article. But I would totally agree that given a pedal, that will be the superior solution on almost every level. Truly, nothing else speaks with the input clarity and precision of a simple button.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#29

Post by icarus_drowning »

oblique63 wrote: post #24
WalterSear wrote: post #14

If only someone would rethink music notation successfully.

Agreed. I'm currently working on a startup that's focusing pretty heavily on that ( http://www.tabrat.com/ ), and let me tell you, even if somebody were to get it 'exactly right', it would still be quite the uphill battle to get it adopted. That's assuming it's a legitimate re-imagining that deviates from the current system of course, and not some C++ style superset. Nothing wrong with teaching an old dog new tricks…

Yeah, my degree is in Music Theory/Composition, and while I understand where people are coming from when they complain about music notation, I can't see myself investing any significant amount of time learning an alternative system when I already have the current system down well enough that I can sight-read and sight-sing a vast majority of music.

tl;dr I'm not giving up the ability to look at an orchestral score and have a pretty good idea of how it sounds just to learn that skill all over again.

Re: Rethinking Sheet Music, With A Few Bells And Whistles

#30

Post by usedtolurk »

danteembermage wrote: post #6

I think a killer feature for this (or a competitor...) would be auto-turning pages using the ambient audio. "While I am playing piano and have no hands I have to deftly change the music, therefore I need another human " is a huge pain point for performing pianists.

Is there even a need for pages anymore? Wouldn't it be nicer to have one long continuous sideways scroll in landscape mode.

Even better if the App was able to match the scrolling speed to the playing speed automatically.

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