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How I’d redesign piano sheet music

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Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#61

Post by smorrow »

peeters wrote: post #9

I think this a cool idea. I think piano needs its own version of the guitar tab to be more approachable. For someone who knows the basics, just seeing the chords goes a long way. But this gives better detail. One thing it glosses over is how the format responds to greater range. It acknowledges the fact that only 3 of piano's ~7 octaves are shown, but it doesn't address how much difficult it would be to read if there…

The best way to do that stackable staves: see the last two lines here: http://i.imgur.com/tqZRXzt.jpg

Ledger lines preserve the melodic contour but it's harder to read the notes. 8va's stay within the regular five lines you know how to read, but fragment the melodic curve. This way has the advantages of both the above and the disadvantage of neither.

(The lack of key sig in that image is a limitation of the software it was printed out from, I think; it should start in E and change around a bit afterwards. The "3"s are that software's way of printing tuplets.)

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#62

Post by jlarocco »

Is this really necessary?

When I took piano lessons as a kid, I never had a hard time reading the music. It looks really complicated knowing nothing and jumping straight to Beethoven, but realistically, you'll learn to read sheet music a lot faster than you'll learn to actually play it.

I only took lessons for a few years, but by the end I was able to read sheet music that I had no hope of actually playing.

And then there's hundreds of years of music using the existing notation, so anybody serious about music will inevitably end up learning the old notation anyway.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#63

Post by smorrow »

smortaz wrote: post #48

very nice! my 2c for improving notation are more evolutionary. i see two main issues with sight reading: 1. treble/bass clefs are not consistent: one is EGBDF, the other GBDFA. eg instead of the third line always being a B, it's a B in one & a D in the other! 2. having to remember sharps & flats. ie, despite the note being F, you have to remember that it's not really an F, but in this case an F# or Fb. the proposal:…

The more sharps or flats the key has, the more the need for putting them in the key signature, not less. Otherwise there'd be sharps and flats everywhere. And you wouldn't be able to determine the key by looking at one bar.

Experienced musicians don't look at a key signature and say "okay, so I need to perform so-and-so particular substitutions", they look at a key signature and say "okay, so it's in the key of X".

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#64

Post by technimad »

theOnliest wrote: post #57

This idea isn't entirely new (is anything?); for an earlier version, check out Klavarskribo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klavarskribo . It didn't really take hold, because it's much more inefficient than normal notation.

Yep. They guy reinvented Klavarscribo.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#66

Post by smorrow »

smortaz wrote: post #48

very nice! my 2c for improving notation are more evolutionary. i see two main issues with sight reading: 1. treble/bass clefs are not consistent: one is EGBDF, the other GBDFA. eg instead of the third line always being a B, it's a B in one & a D in the other! 2. having to remember sharps & flats. ie, despite the note being F, you have to remember that it's not really an F, but in this case an F# or Fb. the proposal:…

Oh, and there's already a notation within the standard system for your first proposal: a treble clef with "8vb" written below it.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#69

Post by brobinson »

Vertical orientation of sheet music looks very much like a music Tracker. [1]

I've recently been learning a tracker program called Renoise [2], and the vertical orientation is a very nice change compared to other DAWs I've used (Reaper, GarageBand, Logic Studio).

Reading sheet music has always been a huge chore for me, so I generally seek out guitar tabs instead when it's possible. Vertical sheet music without the staves would be amazing for people who know music theory but never had the need to learn sheet music like myself.

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

[2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Renoise_...

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#70

Post by ams6110 »

tacos wrote: post #35
mattbasta wrote: post #4

I really love this. When I was young, I was really excited to learn to play the piano. The biggest problem I had was being able to read the sheet music. It was incredibly difficult for me to read and understand the notes for both hands at the same time. A big part of this was that when individual notes were off the normal staff (e.g., C is below the staff), you either had to have an innate sense of how far from the s…

So does a deck of flash cards. If you learned multiplication tables you can learn to read music. And if you can play video games you can play piano. And it's NEVER too late to learn.

I suppose one could also say "if you can learn to sight-read a novel you can learn to sight-read music" and it might be true but I think there is a certain natural ability prerequisite. I played in school concert bands for four years and could never manage to sight-read anything very complicated. Practicing was a chore and when we got new music I always had to sit and pick through it very slowly measure-by-measure until I figured out how it was supposed to sound. Once I knew that, I could "read" the music but I could never play a new piece on first sight. I knew all the notation but I could not look at a new piece of music and "hear" it in my head.. It felt more like trying to read a book letter by letter. I never was able to really see "words" and "sentences". By the time I quit I really just hated everything about it.

I also had tremendous difficulty learning basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts compared to most of my friends. And I don't play video games.

I do enjoy listening to music quite a bit, but I think I am a person who doesn't have an ability to play it.

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