How I’d redesign piano sheet music • Hacker News Board

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#111

Post by analog31 » Sat, Jul 04, 2015, 11:50 PM UTC

cwp wrote: post #109

analog31 wrote: post #24

I'm a bassist, of the "don't quit your day job" variety. Owing to the accident of having a certain musical background, I'm a fluent sight-reader, and the groups that I play in require this skill. I frequently encounter a mixture of standard notation (SN) and chord symbols, plus the occasional Nashville number chart. From what I can tell, people have explored different notation systems for a couple of reasons. The fir…

I agree. The value of SN is that it's abstract . It assumes a certain structure (the one that western music uses) and describes melody in terms of that structure. It doesn't concern itself with the actual sounds involved (eg. frequencies and durations) or the mechanics of producing them (eg. tablature). SN is difficult for beginners because music is difficult for beginners. Notations that focus on the mechanics of th…

One thing I'm familiar with, thanks to my kids, is the Suzuki method of violin instruction. Kids start out just playing by rote memorization, and by ear, with no charts. There were books for the Suzuki repertoire, more for the use of adults, as the kids didn't read from them.

When I was growing up, Suzuki was controversial in the US because teachers were afraid that kids would lose the chance to learn how to read, and be musically crippled for life. I have to admit that I was among the skeptical, since I learned according to the European method.

The first note that I ever played, an open string, I read from a book that had that one big note sitting there in front of me. The entire emphasis was on "getting the cats out of the instrument" as it were, but yet it was all done with reading from the git-go.

What's happened since then in the US (don't know about elsewhere) is that reading is introduced gradually through a separate curriculum. It's been going on for long enough that Suzuki kids are now playing professionally in orchestras, and we've met one or two "superstar" concert violinists through master classes for the kids, who have mentioned their Suzuki background.

So apparently you can start out without reading, and live to tell about it.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#112

Post by arrrg » Sat, Jul 04, 2015, 11:50 PM UTC

andrewliebchen wrote: post #106

jveld wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the ad hominem? I understood the scope of the OP's suggestion. I just thought it could've been presented more clearly. The fact that tons of the comments here are directed at the idea of this notation as a replacement would seem to bear this out. For my thoughts on the notation itself, see this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9831337

The title is "How I'd redesign piano sheet music," then the second paragraph (after the TL;DR) mentions guitar tabs. At this point, we should just all agree that article titles are at least slightly sensational. If no one on HN debated the clickbaitiness of a headline, comment volume would drop dramatically. Edit: reordered the paragraphs.

Clickbait labeling bullshit. Another dumb classic of HN comments. So dumb, so simplistic, so fucking pointless.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#113

Post by abecedarius » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 12:54 AM UTC

enf wrote: post #101

topogios wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notes in different octaves are different and hence should look different. Even if you restrict to keyboard instruments, I am not sure you describe an existing problem with classical notation. For the non-keyboard instruments I know how to play, tones in different octaves having different identifications is a must unless you want to add extra parts to the notation.

I think the point is that the standard clefs would be better aligned if there were 6 lines instead of 5, so both bass and treble could be EGBDFA. It would put the low C one below the bass clef and the high C one above the treble clef, instead of two below and two above but only one in between.

Yes, that was my general thought -- (added:) but that still would have two octaves different, where a note between staff lines in one octave is on a staff line in the other.

Also when you go above or below the two clefs and draw ledger lines for those notes, you're losing the background pattern once again -- you start having to count notes. With this proposed notation you'd draw another background octave (or enough of it for the notes used).

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#114

Post by abecedarius » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 12:57 AM UTC

gjulianm wrote: post #85

abecedarius wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 90° isn't the big problem with traditional notation. It's that the same note in different octaves looks different . It's as if in programming you wrote a for loop differently for every level of nesting. The new notation draws against the same pattern of staff lines for each octave; plus, you don't have to remember sharps and flats from the key. I've long wished for these two improvements, especially the first one…

Regarding remembering flats and sharps... That may be easy for beginners, but it's actually not good. You do have to remember the sharps and flats because you have to know in which key you are playing to see where is the music going. And when you're playing you end up not needing the flats in each note because they're always there. They end up being redundant, so by removing them you gain simplicity and you can see m…

It would be natural (ha) to add a mark next to a note that doesn't belong to the key, or color it, etc.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#115

Post by tobico » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 12:59 AM UTC

The funny thing about talking of tabs for piano, is that sheet music is already that. By representing music on a diatonic staff, with a key signature, it's shown in a perfect format to translate it to keys on the piano, at the expense of some other kinds of instruments, vocals, and general understanding of the music, where it would be more helpful to see the music on a chromatic staff.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#116

Post by dang » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 1:02 AM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #112

andrewliebchen wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title is "How I'd redesign piano sheet music," then the second paragraph (after the TL;DR) mentions guitar tabs. At this point, we should just all agree that article titles are at least slightly sensational. If no one on HN debated the clickbaitiness of a headline, comment volume would drop dramatically. Edit: reordered the paragraphs.

Clickbait labeling bullshit. Another dumb classic of HN comments. So dumb, so simplistic, so fucking pointless.

We all know how frustrating HN threads can be. But please don't make them still worse by posting things like this.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#117

Post by v0x » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 1:02 AM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #92

rquantz wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a violist, and I used to teach violin and piano. With stringed instruments, as you say, just making a sound and holding the instrument right are so difficult for beginners, reading music pales in comparison. Piano is unique-ish as an instrument that you can sit down at and start making a sound essentially right away. I found that for my beginner piano students, learning to read was probably the biggest challenge…

In my view the hard thing is sight-reading. With programming, if it takes one person twice as long as another, to read or write a program, at worst their productivity will be a bit lower. Or maybe higher. ;-) If you can't read music at tempo, then there are certain kinds of work that you can't do at all. Granted, sight-reading skill is a matter of degree. I can read a jazz band gig, but would struggle with complex mo…

As someone with an occasional passing interest in playing the piano, Synthesia has been great for me when it comes to learning songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WolqGAgiolM

Of course, it is not exactly a substitute for sheet music, but it is eminently readable to the novice.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#118

Post by smortaz » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 1:25 AM UTC

smorrow wrote: post #63

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".

agreed, especially for experienced musicians. the point here is that if the notehead carries its sharp/flatness in the shape, just like a notehead carries its duration (quarter vs half), it'll become 2nd nature. if a piece is in F# major, then pretty much most of the keys have an implied sharp... A is not A. it's A#. this way a student doesnt have to constantly remember the key sig & what notes are raised or lowered. sort of like python's explicit > implicit.

as far as note being able to determine the key, that'll still be specified as now - this is an additional visual hint.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#119

Post by smortaz » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 1:30 AM UTC

smorrow wrote: post #66

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.

hmm... i'm confused... 8vb is for lowering an octave. the proposal here is to make both clefs have EGBDFA. ie, the clefs are off by a third - this slides by a 3rd to make them have the same arrangement. ah, actually i think i got what you're saying: ie, just use 8vb and use treble for both. sure that'll work too, tho the A below middle C is kind of popular :), otherwise it'll have to be constantly dotted lined in.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#120

Post by agumonkey » Sun, Jul 05, 2015, 2:14 AM UTC

legohead wrote: post #45

Does the author actually play piano? I didn't see him explicitly say it. I play violin, and reading sheet music was never a limiting factor. It was not a challenge to learn, and you don't learn all the symbols in the beginning. As you get more proficient and read harder music, only then do you learn new symbols. Maybe sheet music can be improved upon, but the real question is should it? Sheet music is easy enough to…

I have the feeling that it's badly conveyed by """musical pedagogy""". All the theory and notation isn't the essence of music but that's the main communication channel they make student interact with and through.

I wouldn't say it's not challenging, but it's out of place, thus tedious. As other people said, it's an abstraction for people doing the art, IMVHO it's not important unless you are doing the art.