101–110 of 176 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They have a habit of solving problems that just aren’t problems for experienced readers, while causing problems for experienced readers. If I had a dollar for every "new way of doing XYZ" made by someone inexperienced who just doesn't want to learn the way we're all doing XYZ just fine...
Brew vs macports in a nutshell.
At a glance, this is a neat concept, but doesn't seem to come at the problem from the perspective of the most common users of music notation (experienced musicians); rather, it appears to have been written by somebody who was frustrated by trying to learn to read music. For experienced musicians, the priorities are a) legibility for sight-reading and transcription (which this system, with indistinguishable sitting/ha…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, some highly chromatic music would be better represented in this notation, but it seems a poor fit for traditional western music. Also, a single, brief, look at a piano keyboard will expose why whole-steps and half-steps always being equidistant on the sheet music might not be a desirable goal. There are similar affordances on woodwinds as well. Maybe a string-instrument player could comment on usefulness for s…
> Maybe a string-instrument player could comment on usefulness for string music? Speaking from my experience playing violin (as an ameteur), players generally practice their scales until the finger positions become muscle memory. This way, the key provides the entire note position -> finger position mapping, and accidentals simply become half-step modifications. Since the scales would need to be learned anyway to pla…
I also know the "shapes" of intervals though, and they are constant. A half-step is always one fret, a whole step is always two. A minor third is a minor third is a minor third: one finger on fret N of string M, the other finger on fret N-2 of string M+1; the names of the notes are irrelevant.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vast majority of users of music notation are amateurs, and being more friendly to amateurs would mean even more users. The vast majority of decision-makers are experienced users with a vested interest in the status quo. The issue is very similar to why corporate systems have such horrible user interfaces. The people making the decisions in IT aren't the normal users of the system. IT cares about features, integra…
Many people seem to not realise that there is already an alternative to staff notation; it is called the piano roll. It has all the advantages that alternative notations propose (proportional intervals and note lengths), is already in widespread use, is available in all professional music software, and is by far simpler and easier to learn. For many professional musicians the piano roll may be the only type of notati…
At a glance, this is a neat concept, but doesn't seem to come at the problem from the perspective of the most common users of music notation (experienced musicians); rather, it appears to have been written by somebody who was frustrated by trying to learn to read music. For experienced musicians, the priorities are a) legibility for sight-reading and transcription (which this system, with indistinguishable sitting/ha…
Right, some highly chromatic music would be better represented in this notation, but it seems a poor fit for traditional western music. Also, a single, brief, look at a piano keyboard will expose why whole-steps and half-steps always being equidistant on the sheet music might not be a desirable goal. There are similar affordances on woodwinds as well. Maybe a string-instrument player could comment on usefulness for s…
At a glance, this is a neat concept, but doesn't seem to come at the problem from the perspective of the most common users of music notation (experienced musicians); rather, it appears to have been written by somebody who was frustrated by trying to learn to read music. For experienced musicians, the priorities are a) legibility for sight-reading and transcription (which this system, with indistinguishable sitting/ha…
The only thing this will do is teach you a completely different system and as soon as you move out of your own isolated learning and into working with other musicians and gigging or other public functions you will just get frustrated.
At the very least you would wanna system that would be somewhat transferable to the existing sheet notation and tablature systems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve gained that impression from every single alternative notation system that’s come up here (a new one comes up every year or two). They have a habit of solving problems that just aren’t problems for experienced readers, while causing problems for experienced readers. (They may also solve some real problems, but when they do, they always involve compromises. Inconsistent octave positioning on the staff is a problem…
> They have a habit of solving problems that just aren’t problems for experienced readers, while causing problems for experienced readers. If I had a dollar for every "new way of doing XYZ" made by someone inexperienced who just doesn't want to learn the way we're all doing XYZ just fine...
> In traditional music notation notes an octave apart do not resemble each other. This is what I'd emphasize. To sight read, the mapping from sign to note has to be so automatic it's unconscious. In standard notation this mapping looks different at every one of the middle four octaves, which nearly quadruples the size of the "multiplication table" you're installing in memory. Since your exposure in practice to the fu…
I don't agree with this "multiplication table" idea. Octaves have the same physical distance between notes on the page in traditional notation, so they can be identified at a glance. People typically do not read octaves by deciphering the bottom note, deciphering the top note, and saying "ah, this is an octave".
It also helps that for many instruments there’s a mapping between the layout of the instrument and the notation! This is less true for brass and the violin family, though I think even with them there are probably some arguments to be made about the harmonic series, or the spacing of strings in fifths.
At a glance, this is a neat concept, but doesn't seem to come at the problem from the perspective of the most common users of music notation (experienced musicians); rather, it appears to have been written by somebody who was frustrated by trying to learn to read music. For experienced musicians, the priorities are a) legibility for sight-reading and transcription (which this system, with indistinguishable sitting/ha…
The vast majority of users of music notation are amateurs, and being more friendly to amateurs would mean even more users. The vast majority of decision-makers are experienced users with a vested interest in the status quo. The issue is very similar to why corporate systems have such horrible user interfaces. The people making the decisions in IT aren't the normal users of the system. IT cares about features, integra…
> I'd like a system simple enough to use by all the kids in my local elementary school music class, much more than I care about what happens in the local orchestra.
Amateur doesn’t mean lack of experience or skill - what you seem to be meaning is “casual”. There are already a number of simplified notation systems for casual use. And this alternative notation is definitely not positioning itself for casual use based on its examples - and it sits in a sort of uncanny valley.