Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I’d redesign piano sheet music

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 165 posts

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#141

Post by smorrow »

peeters wrote: post #130
smorrow wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's cool, I hadn't played any piece that uses the stacked staff (to my recollection anyway; it's been a good 15 years since I was actively training). It does work better for when the melody progresses into that range, true, but I think it's a "right tool for the job" situation. Often 8va's are used for when you want to raise a single note or chord one time, and that would be much more readable than a separate staf…

A single staff can switch between different clefs, if you ever want to redfine what lines mean what notes. Then you can switch back to the normal treble clef.

That double treble clef is called the super-treble clef and I've only ever seen it in the appendix of a book called the science of sound.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#142

Post by mavhc »

ams6110 wrote: post #98
PepeGomez wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you dyslexic as well, or does it only happen with music?

Not in the usual sense. If there is such a think as numeric dyslexia I might have that to some degree. I frequently transpose digits. I have trained myself to be very careful whenever I have to transcribe a number, fill out forms, or even dial a phone number. I find it helps to look at numbers in groups (pairs or triplets) rather than individually. I don't recall every trying that with music... But I don't have any d…

There's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyscalculia

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#143

Post by Loic »

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…

> In one band that I'm in, the composer brings new material to each rehearsal. It's all written out by hand.

It is way faster to write out by hand than using software. You use software at the end, when your ideas/tests settle and you want a nice copy. Before that, it is really not worth it.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#144

Post by analog31 »

agumonkey wrote: post #120
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.

Indeed, and there are entire musical genres where there is little or no pedagogy, and very little sheet music. You'd be hard pressed to find sheet music for the typical rock 'n' roll song. Tunes -- often quite elaborate -- are developed or learned by ear, and played from memory.

But it's not just for pedagogy. It's a practical tool for musicians, because it lets you throw people together to make coherent music quickly. This could be just playing string quartets in somebody's living room, or running a large performing ensemble. The size of one band that I'm in virtually ensures that there will be at least one new member or substitute at every performance. The ability of players who can read the stuff influences what can be composed.

And a lot of this music isn't even commercially viable for the people who play it (such as in my case), but there's just the enjoyment of exploring the world of written music.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#145

Post by abustamam »

I like the idea but one big flaw is eye-movement.

With traditional sheet music, you can see all the notes you need to play clearly in one place.

With this one, if your left hand is playing in lower octaves, and right hand playing in higher octaves, your eyes will have to move around a lot just to know which keys to push. This is in addition to moving your eyes around the actual keyboard to make sure you're hitting the right keys.

However, I do like the simplicity of using this system to learn a fairly basic song.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#148

Post by gambiter »

konceptz wrote: post #108

The first issue that I see with this notation is that you loose information compared to standard notation. For example, a half note contains the information of how long it will last along with the note itself. This information is given to you when your eye hits the note at which point you can stop looking at it. In this notation, you either have to continue seeing the note for the length or memorize the lengths of di…

This is intended as a 'piano tab'. If you can sight read, you already have music. Those of us who don't know how to read music would benefit.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#149

Post by acjohnson55 »

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.

Someone else mentioned adding another line atop the treble clef and then using the 6-line staff for both clefs. I like this idea because it maintains the one-line gap between the staves and also somewhat reduces the need for ledger lines, which drive me a bit mad.

Re: How I’d redesign piano sheet music

#150

Post by fao_ »

bbx wrote: post #21

What happens if you rotate that first image 90° counter-clockwise? http://i.imgur.com/i2V57On.png You get a traditional sheet music with simpler graphics. What about the new features? - Easily printable: traditional scores already are - Screen and scroll-friendly: you can stack traditional score pages vertically - Chord names: already exist on traditional scores - Lyrics: same thing - Foot pedal arrows: same thing Th…

You (and the OP) fail to mention the main advantage that sheet music has had over these alternate forms (I know that in celtic music they have tab, which is like this but for mandolins, banjos, etc), and one of the reasons that it has survived this long despite being pain to use: portability.

It is extremely easy to port sheet music from one instrument to another, in most cases this doesn't require any change in written music itself (Or at least, if it does the change is usually very trivial). Conversely, this new format is limited to the piano. I doubt that it would be trivial to port this music to the violin, for example (assuming the violin has a similarily structured music format).

Post reply on HN