Clairnote: An alternative music notation system • Hacker News Board

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#91

Post by reikonomusha » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:45 PM UTC

blagie wrote: post #86

dehrmann wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit like the Dvorak keyboard problem. It's slightly better, but too much of a hassle to bother with. You need something between 2x and 10x better to displace an entrenched incumbent.

I think a better music notation system would easily be at least 2x better for beginners. A rationalized system could mean 100% of kids learn to read and write music, and anyone could understand how to play an instrument like a piano from music (even if not able to do it at full speed). My point was that it could be 10x better, and it wouldn't lead to a switch. The decision-makers aren't the same as the people whom it…

To be clear though, a lot of kids do understand the current notation system fine. Most kids aren't saying "hey! this chord is a minor third in frequency space but occupies the same vertical distance on the page as a major third! so confusing!" They instead approach it very much "monkey see, monkey do".

That's not to say many folks don't have trouble with notation, but if I had to place a bet, almost any notational system that abstracts away from letter names or (in the case of piano) keyboard positions will pose difficulties.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#92

Post by JasonFruit » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:52 PM UTC

reikonomusha wrote: post #88

jnovek wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one learn to actually read music, then? I have been learning to play the keyboard for about a year and I find the layout of the keys to make a lot of sense for figuring out things like scales and chords. When I was in high school I never really learned to sight-read a staff, it was always a struggle for me and probably what turned me off to playing an instrument for so long. If simplified notations are essen…

Learning to sight-read is different than just reading. Sight-reading takes an enormous amount of daily dedication and practice for years to get to even an intermediate level.

I don't recall it being that difficult to achieve. Probably the difference is in early teaching and expectations: if you learn to read music as an aid to remembering pieces that are perfected over a long time, sight-reading would be slow to develop, but if you learn it as a way to be able to play new music frequently, it will come more quickly. Probably like the difference between learning a foreign language by studying grammar and working translation exercises as opposed to on-the-fly immersion — you develop different strengths.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#93

Post by reikonomusha » Wed, May 04, 2022, 6:58 PM UTC

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #21

iainmerrick wrote: post #8

I hate to be too much of a downer as there are some nice ideas here, but I can see at least three problems with this: 1) First and foremost, of course, the massive entrenched investment in traditional notation. It's like trying to replace the QWERTY keyboard. 2) More risk of transcription errors in written music. The difference between "sitting just above the line" and "sitting on the line" is quite subtle. 3) This i…

> the massive entrenched investment At first I thought it would be like switching from Facebook to Mastodon. But if there is automatic translation software, it wouldn't actually be as hard -- you can just wear your own Clairnote lenses when you want, without bothering the other musicians. > The difference between "sitting just above the line" and "sitting on the line" is quite subtle. Agreed. It seems worth using dif…

At least in Western classical music, there's a lot of emphasis put on Urtexts (scores that contain exactly the information the composer wrote and no more), composer intent, distinguished voices (stem up v down), diatonic scales (enharmonic choices matter), etc. This would make it nontrivial to simply switch notations.

In some sense it's like saying "finally, I can read Don Quixote in whatever language I want because of Google Translate!"

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#94

Post by reikonomusha » Wed, May 04, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

abecedarius wrote: post #39

> 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".

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#95

Post by the_other » Wed, May 04, 2022, 7:03 PM UTC

At first I thought the “missing” line in the middle of each stave would help me. My myopia, astigmatism and nystagmus make traditional notation incredibly difficult to read, on top of its inherent complexity. The “missing” line actually clarifies the top and bottom two lines. However, the multiple positions notes can sit relative to a line, and the seemingly arbitrary number of optional lines make this system completely unworkable, for me.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#96

Post by duped » Wed, May 04, 2022, 7:11 PM UTC

jnovek wrote: post #85

chrismorgan wrote: post #32

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…

How does one learn to actually read music, then? I have been learning to play the keyboard for about a year and I find the layout of the keys to make a lot of sense for figuring out things like scales and chords. When I was in high school I never really learned to sight-read a staff, it was always a struggle for me and probably what turned me off to playing an instrument for so long. If simplified notations are essen…

Honest answer is to find a tutor and take private lessons. Books and videos can't show you how to correct bad technique and habits, and it's hard to follow the right pedagogy without someone to guide you.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#97

Post by phkahler » Wed, May 04, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

chrismorgan wrote: post #32

InitialLastName wrote: post #7

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…

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…

I'm not sure it's possible to say it's worse. You suffer from having learned the traditional notation, so some of this is going to look weird regardless. I'm not good at reading music and agree with some of the issues it has, but looking at this does seem like a different set of issues to me as well. I think the only fair comparison could be done by someone with a lot of experience using both.

I think it's fair to say the staff has to be spread out more for this notation since is doesn't compress 12 notes into 7 places like traditional notation.

OTOH be glad you're not reading guitar tablature ;-)

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#98

Post by Aidevah » Wed, May 04, 2022, 7:19 PM UTC

blagie wrote: post #45

InitialLastName wrote: post #7

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…

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 notation they deal with on a regular basis.

Any eclectic modification of standard western notation therefore needs to justify itself not just against staff notation, but also the simple piano roll.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#99

Post by bambax » Wed, May 04, 2022, 7:21 PM UTC

jnovek wrote: post #85

chrismorgan wrote: post #32

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…

How does one learn to actually read music, then? I have been learning to play the keyboard for about a year and I find the layout of the keys to make a lot of sense for figuring out things like scales and chords. When I was in high school I never really learned to sight-read a staff, it was always a struggle for me and probably what turned me off to playing an instrument for so long. If simplified notations are essen…

I'm working on a webapp to help learn sight reading; the v1 is almost ready; I will do a show hn soon (hopefully next week).

People often associate sight reading with keyboard playing, but they're different things. Reading the staff, as it is traditionally taught in conservatories, means associating the position of a note on the staff with the name of the note (in a given clef). And that's it.

This means, for instance, that the octave is a different problem (I was going to say that it doesn't matter, which isn't exactly true, but close). A C3 is a C4 is a C5 is a C. Same with accidentals. A sharp G is a flat G is a G.

There are many problems associated with learning to read staff on sight. The main and obvious one is that it's tedious and offers no immediate reward. But another is that we are trying to learn too many things at once.

My app is trying to make learning to read notes engaging, competitive and (maybe?) addictive. I don't know if it'll have any success, but during the weeks I've been working on it, it was very effective at improving my own performance.

Re: Clairnote: An alternative music notation system

#100

Post by armagon » Wed, May 04, 2022, 7:26 PM UTC

I think Clairnote is pretty neat. There are more alternate musical notation systems at http://musicnotation.org.

The current system we use because it is the one experts know and music is written in. I'm sure it could be worse, but I feel like it has a ton of backwards-compatible features as add-ons that would be so much cleaner with a rewrite. The very simplest change that could be made would be to have a grand staff that uses the same clef, so people don't need to learn two of them.

I don't think we'll actually see a change until such time as you could put on a pair of AR glasses, which could recognize/OCR your music, and then, on-the-fly 'transnotate' the song into a sane notation. (Perhaps the same could be said for making English more phonetic; and, perhaps it will never happen; in the meantime, I can't help but feeling that hundreds of hours are needlessly spent learning this system that wouldn't be needed with a simpler one, many people who'd like to learn it never do, and, oddly, plenty of singers sing better because they can't read the written notation!).