7 ms·

Music theory for the 21st century with notation from several centuries earlier. Hmm.... sorry but tracker's table-like views are much easier. And so are most DA

by larodi 6d ago

Music theory for the 21st century with notation from several centuries earlier. Hmm.... sorry but tracker's table-like views are much easier. And so are most DAWs gantt-like editors. 100 times easier to comprehend than notation having the same not written in three different ways, and then some.

dfltr 6d ago
The English language is messy as hell, and yet, here we are using it because it's a shared set of rules and symbols that pretty much everyone who wants to join in on this conversation already knows. Same with staff notation: If you want to communicate music to other people, learning the slightly clunky but universally-known written language is generally the way to go.
- odyssey7 6d ago
  > learning the slightly clunky but universally-known written language is generally the way to go A certain Amazon Web Services comes to mind…
- nwatson 6d ago
  The choir director at my church, Michael Dodds (UNCSA), covers the early development of musical notation, "From Modes to Keys in Early Modern Music Theory" [0]. Currently on sabbatical at Cambridge. Once in a while during rehearsal he will give an impromptu lecture on music history, always interesting. [0] https://a.co/d/0bLcrlyE https://a.co/d/0bLcrlyE
- larodi 5d ago
  No, English language is easy as sh... as piece of cake. A lot of it is marginalized French tbh, sorry, no offense, and the English in the USA is further simplified. You think tis difficult, because you never tried Russian, French, or Mandarin - then we discuss again. Had it not for the simplicity of English Language, it wouldn't be so omnipresent. So you are so wrong on this account. And I really want to see you communicate wobbling bass or fast random notes. Well you can - in Studel.cc - but is impossible in this notation. Same for complex drum sections (as in dnb, yes), and I can give you fair amount of other examples where medieval notation is useless.
  - Lio 5d ago
    Can you give a specific example of a drum patten you think can't be represented with music notation then? Since you mention Drum and Bass, here's the Amen break in drum notation: https://www.elephantdrums.co.uk/blog/guides-and-resources/amen-break-drum-groove/ https://www.elephantdrums.co.uk/blog/guides-and-resources/am...
    - dfltr 5d ago
      I don't really agree with the person replying to my original comment, but I can see where they're coming from with respect to notating something like the pitched snares in Renegade Snares (chosen specifically because it's an Amen break that I don't know how I could write down in standard rhythm notation).
odyssey7 6d ago
I’m sympathetic to this viewpoint, but most music students in the classroom will be playing instruments or singing rather than working in DAWs. The instruments, music, and notation all evolved together in a shared tradition that make them well-suited for one another.
scarecrowbob 6d ago
It would be really hard for me to improvise a clarinet solo based on the melody line in that kind of notation, which is something I have to do pretty frequently in my old style jazz band using fake books. I'm sympathetic to that view; I spent all evening writing electronic music by programming it into a sequencer and spent a lot of my early career (starting in about 1999) programming using a piano roll. But "easier for what purpose"? It'd be really tough to read at a gig off a piano-roll. It took a long time to become comfortable with the fact that standard notation is mostly a suggestion that doesn't contain the years of context I need to get through a big band gig on double bass... but once I realized that my ability to sight read got good enough that I stopped wishing there were some other kind of notation to read.
- larodi 5d ago
  Sorry, brov, but improvisation is not "following a notation", but exactly the contrary. And perhaps you should try to once in a lifetime use a DAW, I bet you may find yourself amazed by how easy it is to actually read these squares.
  - analog31 5d ago
    The above post mentions big band on double bass, which is precisely my main bag. This is just to clarify. The sheet music consists of portions that are fully notated (i.e., dots on the staff) and lengthy sections with nothing but chord symbols. I'm expected to improvise those parts, and to take liberties with the notated parts as well. So it is indeed a mixture of reading and improvisation. But this is aside from the choice of notation, which is just a practical matter of finding people who can read it fluently enough to perform from it.
    - scarecrowbob 5d ago
      Yeah, that's pretty much how it works in the big bands I've played in- you need to be able to both read and improvise and know when to do either. I very much can and do read for a lot of instruments. In some situations (I played cello in string quartets for a couple of years) deviation from the written notes is limited to phrasing and dynamics and if you're playing weddings, the form gets shoved around a lot (eg don't re-start the cannon when the bride's mother is cued up to walk). In most of the situations I've played in over the last couple of years, reading more like a teacher running off of "lecture notes" and less like an actor performing Shakespere- deveation is not just expected but required. However, my memory and ear isn't so good I can predict the future or play a melody or form I have not heard- being able to read an idea and play it is important in the places I play. And that's my point: standard notation never really catches all the facts about music, even in classical situations. But it's still a lot easier for me personally to read than some weird grid or table (though I have had to play charts that were almost that bad).
Lio 6d ago
DAWs have been around for a few years now. If you were right and they really were 100 times easier to comprehend people would you not see people using printouts of piano rolls to read from? What you’re suggesting is actually hundreds of years old from well before the existence of computers or DAWs but still no one is using it. It turns out that judging the relative length of lines is difficult at speed compared to reading distinct symbols. Also that 88 note piano rolls are a very space inefficient way of representing music on a page. Even a chromatic stave would be inefficient. That really matters for people that want to sight read with other musicians and have as much viewable as possible in a compact area. Finally, standard notation is very rich and evolved, as you’d expect for something in active use for so long. It has extensions for lots of instruments. When people say notation can’t show X it’s usually that they just don’t know it can. The only downside is that you have to learn it.
- larodi 5d ago
  Because people doing piano have never seen DAWs, or never tried to use them? Because computers are bad, and piano is good. What a nonsense! And I've heard this argument hundred of times, and then at the end most music is produced/recorded/mastered using DAWs. I have friends who have actual degree in music composition from actual conservatories, so most of them, professionals, who actually compose and produce actual music for movies, for games, for whatever you want - well all of them use DAWs and all of them are on Ableton or Logic or something along the line, and exactly ZERO of this nonsensical notation that takes more effort to master than music itself. Most of the new music that gets composed is written in gantt charts or tracker rows, believe it or not. Dig around, and you'll find out.
  - Lio 5d ago
    Haha! I've been using Ableton since 2007, it's not something new or secret. You can use a scrollable chart to display notes on screen and still want printed music for live use. I'll bet you that if your friends are professionals and using live musicians to play their their compositions then they are distributing music to them in notation form not screenshots of Logic gantt charts. There's nothing "nonsensical" about notation, it just serves a different purpose to a DAW screen. If you want to read from paper and play what you read in real time, a Gantt chart is harder to use not easier. Use the right tool for the job. Anything that can be played live, can be represented with music notation. If anything does comes along that people want to do live then notation will be extended yet again to include it.
bsza 5d ago
It might be easier to learn, but it's definitely not easier to read. It takes up many times more space both vertically and horizontally and it gives you very little visual cues in both dimensions. I mean, good luck telling apart a fifth and a sixth on a piano roll, or even telling which octave you're in. Sheet music is something you can sight-read, with enough practice. (I also feel obligated to point out that an A sharp and a B flat are not the same note, they just happen to have the same pitch IF you're using equal temperament. And even then, the difference is important and understanding it IMO gives you more freedom as a musician to write what you actually want to write.)

by larodi 6d ago

dfltr 6d ago

The English language is messy as hell, and yet, here we are using it because it's a shared set of rules and symbols that pretty much everyone who wants to join in on this conversation already knows. Same with staff notation: If you want to communicate music to other people, learning the slightly clunky but universally-known written language is generally the way to go.

odyssey7 6d ago
> learning the slightly clunky but universally-known written language is generally the way to go A certain Amazon Web Services comes to mind…
nwatson 6d ago
The choir director at my church, Michael Dodds (UNCSA), covers the early development of musical notation, "From Modes to Keys in Early Modern Music Theory" [0]. Currently on sabbatical at Cambridge. Once in a while during rehearsal he will give an impromptu lecture on music history, always interesting. [0] https://a.co/d/0bLcrlyE https://a.co/d/0bLcrlyE
larodi 5d ago
No, English language is easy as sh... as piece of cake. A lot of it is marginalized French tbh, sorry, no offense, and the English in the USA is further simplified. You think tis difficult, because you never tried Russian, French, or Mandarin - then we discuss again. Had it not for the simplicity of English Language, it wouldn't be so omnipresent. So you are so wrong on this account. And I really want to see you communicate wobbling bass or fast random notes. Well you can - in Studel.cc - but is impossible in this notation. Same for complex drum sections (as in dnb, yes), and I can give you fair amount of other examples where medieval notation is useless.
- Lio 5d ago
  Can you give a specific example of a drum patten you think can't be represented with music notation then? Since you mention Drum and Bass, here's the Amen break in drum notation: https://www.elephantdrums.co.uk/blog/guides-and-resources/amen-break-drum-groove/ https://www.elephantdrums.co.uk/blog/guides-and-resources/am...
  - dfltr 5d ago
    I don't really agree with the person replying to my original comment, but I can see where they're coming from with respect to notating something like the pitched snares in Renegade Snares (chosen specifically because it's an Amen break that I don't know how I could write down in standard rhythm notation).

odyssey7 6d ago

I’m sympathetic to this viewpoint, but most music students in the classroom will be playing instruments or singing rather than working in DAWs. The instruments, music, and notation all evolved together in a shared tradition that make them well-suited for one another.

scarecrowbob 6d ago

It would be really hard for me to improvise a clarinet solo based on the melody line in that kind of notation, which is something I have to do pretty frequently in my old style jazz band using fake books. I'm sympathetic to that view; I spent all evening writing electronic music by programming it into a sequencer and spent a lot of my early career (starting in about 1999) programming using a piano roll. But "easier for what purpose"? It'd be really tough to read at a gig off a piano-roll. It took a long time to become comfortable with the fact that standard notation is mostly a suggestion that doesn't contain the years of context I need to get through a big band gig on double bass... but once I realized that my ability to sight read got good enough that I stopped wishing there were some other kind of notation to read.

larodi 5d ago
Sorry, brov, but improvisation is not "following a notation", but exactly the contrary. And perhaps you should try to once in a lifetime use a DAW, I bet you may find yourself amazed by how easy it is to actually read these squares.
- analog31 5d ago
  The above post mentions big band on double bass, which is precisely my main bag. This is just to clarify. The sheet music consists of portions that are fully notated (i.e., dots on the staff) and lengthy sections with nothing but chord symbols. I'm expected to improvise those parts, and to take liberties with the notated parts as well. So it is indeed a mixture of reading and improvisation. But this is aside from the choice of notation, which is just a practical matter of finding people who can read it fluently enough to perform from it.
  - scarecrowbob 5d ago
    Yeah, that's pretty much how it works in the big bands I've played in- you need to be able to both read and improvise and know when to do either. I very much can and do read for a lot of instruments. In some situations (I played cello in string quartets for a couple of years) deviation from the written notes is limited to phrasing and dynamics and if you're playing weddings, the form gets shoved around a lot (eg don't re-start the cannon when the bride's mother is cued up to walk). In most of the situations I've played in over the last couple of years, reading more like a teacher running off of "lecture notes" and less like an actor performing Shakespere- deveation is not just expected but required. However, my memory and ear isn't so good I can predict the future or play a melody or form I have not heard- being able to read an idea and play it is important in the places I play. And that's my point: standard notation never really catches all the facts about music, even in classical situations. But it's still a lot easier for me personally to read than some weird grid or table (though I have had to play charts that were almost that bad).

Lio 6d ago

DAWs have been around for a few years now. If you were right and they really were 100 times easier to comprehend people would you not see people using printouts of piano rolls to read from? What you’re suggesting is actually hundreds of years old from well before the existence of computers or DAWs but still no one is using it. It turns out that judging the relative length of lines is difficult at speed compared to reading distinct symbols. Also that 88 note piano rolls are a very space inefficient way of representing music on a page. Even a chromatic stave would be inefficient. That really matters for people that want to sight read with other musicians and have as much viewable as possible in a compact area. Finally, standard notation is very rich and evolved, as you’d expect for something in active use for so long. It has extensions for lots of instruments. When people say notation can’t show X it’s usually that they just don’t know it can. The only downside is that you have to learn it.

larodi 5d ago
Because people doing piano have never seen DAWs, or never tried to use them? Because computers are bad, and piano is good. What a nonsense! And I've heard this argument hundred of times, and then at the end most music is produced/recorded/mastered using DAWs. I have friends who have actual degree in music composition from actual conservatories, so most of them, professionals, who actually compose and produce actual music for movies, for games, for whatever you want - well all of them use DAWs and all of them are on Ableton or Logic or something along the line, and exactly ZERO of this nonsensical notation that takes more effort to master than music itself. Most of the new music that gets composed is written in gantt charts or tracker rows, believe it or not. Dig around, and you'll find out.
- Lio 5d ago
  Haha! I've been using Ableton since 2007, it's not something new or secret. You can use a scrollable chart to display notes on screen and still want printed music for live use. I'll bet you that if your friends are professionals and using live musicians to play their their compositions then they are distributing music to them in notation form not screenshots of Logic gantt charts. There's nothing "nonsensical" about notation, it just serves a different purpose to a DAW screen. If you want to read from paper and play what you read in real time, a Gantt chart is harder to use not easier. Use the right tool for the job. Anything that can be played live, can be represented with music notation. If anything does comes along that people want to do live then notation will be extended yet again to include it.

bsza 5d ago

It might be easier to learn, but it's definitely not easier to read. It takes up many times more space both vertically and horizontally and it gives you very little visual cues in both dimensions. I mean, good luck telling apart a fifth and a sixth on a piano roll, or even telling which octave you're in. Sheet music is something you can sight-read, with enough practice. (I also feel obligated to point out that an A sharp and a B flat are not the same note, they just happen to have the same pitch IF you're using equal temperament. And even then, the difference is important and understanding it IMO gives you more freedom as a musician to write what you actually want to write.)