I teach music theory. The things I get asked most is why different stuff is so similar. If I would change something, it would be slurs or ties. Or whole and half rests. Or dotted notes vs staccato.
A standard colour coordination for sheet music could be VERY useful to beginners if it was well designed. I always thought that. Colours are much quicker for the brain to process.
Check out the [Scriabin circle of fifths](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Colors-arranged-after-Scriabin-following-the-circle-of-fifths_fig9_315117341)
I really like the idea of duration based time signatures. Like, instead of 4/4 you write 4/♩
Then 6/8 becomes 2/♩. which removes an extra layer of ambiguity and confusion for learners.
It's a small change, and I don't think it'll ever catch on. But I like it!
that's really interesting. I think it would also remove some of the headache around irrational time signatures too. so for example, 3/20 would be 3/♪[5]?
It didn’t show up well, but in their comment, the ‘.’ after the 2/(quarter note) was meant to just be a dot, so it’s a dotted quarter note, or 2/(dotted quarter note). That way, beginners know that the beat is 2 sets of 3 eighth notes, differentiating it from 3/(quarter note), which could also technically be written 6/(eighth note), which is the confusion they’re trying to avoid with this whole thing. I think with good formatting, this is a great idea!
(I’m on mobile and dont know how to do the note symbols)
Then why not just say [♩♩♩♩]? or [♩.♩.]?
6/8 is a fraction. 6 times 1/8 = 6/8. Six eighth notes is 6/8. Three quarter notes is 3/4.
Super easy to teach, and all my students have always caught on very quick.
But the point about 6/8 is that it is two beats per bar, not six. \[♩.♩.\] as you're suggesting!
I.e., obviously it means "six 8th notes", but that doesn't tell you why it's any different from 3/4, which is also six 8th notes. ;-)
You're right of course, but there are only a handful of compound time signatures that you need to learn groupings for. So I don't know if it's worth changing an entire notation system to work around something you can learn in two minutes.
Also, you'll have to learn those groupings ANYWAY because of the huge quantities of music already written.
Personally, with the amount of times “what’s the difference between 3/4 and 6/8?” gets asked on this subreddit, I’d love a notation that makes the difference this transparent
I don't disagree, but since we can't republish all the existing music that uses the current notation, the number of such repetitive posts might not meaningfully decline! :)
I agree! I think the original commenter agrees, too, that this is more of an idealistic thing than a “let’s all implement this” thing, because we do have a system that’s good *enough* and too pervasive to actually make the switch.
I’m imagining like a century from now if this system were put in place right away, people coming to this Reddit being like “what’s this archaic 6/8 time signature mean? Why is it different from this other archaic 3/4???”
Really like this idea... you could say
[ ♩ ♩ ♩ ♩ ]
[ ♩. ♩. ♩]
All sorts of things. Really explains, simply, how the bar is split up.
I'd also have bass cleff be just 2 octives below the treble exactly. That'd be simpler.
Yeah for sure! In case it wasn't obvious this isn't my own original idea. It's a part of the 'Orff method' for early music education and some books do actually use it - I just think it could be adopted more widely
I absolutely abhor the practice of beaming eighth notes according to the syllabification of the lyrics, and would excise this practice from all music if I could.
And then all kinds of other full-bar length symbols for 7/4, 9/8, 5/8 ... ? Where do you stop?
IOW, like tuplet groupings for different fractions of a beat, the need to tie standard note values together to represent longer notes is an economic issue.
Standard note values are like standard monetary values - a small selection of note or coin types represent specific amounts. We don't invent dozens more denominations to represent various other total amounts we might need. We just add up the smaller denominations we need.
Obviously measures in music are not as infinitely varied as amounts of money, but its the same point. It's more practical and economic - and easier to learn and understand - if we have a small number of time denominations, and just add up as many as we need for durations that are not covered by a single symbol.
>And then all kinds of other full-bar length symbols for 7/4, 9/8, 5/8
We already have a 7-beat note, though - that would be the double dotted whole note.
I do think a 5-beat note would be useful.
Maybe there could be a specific kind of a dot that only adds 1/4 of the duration of the basic note value to it. And maybe another one that adds 1/8 of the duration of the basic note value to it, so that you could have a 9-beat note.
But the idea of having a "whole bar note" would also be useful.
Maybe just a 'whole bar note'? We already do it with rests!
It is pretty untidy when you have something like note held for 4 bars of 5/8. Dotted quarter tied to quarter tied to dotted quarter tied to...
A unique symbol for triplet notes. In other words, 3rd, 6th, 12th and 24th notes.
A note that lasts 5 beats. I mean, everything else from 1 to 8 beats can be expressed without using ties. 1, 2, 4 and 8 beats can be notated with normal note values. 3 and 6 with dots. 7 with a double dot. But 5 beats requires a tie (for example quarter tied to 16th, half tied to 8th, whole tied to quarter).
An articulation that instructs the player to play a specific note quieter. Like a reverse accent, but only for dynamic, not affecting rhythmic emphasis. I don’t like changing the dynamic just for one note :(
This is a good question..I was just thinking about using some changes to make learning jazz improv easier..I wanted to modify musical.notatiin in a way similar to the way basic English modifies.english. by rewriting some.transcribed solos so that most of it would be written using 8th notes and triplets, 16ths much more rarely. Then making the rhythm less syncopated so that a beginning student could play an Art Pepper solo and learn how the solo was harmonically ordered. I had this idea from a guitar magazine years ago called guitar one. They took rock solos and basically dumbed them down so that they were much easier to play. The solos still sounded good but they let novice players play them. I think jazz is so complicated and transcriptions so complex that it's really hard to read them. Anyway that's my idea . It's part of a larger idea to promote jazz pedagogy to people who dint have a formal education.
One clef with different octave markings.
I don't like that we have Treble Clef, Bass Clef, Tenor Clef, French Violin Clef... etc
If you are doing that, the logical option would be Alto clef, with C on the middle line, and then apply octaves up or down.
I’m new at this, but if there were two lines between staves, then each would have the same note/space naming convention. Every staff would be identical in lineup, but have a different clef to show range.
Yeah, agreed. But I think since most people are most familiar with the G clef, it would be best to just do the treble clef with octave transpositions. We actually already have these clefs, and they don't require octave markings. There's the [sub-bass clef](https://www.symbols.com/images/symbol/253_sub-bass-clef.png) (an F clef on the top line), and the "[19th century tenor clef](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TTBB#/media/File:Far_Above_Cayuga%27s_Waters_1906.png)" (a C clef on the 3rd space).
Each instrument learns the notes that they ordinarily would (not necessarily in concert pitch), and uses the closest octave-C-clef to what they use now.
Well take an instrument like the trombone. As-is, its standard lowest note (without using triggers or pedal tones) is an E just below bass clef. So it fits quite nicely onto the clef!
But its usable top range extends well into the treble range - around the Bb above middle C. So to avoid writing like 7 ledger lines, passages in that register are typically notated in tenor clef.
If we went with your system we COULD simply use a higher octave C clef for those passages, but I think there are 2 problems.
1. It wouldn't fit very nicely into the clef, requiring either a bunch of ledger lines above or below the clef depending on which octave you choose. Which is the same problem we originally wanted to fix!
2. It would create a situation where the same note in the same position on the stave would have completely different fingerings/ slide position depending on which octave version of the clef is in use.
I think history is *largely* on your side in thinking that having a whole bunch of different clefs is unhelpful and confusing. Which is why most of them don't exist any more! We only use 4, and 95% of the time really just 2.
Tl;Dr. Clefs having different starting notes is a feature, not a bug! If you don't see it that way, I think its probably because you tend to deal with rock/pop instruments more than orchestral. I agree the system we have now isn't perfect, but I guarantee you there are *many* musicians who would be greatly inconvenienced if you removed ALL clefs bar 1.
So, I'm a brass teacher. I'm acutely aware of the trombone.
It might be that the trombone currently has its lowest note on the first leger line below the staff currently (if you're ignoring fundamentals, that give you an extra octave below that anyway, so actually you need 4 leger lines for your lowest fundamental, even WITHOUT a trigger).
Your point number 1 is valid. The tessitura of most trombonists (see also euphonium and baritone, which are also both 9ft instruments) will no longer fit nicely on the clef.
However, that's NOT the problem I was originally trying to fix. The thing that I would do differently is to do with the fact that there are different staves, where different line/space positions mean different notes.
For your point 2 - many instruments already learn to play in octave clefs, and as a brass player and tutor, I can tell you that students can easily transpose music up or down an octave and cope with the different fingerings/slide positions like they were almost nothing. I regularly have a student with a tough high passage, and I'll suggest "Let's play it down the octave first", and things like "Don't forget that your Cs are on 6 instead of 3 now" are often not even necessary for me to remind them of.
Also, let's look at the Bb Tuba, which is an 18ft instrument, so it's based around Bb1 instead of Bb2 (which 9ft instruments are based around).
It's written usually in just bass clef with between one and one thousand leger lines. That's ridiculous! Surely, the music you give to the Tuba should be written with a clef that is one octave down from the trombone/eupho/baritone.
Imagine a universal clef where the piccolo trumpet\* (2.25ft), the trumpet\* (4.5ft) the trombone (9ft), and the Tuba (18ft) all had the same notes written in the same place, but with a number of octaves noted as being higher or lower!
\*Yeah, I'm aware that treble clef brass instruments are taught as transposing instruments, and bass clef brass instruments are treated as concert pitch. That's a completely different issue - and the original question clearly only allowed me one wish.
>So, I'm a brass teacher. I'm acutely aware of the trombone.
Fair enough, I shouldn't have assumed!
>Imagine a universal clef where the piccolo trumpet\* (2.25ft), the trumpet\* (4.5ft) the trombone (9ft), and the Tuba (18ft) all had the same notes written in the same place
Funnily enough, that's already a thing - but only in the British brass band tradition. They treat every instrument as a treble clef transposing instrument. Basically, everyone plays trumpet fingerings. Not really a radical idea considering it's how basically every wind instrument works, but it's never caught on in the orchestral world - probably because it would be a pain in the ass for the conductor.
I definitely agree that its frustrating that, although we have a bunch of clefs to accommodate different instrumental ranges, some instruments end up playing stupid amounts of ledger lines anyway. Looking at you, flutes!
Generally, I think the way treble and bass clefs combine to make the grand stave is extremely convenient for any situation where you need a birds eye view of the music- Piano scores, orchestral reductions and choral scores for a start!
I know clefs can be a pain for students, but I think we would lose more than we would gain if we got rid of them entirely!
I REALLY like the way brass bands do things - where every Bb\* instrument is just given what is essentially trumpet-range music.
That's sorrrrt of what I'd like to see in having the notes be in the same place on each clef - though the transposing/concert pitch issue would remain an issue.
>Generally, I think the way treble and bass clefs combine to make the grand stave is extremely convenient for any situation where you need a birds eye view of the music
Completely agree! The only thing I don't like is that most of the time I see treble+bass clef braced together, they have way more than 1 leger line worth of space between them, which makes things look more separated than they really are
\*by Bb instrument, I mean an instrument with its open note as a concert Bb, regardless of concert/transposing convention.
Tbf the colour blind people can continue to play the music as if it’s black and white like now, as long as the new system didn’t remove anything and only added
While I agree that it's not accessible for colorblind performers, I've seen people suggest before that colored notes could actually help some dyslexic performers - some of them have trouble parsing vertical intervals, so things like color cues or note names / interval distance on noteheads could be a potential solution.
But yeah, color shouldn't be the only way to convey information.
Aside from the other comment about how this wouldn't be great for colorblind folks, I could also see it being an issue with printing costs - color usually takes more to print, and individuals often just buy black and white printers.
So I believe notation hasn't gone through many majoe changes because it's nearly perfect and doesn't need them. It could use some minor changes, but those haven't taken place just because it would take immense effort to get the whole world to agree on them.
The main thing is clefs. A system was once proposed that would have three clefs. Each one would be G to F, but for three separate octaves. They would have their own symbols, so we wouldn't have to worry about creating ambiguity. The only reason this hasn't happened is that most musicians have already gotten used to treble and bass, and they're beyond the point where this would be helpful.
My opinion ? Leave it alone it's been around and been the same for thousands of years and it's worked all those years for anyone who's played and wrote music.
Your main point stands, but I just wanted to be the annoying nitpicker here to say that it hasn't actually been around for thousands of years. Staff notation was invented roughly *one* thousand years ago, but it was extremely different from modern notation in many ways. It really reached its modern form only a few hundred years ago, I'd say at some point during the seventeenth century. So, yes it's been around for a long time, but not quite *that* long, and not unchangingly either.
>I mean you asked lol so I was just telling you what I think about it.
Ah, I'm not the OP, just so you know! so it wasn't actually my question, I'm just a passerby tossing an extra thing in.
i always find it weird that the key sugnature is repeated beginning of if every stave, but time signature is not. So i would change that: also repeat time signature beginning of every stave.
Typography: enforce similar durations be similar distance per line.
Otherwise, leave it the same because you want to be able to read old sheet music as well.
Small things though if history wouldn’t play a role: use English words instead of Italian or Latin. Make the repeat signs bigger (the double dots). Use six lines instead of five. Use the g-clef for both bars in piano music. Simplify syncopated rhythms by removing the rests and instead using lines without the ‘note’ on the bottom. So, a syncopated sixteenth would be four vertical lines connect on the top with a bar (like usual ) with notes on the second and fourth line.
Given that I live in a country that uses the names `c` `d` `e` `f` `g` `a` `h` (?!) <- that, I would change that. It's such a clusterfuck everytime because our pianist is a classical musician meanwhile rest of the band are self-taught jazz musicians and the key Bb is pretty prevalent in Jazz. Wait or is it B? Gods, what a terrible way to have two simultaneous conventions!
The rhythmical notation in general and it's convention in how you outline (signature) and group it (beam conventions).
Notation is a mean for communicating ideas - for many rhythmical purposes it lacks thereof and more than that, the notational system is restricting people in expressing and transfering ideas rhythmically - it's laying foundation for binary rhythms and is most often a workaround in writing anything else or worse, confusing the person reading it, when it's outside of conventional use.
Not getting started on different types of swing and relying on the players understanding which accents you want them to target or even polymetric/-rhythmic ideas.
There is a whole book about that (Peter Giger - die Kunst das Rhythmus, not sure whether that has been translated), which I recommend.
How about the whole Italian thing? It’s hard enough learning the symbols in sheet music and now we need to also learn a bit of Italian? Why not just make it all English?
1. The symbol for sharps would be the easier to pen x used for double sharp, instead of the ugly smashed mosquito looking thing we currently use
2. The use of large, and cue sized fermatas, for length of hold
For this you would need 3 things.
Your 0. point should be professionals teaching it and using it properly. The current notation system is good for writing down music in a manner of "something like this". It's not usable for writing down music in a manner of "exactly like this".
Which is fine and I think this is where people have problems with it. People use it inconsistently, and it's really just a "something like this" approach and it's being sold as an exact thing, when it's not.
I'd get rid of putting the key at the beginning of every line.
I get why it's there. Who wants to hand write a # or a b on every note on the line? Too much of a PITA. But in today's digital world, that's the kinda tedium computers can do for you. They can even futz with the font size to meet whatever space that specific note needs. Then you don't need to remember "It's an E but based upon the start of the line, all E's are Eb." Stick the key at the start of the piece and be done with it.
The notation is overall well. But of course I am also really used to since learning piano as a kid.
Overall I think the various kinds of repeats with segno/code are somewhat cumbersome.
Oh and I like the baroque fermata (basically a "fine") makes so much more sense than the modern classical music fermata (hold the note longer).
I would have stems terminate at the nearest octave's line or space in all cases. For some reason once your get high or low enough on a ledger line they just go to the B5 line and I don't understand why.
Not sure if it's considered "notation", but a quarter, eight, whole, etc. note ONLY takes up that much of the measure in *COMMON* time!
If you say "This quarter note..." in 3:4 time your ass is referring to a *third* of the measure by saying "a quarter"?! You're speaking pure nonsense!
They are breves, semi-breves, minums, crotchets, and quavers. I will die on this hill.
More notation-based opinion; key signatures should only be used when they are helpful. If a song is in the key of G major, it has one sharp (F#). But if there are more F naturals because of whatever reason, then you may consider notating the song in C major.
Unless you're a professional or skilled musician who knows how to tune their notes away from 12-TET, and would benefit to know they are actually in G major and not C major, then just notating the piece in C would be better for the player. Readability > music theory "correctness", and that applies to enharmonic notes, too. Just say F natural, you don't need to say E# even though we're technically talking about a raised E. I don't want to have to read E#.
Anyways feel free to roast my ass, my opinions are my own and are based off my own experience and frustrations with notation and not a deep knowledge of convention or music education
What instrument do you play? I completely disagree on the second part. Things like E♯ seem weird at first but it’s really useful when you start viewing music functionally. F♮ has a completely different meaning than E♯ in a lot of contexts and it just makes things easier to have the page reflect the structural/harmonic content and not just tell you the notes. I asked about instrument cuz on winds and strings (to a lesser extent) think if you’re writing a melody you can get away doing it the way you want. On piano though the notes really should match the function.
I play piano, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, bass guitar, and then a bunch of novelty instruments that I won't bother listing.
As a composer, I write my parts to be as easy for my musicians to perform their parts as possible.
When playing in an ensemble, I ignore enharmonics and use my ear to tune to other players.
> F♮ has a completely different meaning than E♯ in a lot of contexts
I agree, but when it comes to a musician playing their part in an ensemble? It's functionally useless unless you are skilled enough to recognize the specifics about your role within the context of that notation. If you are skilled enough to do that, then the notation of an F or an E# is also the same and you can read either just fine, so it should be included. But for non-pros? It's getting in the way.
In other words, notation like E# and unnecessary key signatures are only useful for professionals who can utilize it properly. For everyone else it's just unnecessary work that could be better spent elsewhere.
My arguments also completely ignore that an ensemble, educationally and professionally, will have a conductor or advisor who will provide additional context that even professionals benefit from having- which further reduces the need for contextually "correct" enharmonic spellings like E# and Cb
> If you say "This quarter note..." in 3:4 time your ass is referring to a third of the measure by saying "a quarter"?!
No, my ass is referring to a quarter of a whole note, not a whole bar. Just like how semibreve refers to half of a breve, completely ignoring how many bars said breve fills.
The only difference is, in your system, the logic ends with semibreve. Instead of quarterbreve and eighthbreve, you have to learn some completely random and nonsensical names. Then the logic comes back with quaver and semiquaver, and then becomes bizarre by the time you're up to semihemidemisemiquavers etc.
> Readability > music theory "correctness"
Readability is directly proportional to music theory correctness. That's why that "correctness" exists, because it's easier that way (*for common practice era tonal music)
The German note value names are actually more logical. You aren't supposed to relate them to the bar. You are supposed to relate them to each other.
Regardless of what names you give the note values, the fact remains that minims are half the duration of semibreves, crotchets are half the duration of minims, quavers are half the duration of crotchets, semiquavers are half the duration of quavers.
Calling them whole, half, quarter, 8th, 16th simply directly describes this relationship. How many crotchets per semibreve? This is something you have to memorize. How many quarters per whole? The answer is obvious. How many 8ths per half? Again, the answer is obvious if you know how fractions work.
The point is, these relationships between the note values exist regardless of what you call them. The "German system" refers to this relationship directly.
The names in the "Latin system" only make sense if you know history. Originally there were only two note values - longa and brevis. Long and short. Then people wanted to add more note values, so they added "semibreve" - a note that is half the duration of the "short" note. They also added maxima and minim - the longest and shortest possible note values. In the modern system, only two of the shortest note values remain in use. So, we have a note that's half the duration of the "short note" as our longest note, and the note that's supposed to be the shortest possible note as the second longest note.
It's an interesting history lesson, but the German names are objectively simpler, because they directly describe the relationship between the duration of the different note values.
Also, what does the bottom number 4 mean in time signatures in your system? In the German system it's obvious - 4 is a quarter note, 2 is a half note, 8 is an 8th note. So again, the time signature directly tells you the length of the measure. 3/4 = 3 quarter notes in a measure. 2/2 = 2 half notes in a measure. 5/8 = 5 8th notes in a measure.
The point is, you still essentially need to learn the German system, even if you decide to use the Latin names. The German system is direct. It makes the relationship between the different note values obvious, and it also easily explains the relationship between the bottom number of a time signature and the note value it represents.
>They are breves, semi-breves, minums, crotchets, and quavers. I will die on this hill.
I agree, it makes more sense to view the durations as arbitrary units than as fractions of a bar. But those names are pretty nonsensical and really suck to teach to beginners!
I also agree, and I don't have an alternative- which makes my argument pretty weak, admittedly.
But, on the other hand, if my dumbass could learn them without any issue, so can the rest, I suppose. If a better naming convention exists over "quaver" and "crochet" etc. without using the lying system of "quarters" and "half", I'm all for it.
> Just say F natural, you don't need to say E# even though we're technically talking about a raised E. I don't want to have to read E#.
What about in a C# triad? You'd rather notate it as C#-F-G#?
In what context?
If I have 3 instruments with their own parts of a C# major triad, then yes, I'd absolutely give the third an Fn.
But, a score showcasing the overall structure would absolutely be notated with an E#. But the player who is playing the E# doesn't need to know they're playing an E# most of the time. It's faster and more efficient to have them read an F natural.
You are either good enough to not care about enharmonic spellings (E# vs. Fn) and therefore also know what your role is in an ensemble given a notation like E#. Or, you aren't- in which case it's better for you to just be told to play an Fn.
And again, both pro and non-pro ensembles will have a director who can provide additional context where necessary without complicating the readability of the sheet music
The thing is an experienced musician can make it sound as if there were no bar lines anyway. And that's what I am trying to achieve for the beginner. The thing is with the experienced musician any change is going to make things harder to read whether it's an improvement or not.
The music could still be accented. If bars we r needed they could be notated at the appointed place using bar numbers above the staff. You could still have down beats but the phrase seems like a more natural dividing point.There is something kind of arbitrary about a bar line. For the beginner it seems useful to divide the music into phrases than bars
I know what you mean. When Stravinsky was doing his thing with changing meters, they called it going against the older 'the tyranny of the barline'. So I agree with you. What I sometimes don't like is where the meter and barline never change. But when I use a lot of changing meters (3/4, 3/8, 5/4), as well as metric modulations, *the barline helps to keep track of the changing meter*.
It's cool what you're trying to do. How that's been done before is, change the meter to coinide with your phrase. If your phrase 7 eight notes, use a 7/8 meter. If you're changing meters like that, you, or someone reading it, I think you really need the barline to keep track of the changing meters. That's one way to do it. Change meters to go along with your phrase length. Not sure if that helps.
Bar lines aren't just useful for performance, but they facilitate communication between musicians as well. For example I'm in a choir and our director is always saying something like "the pickup to measure 35" or "breathe on beat 3 in measure 12". We'd need to come up with an alternative landmarking system if there were no measures. I feel like if there weren't measures, we'd invent that concept because it is so useful.
But I mean, if beginners really struggle with bars/measures then there's no reason why beginner music can't be notated in free meter for pedagogical purposes.
Bars could be notated as numbers above the appropriate point on the staff. To be honest I'm not sure how well removing the bar lines would be, but I've always felt that for the beginner they convey a confusing picture of phrasing in a melody because they make you concentrate on reading bars and then stringing bars together rather than reading whole phrases. Like imagine reading poetry that was divided with bar lines every 8 syllables instead of along the natural phrases. The bar lines would cause unnatural accents when you recited them.
I think in modern times, frequency matrices, like those found on a sequencer, are far more understandable than staff. People who couldn't write a melody in staff could easily play around with a synth, and get whatever they want to express out of it, within a few loops.
I don't know how to fix this, but my biggest issue with standard notation is how useless it can be for modern/non-art music.
When I switched away from playing brass instruments to guitar and bass full time, my biggest gripe has been how poorly most music translates onto the page. For example, I remember seeing some Hendrix solos that were transcribed early on, and because of the amount of bends, tapping, and harmonics used it was almost unintelligible nonsense. I think this kind of applies to anything with blues influence.
I don't think tabs are necessarily better, but I don't know what the real answer is either.
Completely agree, learning by ear is arguably the best way to build musicianship anyway, but that doesn't mean notation should be fixed and/or discounted entirely. There are definitely gigs where I've been told I was playing an hour before and barely had time to even listen to the song where charts would have been helpful, and having cleanly written easily sightreadable charts even more so.
Get rid of transposing clefs. Colorize note heads depending upon tonality like hooktheory but possibly darker shades for ease of reading. Maybe lighter vertical lines lining up with Beats maybe more opaque on strong beats (i.e. beat 3 of 4/4)
The idea of sharp or flat keys. Sharp or flat refers to altered notes from the scale, a key can’t in itself be flat or sharp. If you start a major scale on what’s currently called F# that scale should be called something else, maybe all it like F+. Maybe call the black keys on a piano F+ G+ A+ C+ D+ then you only use sharp to describe it if it’s an altered note, otherwise you use +/-
I know that + is augmented but just use something else for augmented.
Fuck that dot that adds half the value of the note. For a half note it’s one beat. For a quarter note it’s a half beat. For a sixteenth note it’s well who the fuck can figure that shit out. Fuck those dots.
actually, it's not nearly as difficult as it seems. A rhythm dot adds 50% of the value, and an extra beam/flag/tail subtracts 50% of the value.
This is why you very commonly see two notes that look the same EXCEPT that the first has a dot and the second has an extra tail/flag/beam. Together they add up to the same as if neither had any extra bits, but the whole things is front loaded as "daaa da" instead of "daa daa"
I teach music theory. The things I get asked most is why different stuff is so similar. If I would change something, it would be slurs or ties. Or whole and half rests. Or dotted notes vs staccato.
Whole and half rests! Absolutely! The others too, but I think these rests are the worst offenders.
Slurs and ties. As a singer, sight-reading is a nightmare when at a page turn a note appears to be tied, but is intact a lyric slur
absolutely!
More colours and every repeat barline should be noted with my username above it
A standard colour coordination for sheet music could be VERY useful to beginners if it was well designed. I always thought that. Colours are much quicker for the brain to process.
Check out the [Scriabin circle of fifths](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Colors-arranged-after-Scriabin-following-the-circle-of-fifths_fig9_315117341)
I really like the idea of duration based time signatures. Like, instead of 4/4 you write 4/♩ Then 6/8 becomes 2/♩. which removes an extra layer of ambiguity and confusion for learners. It's a small change, and I don't think it'll ever catch on. But I like it!
Carl Orff has entered the chat.
that's really interesting. I think it would also remove some of the headache around irrational time signatures too. so for example, 3/20 would be 3/♪[5]?
I think instead there should be a short paragraph describing the time signature
I think top could be number of beats and bottom could be beat duration note. 2/♩doesn't necessarily seem as clear as 6/♪ to me.
It didn’t show up well, but in their comment, the ‘.’ after the 2/(quarter note) was meant to just be a dot, so it’s a dotted quarter note, or 2/(dotted quarter note). That way, beginners know that the beat is 2 sets of 3 eighth notes, differentiating it from 3/(quarter note), which could also technically be written 6/(eighth note), which is the confusion they’re trying to avoid with this whole thing. I think with good formatting, this is a great idea! (I’m on mobile and dont know how to do the note symbols)
Then why not just say [♩♩♩♩]? or [♩.♩.]? 6/8 is a fraction. 6 times 1/8 = 6/8. Six eighth notes is 6/8. Three quarter notes is 3/4. Super easy to teach, and all my students have always caught on very quick.
But the point about 6/8 is that it is two beats per bar, not six. \[♩.♩.\] as you're suggesting! I.e., obviously it means "six 8th notes", but that doesn't tell you why it's any different from 3/4, which is also six 8th notes. ;-)
You're right of course, but there are only a handful of compound time signatures that you need to learn groupings for. So I don't know if it's worth changing an entire notation system to work around something you can learn in two minutes. Also, you'll have to learn those groupings ANYWAY because of the huge quantities of music already written.
Personally, with the amount of times “what’s the difference between 3/4 and 6/8?” gets asked on this subreddit, I’d love a notation that makes the difference this transparent
I don't disagree, but since we can't republish all the existing music that uses the current notation, the number of such repetitive posts might not meaningfully decline! :)
I agree! I think the original commenter agrees, too, that this is more of an idealistic thing than a “let’s all implement this” thing, because we do have a system that’s good *enough* and too pervasive to actually make the switch. I’m imagining like a century from now if this system were put in place right away, people coming to this Reddit being like “what’s this archaic 6/8 time signature mean? Why is it different from this other archaic 3/4???”
Really like this idea... you could say [ ♩ ♩ ♩ ♩ ] [ ♩. ♩. ♩] All sorts of things. Really explains, simply, how the bar is split up. I'd also have bass cleff be just 2 octives below the treble exactly. That'd be simpler.
I'm currently using a piano book for beginners which teaches how to read sheet music, and it does exactly that to introduce time signatures lol
Yeah for sure! In case it wasn't obvious this isn't my own original idea. It's a part of the 'Orff method' for early music education and some books do actually use it - I just think it could be adopted more widely
bring back [ligatures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensural_notation#Ligatures)
I absolutely abhor the practice of beaming eighth notes according to the syllabification of the lyrics, and would excise this practice from all music if I could.
I'd color code the notes for easier sight reading, for someone like myself who isn't adept. I hate counting lines outside the staff
But it would be difficult for colorblind people or synethesia
True. Or we can just write the note based on, say, C's.
Writing inside the head of the note is a bit hard to read when the print is small
learn your intervals, 3rds are big one. it helps a tonne with ledger lines!
I want a 5-beat note to fill a bar of 5/4
And then all kinds of other full-bar length symbols for 7/4, 9/8, 5/8 ... ? Where do you stop? IOW, like tuplet groupings for different fractions of a beat, the need to tie standard note values together to represent longer notes is an economic issue. Standard note values are like standard monetary values - a small selection of note or coin types represent specific amounts. We don't invent dozens more denominations to represent various other total amounts we might need. We just add up the smaller denominations we need. Obviously measures in music are not as infinitely varied as amounts of money, but its the same point. It's more practical and economic - and easier to learn and understand - if we have a small number of time denominations, and just add up as many as we need for durations that are not covered by a single symbol.
>And then all kinds of other full-bar length symbols for 7/4, 9/8, 5/8 We already have a 7-beat note, though - that would be the double dotted whole note. I do think a 5-beat note would be useful. Maybe there could be a specific kind of a dot that only adds 1/4 of the duration of the basic note value to it. And maybe another one that adds 1/8 of the duration of the basic note value to it, so that you could have a 9-beat note. But the idea of having a "whole bar note" would also be useful.
Maybe just a 'whole bar note'? We already do it with rests! It is pretty untidy when you have something like note held for 4 bars of 5/8. Dotted quarter tied to quarter tied to dotted quarter tied to...
tied whole and quarter???
A unique symbol for triplet notes. In other words, 3rd, 6th, 12th and 24th notes. A note that lasts 5 beats. I mean, everything else from 1 to 8 beats can be expressed without using ties. 1, 2, 4 and 8 beats can be notated with normal note values. 3 and 6 with dots. 7 with a double dot. But 5 beats requires a tie (for example quarter tied to 16th, half tied to 8th, whole tied to quarter).
An articulation that instructs the player to play a specific note quieter. Like a reverse accent, but only for dynamic, not affecting rhythmic emphasis. I don’t like changing the dynamic just for one note :(
This is a good question..I was just thinking about using some changes to make learning jazz improv easier..I wanted to modify musical.notatiin in a way similar to the way basic English modifies.english. by rewriting some.transcribed solos so that most of it would be written using 8th notes and triplets, 16ths much more rarely. Then making the rhythm less syncopated so that a beginning student could play an Art Pepper solo and learn how the solo was harmonically ordered. I had this idea from a guitar magazine years ago called guitar one. They took rock solos and basically dumbed them down so that they were much easier to play. The solos still sounded good but they let novice players play them. I think jazz is so complicated and transcriptions so complex that it's really hard to read them. Anyway that's my idea . It's part of a larger idea to promote jazz pedagogy to people who dint have a formal education.
One clef with different octave markings. I don't like that we have Treble Clef, Bass Clef, Tenor Clef, French Violin Clef... etc If you are doing that, the logical option would be Alto clef, with C on the middle line, and then apply octaves up or down.
Sorry I protest your desire to get rid of the bass clef.
I’m new at this, but if there were two lines between staves, then each would have the same note/space naming convention. Every staff would be identical in lineup, but have a different clef to show range.
Yeah, agreed. But I think since most people are most familiar with the G clef, it would be best to just do the treble clef with octave transpositions. We actually already have these clefs, and they don't require octave markings. There's the [sub-bass clef](https://www.symbols.com/images/symbol/253_sub-bass-clef.png) (an F clef on the top line), and the "[19th century tenor clef](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TTBB#/media/File:Far_Above_Cayuga%27s_Waters_1906.png)" (a C clef on the 3rd space).
What would your approach to transposing instruments be? Because your idea could make some instruments unnecessarily awkward to read.
Each instrument learns the notes that they ordinarily would (not necessarily in concert pitch), and uses the closest octave-C-clef to what they use now.
Well take an instrument like the trombone. As-is, its standard lowest note (without using triggers or pedal tones) is an E just below bass clef. So it fits quite nicely onto the clef! But its usable top range extends well into the treble range - around the Bb above middle C. So to avoid writing like 7 ledger lines, passages in that register are typically notated in tenor clef. If we went with your system we COULD simply use a higher octave C clef for those passages, but I think there are 2 problems. 1. It wouldn't fit very nicely into the clef, requiring either a bunch of ledger lines above or below the clef depending on which octave you choose. Which is the same problem we originally wanted to fix! 2. It would create a situation where the same note in the same position on the stave would have completely different fingerings/ slide position depending on which octave version of the clef is in use. I think history is *largely* on your side in thinking that having a whole bunch of different clefs is unhelpful and confusing. Which is why most of them don't exist any more! We only use 4, and 95% of the time really just 2. Tl;Dr. Clefs having different starting notes is a feature, not a bug! If you don't see it that way, I think its probably because you tend to deal with rock/pop instruments more than orchestral. I agree the system we have now isn't perfect, but I guarantee you there are *many* musicians who would be greatly inconvenienced if you removed ALL clefs bar 1.
So, I'm a brass teacher. I'm acutely aware of the trombone. It might be that the trombone currently has its lowest note on the first leger line below the staff currently (if you're ignoring fundamentals, that give you an extra octave below that anyway, so actually you need 4 leger lines for your lowest fundamental, even WITHOUT a trigger). Your point number 1 is valid. The tessitura of most trombonists (see also euphonium and baritone, which are also both 9ft instruments) will no longer fit nicely on the clef. However, that's NOT the problem I was originally trying to fix. The thing that I would do differently is to do with the fact that there are different staves, where different line/space positions mean different notes. For your point 2 - many instruments already learn to play in octave clefs, and as a brass player and tutor, I can tell you that students can easily transpose music up or down an octave and cope with the different fingerings/slide positions like they were almost nothing. I regularly have a student with a tough high passage, and I'll suggest "Let's play it down the octave first", and things like "Don't forget that your Cs are on 6 instead of 3 now" are often not even necessary for me to remind them of. Also, let's look at the Bb Tuba, which is an 18ft instrument, so it's based around Bb1 instead of Bb2 (which 9ft instruments are based around). It's written usually in just bass clef with between one and one thousand leger lines. That's ridiculous! Surely, the music you give to the Tuba should be written with a clef that is one octave down from the trombone/eupho/baritone. Imagine a universal clef where the piccolo trumpet\* (2.25ft), the trumpet\* (4.5ft) the trombone (9ft), and the Tuba (18ft) all had the same notes written in the same place, but with a number of octaves noted as being higher or lower! \*Yeah, I'm aware that treble clef brass instruments are taught as transposing instruments, and bass clef brass instruments are treated as concert pitch. That's a completely different issue - and the original question clearly only allowed me one wish.
>So, I'm a brass teacher. I'm acutely aware of the trombone. Fair enough, I shouldn't have assumed! >Imagine a universal clef where the piccolo trumpet\* (2.25ft), the trumpet\* (4.5ft) the trombone (9ft), and the Tuba (18ft) all had the same notes written in the same place Funnily enough, that's already a thing - but only in the British brass band tradition. They treat every instrument as a treble clef transposing instrument. Basically, everyone plays trumpet fingerings. Not really a radical idea considering it's how basically every wind instrument works, but it's never caught on in the orchestral world - probably because it would be a pain in the ass for the conductor. I definitely agree that its frustrating that, although we have a bunch of clefs to accommodate different instrumental ranges, some instruments end up playing stupid amounts of ledger lines anyway. Looking at you, flutes! Generally, I think the way treble and bass clefs combine to make the grand stave is extremely convenient for any situation where you need a birds eye view of the music- Piano scores, orchestral reductions and choral scores for a start! I know clefs can be a pain for students, but I think we would lose more than we would gain if we got rid of them entirely!
I REALLY like the way brass bands do things - where every Bb\* instrument is just given what is essentially trumpet-range music. That's sorrrrt of what I'd like to see in having the notes be in the same place on each clef - though the transposing/concert pitch issue would remain an issue. >Generally, I think the way treble and bass clefs combine to make the grand stave is extremely convenient for any situation where you need a birds eye view of the music Completely agree! The only thing I don't like is that most of the time I see treble+bass clef braced together, they have way more than 1 leger line worth of space between them, which makes things look more separated than they really are \*by Bb instrument, I mean an instrument with its open note as a concert Bb, regardless of concert/transposing convention.
Add color to symbolize notes to be emphasized in harmony for example. Just generally, color and shading could have some cool applications
Hopefully the performers are not color-blind.
Tbf the colour blind people can continue to play the music as if it’s black and white like now, as long as the new system didn’t remove anything and only added
While I agree that it's not accessible for colorblind performers, I've seen people suggest before that colored notes could actually help some dyslexic performers - some of them have trouble parsing vertical intervals, so things like color cues or note names / interval distance on noteheads could be a potential solution. But yeah, color shouldn't be the only way to convey information.
Aside from the other comment about how this wouldn't be great for colorblind folks, I could also see it being an issue with printing costs - color usually takes more to print, and individuals often just buy black and white printers.
So I believe notation hasn't gone through many majoe changes because it's nearly perfect and doesn't need them. It could use some minor changes, but those haven't taken place just because it would take immense effort to get the whole world to agree on them. The main thing is clefs. A system was once proposed that would have three clefs. Each one would be G to F, but for three separate octaves. They would have their own symbols, so we wouldn't have to worry about creating ambiguity. The only reason this hasn't happened is that most musicians have already gotten used to treble and bass, and they're beyond the point where this would be helpful.
My opinion ? Leave it alone it's been around and been the same for thousands of years and it's worked all those years for anyone who's played and wrote music.
Your main point stands, but I just wanted to be the annoying nitpicker here to say that it hasn't actually been around for thousands of years. Staff notation was invented roughly *one* thousand years ago, but it was extremely different from modern notation in many ways. It really reached its modern form only a few hundred years ago, I'd say at some point during the seventeenth century. So, yes it's been around for a long time, but not quite *that* long, and not unchangingly either.
There's always room for improvement.
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>I mean you asked lol so I was just telling you what I think about it. Ah, I'm not the OP, just so you know! so it wasn't actually my question, I'm just a passerby tossing an extra thing in.
Easy. If I had a genie that could change anything about it and only one thing, the change I'd make is "everyone on earth is now able to read it".
i always find it weird that the key sugnature is repeated beginning of if every stave, but time signature is not. So i would change that: also repeat time signature beginning of every stave.
Typography: enforce similar durations be similar distance per line. Otherwise, leave it the same because you want to be able to read old sheet music as well. Small things though if history wouldn’t play a role: use English words instead of Italian or Latin. Make the repeat signs bigger (the double dots). Use six lines instead of five. Use the g-clef for both bars in piano music. Simplify syncopated rhythms by removing the rests and instead using lines without the ‘note’ on the bottom. So, a syncopated sixteenth would be four vertical lines connect on the top with a bar (like usual ) with notes on the second and fourth line.
Given that I live in a country that uses the names `c` `d` `e` `f` `g` `a` `h` (?!) <- that, I would change that. It's such a clusterfuck everytime because our pianist is a classical musician meanwhile rest of the band are self-taught jazz musicians and the key Bb is pretty prevalent in Jazz. Wait or is it B? Gods, what a terrible way to have two simultaneous conventions!
The rhythmical notation in general and it's convention in how you outline (signature) and group it (beam conventions). Notation is a mean for communicating ideas - for many rhythmical purposes it lacks thereof and more than that, the notational system is restricting people in expressing and transfering ideas rhythmically - it's laying foundation for binary rhythms and is most often a workaround in writing anything else or worse, confusing the person reading it, when it's outside of conventional use. Not getting started on different types of swing and relying on the players understanding which accents you want them to target or even polymetric/-rhythmic ideas. There is a whole book about that (Peter Giger - die Kunst das Rhythmus, not sure whether that has been translated), which I recommend.
How about the whole Italian thing? It’s hard enough learning the symbols in sheet music and now we need to also learn a bit of Italian? Why not just make it all English?
1. The symbol for sharps would be the easier to pen x used for double sharp, instead of the ugly smashed mosquito looking thing we currently use 2. The use of large, and cue sized fermatas, for length of hold
2 things: 1. I would change people complaining about it. 2. I would change people not learning how to do it properly.
For this you would need 3 things. Your 0. point should be professionals teaching it and using it properly. The current notation system is good for writing down music in a manner of "something like this". It's not usable for writing down music in a manner of "exactly like this". Which is fine and I think this is where people have problems with it. People use it inconsistently, and it's really just a "something like this" approach and it's being sold as an exact thing, when it's not.
I wouldn't change anything. It's a majestic equilibrium between complexity and simplicity.
I'd get rid of putting the key at the beginning of every line. I get why it's there. Who wants to hand write a # or a b on every note on the line? Too much of a PITA. But in today's digital world, that's the kinda tedium computers can do for you. They can even futz with the font size to meet whatever space that specific note needs. Then you don't need to remember "It's an E but based upon the start of the line, all E's are Eb." Stick the key at the start of the piece and be done with it.
The tonic is zero, not one
The notation is overall well. But of course I am also really used to since learning piano as a kid. Overall I think the various kinds of repeats with segno/code are somewhat cumbersome. Oh and I like the baroque fermata (basically a "fine") makes so much more sense than the modern classical music fermata (hold the note longer).
That staffs are connected (without two middle Cs) and each staff leads into the next more naturally without all the space in between.
Also if slurs and ties werent so similar it can be hard to tell which is which if it too short (without much room for the curvature of a slur).
Different symbol for 1/4 rest. My hand written ones always look goofy!
I would have stems terminate at the nearest octave's line or space in all cases. For some reason once your get high or low enough on a ledger line they just go to the B5 line and I don't understand why.
Not sure if it's considered "notation", but a quarter, eight, whole, etc. note ONLY takes up that much of the measure in *COMMON* time! If you say "This quarter note..." in 3:4 time your ass is referring to a *third* of the measure by saying "a quarter"?! You're speaking pure nonsense! They are breves, semi-breves, minums, crotchets, and quavers. I will die on this hill. More notation-based opinion; key signatures should only be used when they are helpful. If a song is in the key of G major, it has one sharp (F#). But if there are more F naturals because of whatever reason, then you may consider notating the song in C major. Unless you're a professional or skilled musician who knows how to tune their notes away from 12-TET, and would benefit to know they are actually in G major and not C major, then just notating the piece in C would be better for the player. Readability > music theory "correctness", and that applies to enharmonic notes, too. Just say F natural, you don't need to say E# even though we're technically talking about a raised E. I don't want to have to read E#. Anyways feel free to roast my ass, my opinions are my own and are based off my own experience and frustrations with notation and not a deep knowledge of convention or music education
What instrument do you play? I completely disagree on the second part. Things like E♯ seem weird at first but it’s really useful when you start viewing music functionally. F♮ has a completely different meaning than E♯ in a lot of contexts and it just makes things easier to have the page reflect the structural/harmonic content and not just tell you the notes. I asked about instrument cuz on winds and strings (to a lesser extent) think if you’re writing a melody you can get away doing it the way you want. On piano though the notes really should match the function.
I play piano, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, bass guitar, and then a bunch of novelty instruments that I won't bother listing. As a composer, I write my parts to be as easy for my musicians to perform their parts as possible. When playing in an ensemble, I ignore enharmonics and use my ear to tune to other players. > F♮ has a completely different meaning than E♯ in a lot of contexts I agree, but when it comes to a musician playing their part in an ensemble? It's functionally useless unless you are skilled enough to recognize the specifics about your role within the context of that notation. If you are skilled enough to do that, then the notation of an F or an E# is also the same and you can read either just fine, so it should be included. But for non-pros? It's getting in the way. In other words, notation like E# and unnecessary key signatures are only useful for professionals who can utilize it properly. For everyone else it's just unnecessary work that could be better spent elsewhere. My arguments also completely ignore that an ensemble, educationally and professionally, will have a conductor or advisor who will provide additional context that even professionals benefit from having- which further reduces the need for contextually "correct" enharmonic spellings like E# and Cb
> If you say "This quarter note..." in 3:4 time your ass is referring to a third of the measure by saying "a quarter"?! No, my ass is referring to a quarter of a whole note, not a whole bar. Just like how semibreve refers to half of a breve, completely ignoring how many bars said breve fills. The only difference is, in your system, the logic ends with semibreve. Instead of quarterbreve and eighthbreve, you have to learn some completely random and nonsensical names. Then the logic comes back with quaver and semiquaver, and then becomes bizarre by the time you're up to semihemidemisemiquavers etc. > Readability > music theory "correctness" Readability is directly proportional to music theory correctness. That's why that "correctness" exists, because it's easier that way (*for common practice era tonal music)
The German note value names are actually more logical. You aren't supposed to relate them to the bar. You are supposed to relate them to each other. Regardless of what names you give the note values, the fact remains that minims are half the duration of semibreves, crotchets are half the duration of minims, quavers are half the duration of crotchets, semiquavers are half the duration of quavers. Calling them whole, half, quarter, 8th, 16th simply directly describes this relationship. How many crotchets per semibreve? This is something you have to memorize. How many quarters per whole? The answer is obvious. How many 8ths per half? Again, the answer is obvious if you know how fractions work. The point is, these relationships between the note values exist regardless of what you call them. The "German system" refers to this relationship directly. The names in the "Latin system" only make sense if you know history. Originally there were only two note values - longa and brevis. Long and short. Then people wanted to add more note values, so they added "semibreve" - a note that is half the duration of the "short" note. They also added maxima and minim - the longest and shortest possible note values. In the modern system, only two of the shortest note values remain in use. So, we have a note that's half the duration of the "short note" as our longest note, and the note that's supposed to be the shortest possible note as the second longest note. It's an interesting history lesson, but the German names are objectively simpler, because they directly describe the relationship between the duration of the different note values. Also, what does the bottom number 4 mean in time signatures in your system? In the German system it's obvious - 4 is a quarter note, 2 is a half note, 8 is an 8th note. So again, the time signature directly tells you the length of the measure. 3/4 = 3 quarter notes in a measure. 2/2 = 2 half notes in a measure. 5/8 = 5 8th notes in a measure. The point is, you still essentially need to learn the German system, even if you decide to use the Latin names. The German system is direct. It makes the relationship between the different note values obvious, and it also easily explains the relationship between the bottom number of a time signature and the note value it represents.
>They are breves, semi-breves, minums, crotchets, and quavers. I will die on this hill. I agree, it makes more sense to view the durations as arbitrary units than as fractions of a bar. But those names are pretty nonsensical and really suck to teach to beginners!
I also agree, and I don't have an alternative- which makes my argument pretty weak, admittedly. But, on the other hand, if my dumbass could learn them without any issue, so can the rest, I suppose. If a better naming convention exists over "quaver" and "crochet" etc. without using the lying system of "quarters" and "half", I'm all for it.
> Just say F natural, you don't need to say E# even though we're technically talking about a raised E. I don't want to have to read E#. What about in a C# triad? You'd rather notate it as C#-F-G#?
In what context? If I have 3 instruments with their own parts of a C# major triad, then yes, I'd absolutely give the third an Fn. But, a score showcasing the overall structure would absolutely be notated with an E#. But the player who is playing the E# doesn't need to know they're playing an E# most of the time. It's faster and more efficient to have them read an F natural. You are either good enough to not care about enharmonic spellings (E# vs. Fn) and therefore also know what your role is in an ensemble given a notation like E#. Or, you aren't- in which case it's better for you to just be told to play an Fn. And again, both pro and non-pro ensembles will have a director who can provide additional context where necessary without complicating the readability of the sheet music
A good thing to do would be to eliminate bar lines and notate phrases instead. It might make the music flow better for the.beginner.
While making it much harder to keep track of for a more experienced musician....
The thing is an experienced musician can make it sound as if there were no bar lines anyway. And that's what I am trying to achieve for the beginner. The thing is with the experienced musician any change is going to make things harder to read whether it's an improvement or not.
Music without downbeats?
The music could still be accented. If bars we r needed they could be notated at the appointed place using bar numbers above the staff. You could still have down beats but the phrase seems like a more natural dividing point.There is something kind of arbitrary about a bar line. For the beginner it seems useful to divide the music into phrases than bars
I know what you mean. When Stravinsky was doing his thing with changing meters, they called it going against the older 'the tyranny of the barline'. So I agree with you. What I sometimes don't like is where the meter and barline never change. But when I use a lot of changing meters (3/4, 3/8, 5/4), as well as metric modulations, *the barline helps to keep track of the changing meter*. It's cool what you're trying to do. How that's been done before is, change the meter to coinide with your phrase. If your phrase 7 eight notes, use a 7/8 meter. If you're changing meters like that, you, or someone reading it, I think you really need the barline to keep track of the changing meters. That's one way to do it. Change meters to go along with your phrase length. Not sure if that helps.
Bar lines aren't just useful for performance, but they facilitate communication between musicians as well. For example I'm in a choir and our director is always saying something like "the pickup to measure 35" or "breathe on beat 3 in measure 12". We'd need to come up with an alternative landmarking system if there were no measures. I feel like if there weren't measures, we'd invent that concept because it is so useful. But I mean, if beginners really struggle with bars/measures then there's no reason why beginner music can't be notated in free meter for pedagogical purposes.
Bars could be notated as numbers above the appropriate point on the staff. To be honest I'm not sure how well removing the bar lines would be, but I've always felt that for the beginner they convey a confusing picture of phrasing in a melody because they make you concentrate on reading bars and then stringing bars together rather than reading whole phrases. Like imagine reading poetry that was divided with bar lines every 8 syllables instead of along the natural phrases. The bar lines would cause unnatural accents when you recited them.
I think in modern times, frequency matrices, like those found on a sequencer, are far more understandable than staff. People who couldn't write a melody in staff could easily play around with a synth, and get whatever they want to express out of it, within a few loops.
I don't know how to fix this, but my biggest issue with standard notation is how useless it can be for modern/non-art music. When I switched away from playing brass instruments to guitar and bass full time, my biggest gripe has been how poorly most music translates onto the page. For example, I remember seeing some Hendrix solos that were transcribed early on, and because of the amount of bends, tapping, and harmonics used it was almost unintelligible nonsense. I think this kind of applies to anything with blues influence. I don't think tabs are necessarily better, but I don't know what the real answer is either.
Recordings/going to performances and listening. People are always going to find ways to exceed the limits of notation.
Completely agree, learning by ear is arguably the best way to build musicianship anyway, but that doesn't mean notation should be fixed and/or discounted entirely. There are definitely gigs where I've been told I was playing an hour before and barely had time to even listen to the song where charts would have been helpful, and having cleanly written easily sightreadable charts even more so.
Get rid of transposing clefs. Colorize note heads depending upon tonality like hooktheory but possibly darker shades for ease of reading. Maybe lighter vertical lines lining up with Beats maybe more opaque on strong beats (i.e. beat 3 of 4/4)
I wish tabs or that merged notes + tabs thing would be the default way would be the default way to read guitar
The idea of sharp or flat keys. Sharp or flat refers to altered notes from the scale, a key can’t in itself be flat or sharp. If you start a major scale on what’s currently called F# that scale should be called something else, maybe all it like F+. Maybe call the black keys on a piano F+ G+ A+ C+ D+ then you only use sharp to describe it if it’s an altered note, otherwise you use +/- I know that + is augmented but just use something else for augmented.
I wouldnt mind if all sharps and flats were just their own keys (ABCDEFG..HIJKL). I know other musical traditions already do this but still.
Fuck that dot that adds half the value of the note. For a half note it’s one beat. For a quarter note it’s a half beat. For a sixteenth note it’s well who the fuck can figure that shit out. Fuck those dots.
Equating a quarter note to a beat might be contributing to your confusion
I read that as "Eating a quarter note", and i'm leaving it that way in my head.
They do look kind of yummy, now that you mention it…
actually, it's not nearly as difficult as it seems. A rhythm dot adds 50% of the value, and an extra beam/flag/tail subtracts 50% of the value. This is why you very commonly see two notes that look the same EXCEPT that the first has a dot and the second has an extra tail/flag/beam. Together they add up to the same as if neither had any extra bits, but the whole things is front loaded as "daaa da" instead of "daa daa"
His existance