Re: what about simplifying music notation?

[David Rogers]

* David Kastrup <address@hidden> [2011-03-14 14:40]:

> And 99% of all musical literature is _scale-oriented_ rather than
> _interval_-oriented.  So even singers tend to be better off with a
> notation focusing on scales rather than intervals, unless they happen to
> sing Schönberg.


Even if they sing Schoenberg frequently, familiarity of notation is more
important than effectiveness or elegance, and so especially in music
that they view as difficult they will insist on traditional notation in
preference over anything touted as "better". People (by and large) are
simply not going to learn a new system of notation until the majority of
others (especially including the majority of music teachers and the
majority of mainstream music publishers) have already adopted it.
Therefore ANY new system of notation is, in practical terms, doomed to
obscurity. A small circle of friends and/or students around each
notation inventor may adopt a system, but it isn't going to go farther
than that unless the advantages provided are orders of magnitude greater
than the advantages already provided by the many well-thought-out,
elegant, and interesting notation systems already swelling the trash
heap of history.

In my opinion, for starters, any new system that requires an explanation
of its features is out. If it isn't obvious without explanation, then
the advantages are probably not great enough to get anybody to switch.

--
David