Re: what about simplifying music notation?

[David Rogers]

* Marc Weber <address@hidden> [2011-03-14 17:19]:

> Excerpts from David Kastrup's message of Mon Mar 14 16:58:39 +0000 2011:
> > You'll find that at the end of the day, they sit down at a keyboard
> > rather than just letting intervals play by numbers in their head.
>
> *g*. I agree. The goal in all cases is: read a stream of music from
> paper, hear it in your head before playing it on any instrument.
>
> I'd expect that you can reach this state faster if notes are represented
> more logical. However I don't have an empirical proof yet.

Not more logical, but more familiar. Logical sounds like it should be
better, but it is not. If we had no system, and we needed to decide
between a good system and a bad system, of course the good system should
win; but instead we already have a system. Even if the present system is
somewhat bad, still, it is the one we know. To succeed, a new system
must be a hundred times better, and must be available for free, and must
be obvious to every idiot - or else the old system is still better.

Not all musicians are smart. And not even many of the smart ones want to
learn a new notation system.

I don't like to be discouraging, but I am certainly discouraging on this
one. Use your skills to create something that many people are asking
for.  Nobody is asking for a better system of music notation - except
for a few notation-system-inventors. :(

Even if some students adopt a new system, they will just have to learn
the old way eventually, so their time will have been (partly) wasted.

--
David