"Notation Must Die: The Battle For How We Read Music" - video by Tantacrul

[arbogast]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq3bUFgEcb4

I, personally, find it interesting (and occasionally hilarious).

Also, personally: Using the video title in this post does not mean that i'd prefer the "must die" and "battle" imagery to be taken literally in replies - on the contrary!

[N__K]

As I see it, the video shows that people are differently abled in areas of visual and general neural processing. Thus, to make reading (and writing) music accessible to maximum number of people, possibilities for different representations of musical information are required.

In other words, I agree with the conclusion.


***

On personal level, I disagree with the claim of piano roll being harder to read than staff. Being effectively a "piano roll native", I read interval and chord qualities from a [vertically even-spaced 12-TET] piano roll with lesser effort than from a staff. Same goes for note durations and rhythm in general - I prefer time-proportional visual representation, rather than symbolic.

But then again, as a music maker, I'm an unrepentant DAW-dependent cyborg. Piano roll is my daily format, and my preferred interfaces are a large drawing display (for input of information into piano roll and envelope lanes) and a 88-key weighted keyboard (for what is better termed as "realtime triggering of pitch and velocity" rather than "playing an instrument").


***

I think that in current digital tools, the representation of the piano roll and actual pitch in Melodyne is among the best approaches tried so far. I wish that DAWs in general had the possibility to visually shift MIDI notes on pitch axis - with corresponding change in played pitch, obviously - to enable faster work with non-pitch-quantized/microtonal MIDI; and also, possibility to draw per-note envelope lines of pitch and other parameters (Bitwig and Cubase are "early" examples).
Perhaps with MIDI2.0 and its per-note paradigms that will become more topical.

[Michael L]

I grew up with a player piano and would roll out the paper on the floor and compare what I read in the punched paper to the piano performance, but I was learning staff at the same time and it is far faster to see complex musical patterns with a staff (as long as you don't put too much info on the page, as the video points out). But OMG staff notation software is so clunky cuz its designed mostly for handing to performers and needs to include every symbol. I like alternative / contemporary music notations because they give performers more freedom but they are not precise. If software developers designed staff notation for electronic music but supported the traditional composition method of developing complex rhythm, melody and harmony variations from a simple motif, staff notation would totally eclipse piano roll because each symbol in staff notation contains much more information. See below Wendy Carlos' sketch of the "Tron" theme, which could not be done with piano roll. But that will never happen because no one anymore learns to compose by fully developing a musical idea into something complex. People just layer and remix simple ideas (or don't notate anything including lyrics) and it is easier to read simple ideas in piano roll notation because there is only one symbol that changes position on two axes.
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tronsketch.jpg

[jamcat]

This is why we have tab.

[vurt]

everything must die, this is the way of things.

[jancivil]

that remark functioning as the video's title is essentially in mockery of (so many) people with no clue btw.
("Tantacrul" knows more about musical notation than anyone ever, basically. one of the more entertaining channels there, and always hilarious. His improvements to MuseScore are massive, hired to address the application following his complaints regarding it on his channel.)

"Syntax must die!" will be an equivalent sentiment.

[Scoops]

Some of the initial premises are based on man's general laziness.
"To me it is not logical" is a perfect example
Just learn to read music. It's been with us for centuries

If you don't want to read, play Jazz

[Joe_Barbaro]

Just depends on you what you gravitate toward. When I was younger I was capable of playing music without sheet music but as I got older I began to rely on it. Even as a decent pianist I still prefer to 'click in' notes as opposed to playing it in.

[grooveslap]

Esperanto is amazing other than nobody speaks it.