Pashkuli: PMN (Plain Music Notation)

[jancivil]

The entire premise there is really "All knowledge for centuries came from The Church. The Church is bad, so said knowledge is suspect."
Throw the entire baby of notated music - knowing f**k-all about that history or in all probability the real use - out with the bathwater.
Yeah, you've set yourself up for ridicule with the wild overconfidence in inchoate premises and ignorance.

[jancivil]

It's a solution to a non-problem. Telling people they have a problem in that they're resistant to change supposes a need for the change. You have in no way given an affirmation of any real need, the argument is notation is suspect for specious reasons and scratching that surface only shows you think it's too difficult (too much information is conveyed). This doesn't tell us about anything but you.

[BertKoor]

You may discuss the role of the church in music, but only in our HPC section.

Can you transcribe this passage?

Oh, that is something interesting.
Could please tell me which music (name, opus, etc.) is this, so I can search\find its midi-file

Didn't anyone notice what happened here? It demonstrated what the best way is to let music travel through space and time. Just record it as a midi file.

Because that is what notation is for: let music pass through time & space. You don't need pen & paper today. Just recording it is enough to play it again and again.

[Erisian]

You may discuss the role of the church in music, but only in our HPC section.

Can you transcribe this passage?

Oh, that is something interesting.
Could please tell me which music (name, opus, etc.) is this, so I can search\find its midi-file

Didn't anyone notice what happened here? It demonstrated what the best way is to let music travel through space and time. Just record it as a midi file.

As long as the process can record the nuances and emotions involved of course.

[imrae]

Yes, the problem is that it is difficult to read at speed.

Are you telling us you have difficulties reading letters\glyphs?
So how did you graduated from school then?

The same way most people read at speed: a few words at a time, relying on overall shapes and context. Individual glyphs only get read if double-checking an unusual, unfamiliar or unexpected word.

Reading words one letter at a time would indicate a very basic reading level. This is why kerning and spacing is so important in design of legible fonts. A lot of handwriting has malformed or missing letters, but can still be understood by the overall flow and shape.

You see, there was this thing called folk music, that has been passed from centuries before even a Church was established. My grandfather (who was blind) learned to play drums and clarinet in his teenage years.

Oral traditions exist, of course. But if they don't need sheet music, how would they benefit from yours? I don't see the relevance?

[jancivil]

You may discuss the role of the church in music, but only in our HPC section.

Can you transcribe this passage?

Oh, that is something interesting.
Could please tell me which music (name, opus, etc.) is this, so I can search\find its midi-file

Didn't anyone notice what happened here? It demonstrated what the best way is to let music travel through space and time. Just record it as a midi file.

As long as the process can record the nuances and emotions involved of course.

I'd bet money the OP understands basically nothing of what I pointed out regarding the Chopin excerpt, because they don't know from notation and believes there must be a MIDI before they can even check it out. There probably is of that piece, btw, at Kunst der Fuge. Which may be or may not be hard quantized and still need a musician to make it into actual music. With the score to refer to, because of what a score is.

So that hypothetical is pretty empty. A MIDI does not through itself carry that level of information or nuance, I would even say that chances are not very high it's a viable replacement for having the score for myriad reasons. that a person that lacks the experience won't grasp. To wit: 'Can you transcribe it?' 'Wheres the MIDI?' (IE., no).

[Pashkuli]

The entire premise there is really "All knowledge for centuries came from The Church. The Church is bad, so said knowledge is suspect."
Throw the entire baby of notated music - knowing f**k-all about that history or in all probability the real use - out with the bathwater.
Yeah, you've set yourself up for ridicule with the wild overconfidence in inchoate premises and ignorance.

What knowledge?
This church notation came out from years of bad practices, mostly related to vocal chants. It has nothing to do with knowledge.

Please, this not about me. Do not get personal towards me. Many before you have tried.

PMN is a different approach at writing\reading music. You do not like it, do not need it, please — no need to comment here. Just ignore it. It is easy.

[Erisian]

You may discuss the role of the church in music, but only in our HPC section.

Can you transcribe this passage?

Oh, that is something interesting.
Could please tell me which music (name, opus, etc.) is this, so I can search\find its midi-file

Didn't anyone notice what happened here? It demonstrated what the best way is to let music travel through space and time. Just record it as a midi file.

As long as the process can record the nuances and emotions involved of course.

I'd bet money the OP understands basically nothing of what I pointed out regarding the Chopin excerpt, because they don't know from notation and believe there must be a MIDI or they can't even check it out. There probably is of that piece, btw, at Kunst der Fuge. Which may be or may not be hard quantized and still need a musician to make it into actual music. With the score to refer to, because of what a score is.

So that hypothetical is pretty empty. A MIDI does not through itself carry that level of information or nuance, I would even say that chances are not very high it's a viable replacement for having the score for myriad reasons. that a person that lacks the experience won't grasp.

Absolutely my point.

[jancivil]

ah, dialectics!

it followed Bert saying something which seems to suggest that writing music down, as being arguably secondary to the process is not as essential as recording it. Which may be part of a dialectic as well but as stated I can't say I get what's meant exactly.

I don't compose from notation for... 15 or 16 yrs, but I would be radically less of a musician without it.

[Pashkuli]

Didn't anyone notice what happened here? It demonstrated what the best way is to let music travel through space and time. Just record it as a midi file.

Because that is what notation is for: let music pass through time & space. You don't need pen & paper today. Just recording it is enough to play it again and again.

That is true. MIDI files, only if recorded by human performance can record enough nuances regarding the composer\player intention when writing and performing their piece.

We will never hear how Mozart\Bach\Chopin played. Not to mention the limitation in state of the art in technology of making pianos back then. Nevertheless.
For MIDI we need electrically powered devices and interfaces. We take that for granted nowadays.
In plain symbolic script MIDI is unreadable and quite frankly useless.
OSC is much better. MusicXML is too biased towards "old notation" but can be modified for a better one.


But I also agree that music, thoughts, etc. should be able to get reproduced only using a pencil\chalk and paper\surface of some sort or etched in stone or wood. At least some basic form of recording.

[jancivil]

Note well: the things that can be created in a MIDI that cannot be conveyed in notation (unless the music is very, very simple) involve duration. Bars in a piano roll can absolutely carry out the composer's intent of the duration of every note, where note values with some extra markings and language to fill in meaning are but a shorthand. There is nothing that is going to make notation do that much. That a musician is there between the score and our hearing is a given.

There's a thing in DAWs for a while now known as expression maps, which are ways to make keyswitches (notes below or above the sounding pitches) into something that looks right in a score. I'm glad to not have to resort to all that, but if I were a Danny Elfman I might.

[Pashkuli]

The same way most people read at speed: a few words at a time, relying on overall shapes and context. Individual glyphs only get read if double-checking an unusual, unfamiliar or unexpected word.

Reading words one letter at a time would indicate a very basic reading level. This is why kerning and spacing is so important in design of legible fonts. A lot of handwriting has malformed or missing letters, but can still be understood by the overall flow and shape.


Oral traditions exist, of course. But if they don't need sheet music, how would they benefit from yours? I don't see the relevance?

Indeed. Recognizing shapes. PMN noteheads are shapes (closed). Recognisable at a glance.
Very much like letters, though letters especially in lowercase may exhibit some ligature quirks and misplacements though the reader will correct it by memory... from practice, practice, practice.

Also we see and deal with letters and numbers almost by the second and minutes. Every day.
Practice makes perfect.
Of course no one reads words letter by letter. Unless those mentally or visually impaired.
Readers would spot errors in spelling much easier when words are in Caps. For lowercase they would correct it (on the go) and continue reading.


No one forces "oral traditionalists" to record music and pass it onto generations by playing example. It has been done since time immemorial (way, way before any medieval churches dared to intervene in Music "all in the name of God" of course).

[jancivil]

to let music travel through space and time. Just record it as a midi file.

Because that is what notation is for: let music pass through time & space. You don't need pen & paper today. Just recording it is enough to play it again and again.

This seems to suggest that notation has exactly the same end as a MIDI, therefore MIDI is equal in itself to notation.
No.
Because notation is meant to do more in some regards, and in this amounts to a different job than someone creating a MIDI file. The score for that bit of Chopin conveys immediately what happens harmonically and melodically. It's a quite elegant system, even as it kinda lacks that instant gratification of grab it and run it through a synth. A MIDI of the same would be rather opaque even to myself whose music is nearly 100% MIDI to soft instruments. The rhythm is not conveyed in the immediate by a visual of bars in a piano roll like that, I must say. I think few people are going to see very much of the harmony in bars in the piano roll or a list editor.

[fmr]

What knowledge?
This church notation came out from years of bad practices, mostly related to vocal chants. It has nothing to do with knowledge.

WTF are you talking about? What "bad" practices?

Do you even know how notation was born? Do you know that current notation compares to those first notation attempts as much current western writing compares to Egypt hieroglyphs (or ancient greek writing, at best)?

[fmr]

Didn't anyone notice what happened here? It demonstrated what the best way is to let music travel through space and time. Just record it as a midi file.

Because that is what notation is for: let music pass through time & space. You don't need pen & paper today. Just recording it is enough to play it again and again.

That is true. MIDI files, only if recorded by human performance can record enough nuances regarding the composer\player intention when writing and performing their piece.

This is true IF (and ONLY OF) the instrument used to reproduce that MIDI file is able to faithfully translate those nuances. Most of the time (almost ALL TIME), if you use a MIDI device that's not the one used to record that MIDI fie, it will not translate well. Sometimes closer, sometimes more distant, sometimes completely away from what was the original recording.