Pashkuli: PMN (Plain Music Notation)

[shawshawraw]

Gonn' use that to explain key vs mode from now on!!

[shawshawraw]

Key signature is home.
Soap opera drama = zero accidental sharps or flats on paper
Regular drama = occasional accidental sharps or flats on paper
'Morning News' level of drama = a truck of accidental sharps or flats on paper

NOICE

[Pashkuli]

I already shared statistics.
On average most *pop music has one so called accidental.
Classical up to three on average.

But the dumb part is, this does not mean anything about the music and what to play.

It is all generalisation and tons of exceptions.
Subjective attributes and descriptions are not part of this discussion.
It is useless to say where 'feels like home'.
You got that from others, who told you such things... Instead of just write the music as it was intended.

[BertKoor]

I already shared statistics.
On average most popisic has one so called accidental.
Classical up to three on average.

What exactly is 'popisic' ? I googled it, with some weird results.

I don't have any statistics, but in styles like jazz, soul, R&B there's loads of chromatic passages and thus tones played outside the 'agreed' 7 notes of the scale (I think that's what we define as accidentals)
Depending on the period 'classical up to three on average' is also serious underestimation. It's not for nothing you show us those 'wtf is this nonsense' pieces.

It is useless to say where 'feels like home'. You got that from others, who told you such things... Instead of just write the music as it was intended.

Who are you to tell me/us what exactly 'intention' is of music? Your dogma of good music is not mine, and not the same as your grandfathers. So there goes your objectivity.

[Pashkuli]

I already shared statistics.
On average most popisic has one so called accidental.
Classical up to three on average.

What exactly is 'popisic' ? I googled it, with some weird results.

I don't have any statistics, but in styles like jazz, soul, R&B there's loads of chromatic passages and thus tones played outside the 'agreed' 7 notes of the scale (I think that's what we define as accidentals)
Depending on the period 'classical up to three on average' is also serious underestimation. It's not for nothing you show us those 'wtf is this nonsense' pieces.

It is useless to say where 'feels like home'. You got that from others, who told you such things... Instead of just write the music as it was intended.

Who are you to tell me/us what exactly 'intention' is of music? Your dogma of good music is not mine, and not the same as your grandfathers. So there goes your objectivity.

Popisic = pop songs
*typed on the phone and was getting up (*hah, nice results indeed!)

I shared the statistics (Spotify average song) and classical music total and average.

To me it is absolutely unnecessary to constant refer my notes to some "major scale", which might not be in my mind as a composer for this piece at all (rarely is).
So, because someone (tried to) taught me to refer to it when writing my notes is like telling me to write in my preferred language but if the letters are different from Latin, I should write my letters as some 'deviation' of Latin letters or combination of those.

This is some centuries old dogma. Actually almost millennia old by now.

That is why the current music notation is so abhorrent to people who have no other alternative but to study it, because that what others have been doing for centuries.

Same with the standard piano keyboard by the way... but that is another topic, for which I have created the thread in this forum.

I am not telling you what 'intention' of music is, but how it is intended to be note by note from all the notes you've got at your disposal.

[BertKoor]

What you shared was (in your words) fairly arbitrary statistical data regarding most used keys\roots of song in Spotify. It's no surprise really. Most guitar & piano players favour these keys: Am, Bb, C, Dm, D, E, Em, F, G.

How does that relate to accidentals? Are you using the same definition of that word as me?

Given for example a blues song with a pentatonic scale (no idea how Spotify does classify that,I think as regular minor) you'll find solos using nearly all 12 notes. Five from the scale, remaining seven are all accidentals by definition.

[Pashkuli]

Gonn' use that to explain key vs mode from now on!!

Trying to be funny or what?
Scale is the tones of certain mode arranged consecutively (in sequence) usually starting from root and in ascending order (trivial form).

Modes are the same tones but referred to the root both as melodic and harmonic connection.
Modes can represent melodies and harmonies, whilst scale is strictly "melodic" sequence (usually ascending) of the notes of a mode.

[Pashkuli]

How does that relate to accidentals? Are you using the same definition of that word as me?

Given for example a blues song with a pentatonic scale (no idea how Spotify does classify that,I think as regular minor) you'll find solos using nearly all 12 notes. Five from the scale, remaining seven are all accidentals by definition.

Accidentals you have them in your key signature (as a prescription reflecting to a "natural" major\minor). Thus if you encounter any additional accidental symbols (including read carefully – natural symbols ♮ – how dumb is that, huh?) inside the bars of the score, those would indicate deviation from either the prescribed key signature accidentals (must be remembered and constantly referred for the corresponding rows\lines of notes in the bars, where those key signature accidentals impose their influence).

Not to mention that because of this unnecessary complication you would need in certain cases double accidental symbols, to avoid overlap of notenames.

How dumb is that?!

[BertKoor]

Accidentals you have them in your key signature

Here you are wrong. Accidentals are only the ones at the notes themselves. Dunno how you call the flats & sharps that are written down as the key signature, but accidentals (from 'accident') they ain't.

How dumb is that?!

You call it dumb. It's actually quite smart. It's compression before ZIP or MP3 existed.

[Erisian]

Accidentals you have them in your key signature

I said this before. Sharps and flats in your key signature are not accidentals. Accidentals are sharps, flats or naturals that are not in your key signature but occur sometimes in individual bars of music.

[BertKoor]

Correct. If you play Eb pentatonic scale on the piano (using all the black keys) then nearly all the white keys are now considered accidentals.

[Pashkuli]

What are the symbols called in the key signature? Coincidentals maybe?
What do they do, what is their purpose?

Those show the deviation (accidentals) from a special case of major\minor scale (alleged as "natural") that is predetermined to not have them (referring to the big keys on the piano).

This system is so obsolete, no wonder most people cringe when they have to use it.

[Pashkuli]

Correct. If you play Eb pentatonic scale on the piano (using all the black keys) then nearly all the white keys are now considered accidentals.

Write it on the score, please.
Show us the key signature of that pentatonic. It will be that same as the matching major\minor.
What if I do not play piano.

In the awful notation score inside the bar they will show notes for which you need to keep track of according to the key signature, otherwise you would have to write accidentals symbols every time those notes occur.

Thus key signature symbols are accidentals... in advance. To designate a shift.

*I am not making the next example up, it is from Chopin's score

note-double-dies-staff-cleff.jpg

[imrae]

I suspect the preference for low-accidental keys in pop music has more to do with standard guitar tuning than it does notation.

Similar issues arise for classical instruments; most instruments are genuinely more comfortable to play in some keys than others. (Open strings, woodwind key combinations, ...) I'm not going to write for trombone in B major (requiring a lot of 7th-position) over Bb major (1st-position) without some other motivating factor.

Funnily enough I've heard skilled pianists say they don't like C major, because it is less comfortable under the hand.

Of course, lots of performers transpose pop songs to a key they are more comfortable with. Transposition being a useful performance tool OP is unfamiliar with, and made more difficult in this notation.

This system is so obsolete, no wonder most people cringe when they have to use it.

This would mean more coming from somebody who actually understands it.

[Pashkuli]

Such system (standard music notation) is redundant, unnecessary and obsolete.
Quite frankly it's been such a clumsy, ambiguous nonsense by inception as designed.

It must go in History for good.