Music Theory books based on Piano Rolls not Staffs?

[softska]

The traditional notation may have survived for long but it's not optimal in my mind, especially the bass clef seems rather unintuitive to me. I was never able to read it in "realtime", I always end up transposing it to treble clef first. Surely lack of practice, but there must be a better way to read notes.

Clef is a movable thing, bass and treble just the most used ones. All those odd-ball clefs from old music tell you 1 thing: It was never designed for "easy to read"; It was designed for writing music down with least amount of space.

For OP question, I never walk across an adequate book on music theory without notation other than maybe accompany by guitar tabs heavily. Though like others have mentioned, if all you're looking for is chords and scales, it's perfectly adequate to just count half-steps. Slow or not, they work, and they _always_ work.

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[chj]

Didn't read the entire thread...

what made you contribute to a thread you're NOT familiar with

OK I read it now. You think it made a difference? Well actually it did, I found this:

give us a hard and fast rule how to determine intervalls in the piano roll WITHOUT counting halfsteps and knowing by heart how many halfsteps equal any given intervall ( say a diminished seventh ) - looking at the staff you can recognize the basic size of an intervall immidiately

Only because you're stuck inside your own head. Anyone that learns on a piano roll can "immediately recognize the basic size of an interval immediately."

I'm pretty sure there are plenty of great musicians with a strong knowledge of music theory that never learned to read sheet music. For example, any blind musicians, guitarists that know the theory on their fretboard but not a sheet of paper, etc. If learning theory on sheet music helps YOU in your music great. If it's used as a flawed basis to think that makes you a better musician than someone that doesn't, not so great.

[softska]

...It was never designed for "easy to read"...

i beg to differ - for centuries it was THE ONLY way of writing down music AND for sight reading - there was no other possible way for distributing musical ideas - it is a matter of practice ( which musicians had to have for centuries ... )

While I don't deny it has evolved to accommodate better readability, as far as design goes I can't agree after seeing what kind of scribbles they had between those lines in 14th/15th century until they finally got sane later. It certainly wasn't the only way, but you weren't going to make any living when sacred music was all transcribed in the same format.

I'm pretty sure there are plenty of great musicians with a strong knowledge of music theory that never learned to read sheet music. For example, any blind musicians, guitarists that know the theory on their fretboard but not a sheet of paper, etc. If learning theory on sheet music helps YOU in your music great. If it's used as a flawed basis to think that makes you a better musician than someone that doesn't, not so great.

Well, yes, but for what the OP ask for, score is just the more universal way to learn this subject. Just like you probably more likely to get an answer with English on this forum than say Russian.

Back to the topic though, piano roll does help people get started on visualize parts of the theory. I would be interested if there're theory literature that attempts to not use any scores beyond the barebone basic of chords.

[jancivil]

I'd love to see someone sight-read a piano-roll ... well maybe if you're playing one line, but accurately reading a melody line, while playing chords and getting exact intervals and timing right? Maybe one of those autistic geniuses could do it, but no ordinary human being

Who's sight reading? The original post wanted a music theory book to help him COMPOSE in the piano roll. He doesn't need a traditional score to tell him exact timing and intervals. Because he's not a studio musician playing someone else's music. He's the one making the music. The exact timing and intervals is what he enters ... IN THE PIANO ROLL.

And there's such a book where? Note Well: I don't write music on paper anymore, but directly on the piano roll, ever since I got involved with it. I don't think of note names even. I hear something I want to do and apply it directly. I'm not going to be that straw man, 'stuck in my idea of'. But, I know from intervals and the differences - that you won't address, an aug 4 vs a dim 5, a dim 7 vs a M6 - from studying music, intensive study. Which meant, at a certain level, reading scores. There is no such literature for the piano roll. Prove me wrong!

The best you're going to get with this kind of approach is a verbose straw man argument.
You have 'anyone that started with piano roll'. So! Show me that someone and their process. You? Show how a comparable process - eschewing notation, only ever having seen a piano roll in a software sequencer - worked. You have a hypothesis and not more until you can.

To a person strictly from a piano roll in a software sequencer, where first of all all accidentals are given in all sharps (wholly inadequate for music study and demonstrably misleading to a newb), this whole level of information is necessarily missing. Without a substantial supplement, this is inferior for a basis in theory.

Which leads us right back to the actual topic. What book is there for the person that, behind some notion (in a hurry, likes a shortcut? What.) wants to eschew perfectly useful methodology to replace that paradigm? What literature is there to absorb?

I'll venture to say, there isn't any that compares, and there's a reason for that. It's just not the best medium for the job.

[jancivil]

Back to the topic though, piano roll does help people get started on visualize parts of the theory. I would be interested if there're theory literature that attempts to not use any scores beyond the barebone basic of chords.

what parts of the theory? That's like saying stave paper helps people get started on parts of the theory.

[chj]

... There is no such literature for the piano roll. Prove me wrong! ... etc. etc.

So you're saying right now there is more music theory literature available for those that read sheet music. You're right. In ten years, that may not be the case anymore. The original poster already knew this, that's why he asked if there was anything piano roll oriented.

My previous comment:

A music theory book based on a piano roll makes perfect sense to me. Whoever does it well will probably have a successful book with the new generation of computer composers.

Oh nevermind, doesn't look like there's much reason to discuss it.

If someone comes up with such a book, they're looking for suckers to chump.

[softska]

Back to the topic though, piano roll does help people get started on visualize parts of the theory. I would be interested if there're theory literature that attempts to not use any scores beyond the barebone basic of chords.

what parts of the theory? That's like saying stave paper helps people get started on parts of the theory.

e.g. What a chord "looks" like on piano or guitar, where are the gaps on keyboard when looking at the scale etc. If you don't play any instruments, piano roll is a popular way to visualize them, on screen or in front of a piano. Yes it may only get you so far, but nothing wrong to start with that no? Staff paper doesn't help if you're not familiar at translating what you see to "what it sounds like".

. . . from studying music, intensive study

Good for you, but you don't need to know all that jargon before you can write music. Some are perfectly happy strumming away only knowing chord progressions and some are happily clicking away on a piano roll knowing the minimum.

For one I think just knowing intervals is enough to get a person by on a piano (for building chords from every note). Beginning Jazz studies often just start with playing the instrument and learning chords and modes. Transcription can be all done by ear or by "looking" at how a person hand moves and just use similar patterns.

Show how a comparable process - eschewing notation, only ever having seen a piano roll in a software sequencer - worked.

Trial and error + copy patterns vigorously. I had the pleasure to help those people and, let just say I'm happy I'm out of that job. I find it odd they enjoy wasting days to learn it that way, but their little hiphop and house track comes out just fine. One guy do HipHop productions for part of his living still look at me blank last I talk to him about slash chords, but his little system developed enough that his stuff are always fits.

[Richard_Synapse]

Clef is a movable thing, bass and treble just the most used ones. All those odd-ball clefs from old music tell you 1 thing: It was never designed for "easy to read"; It was designed for writing music down with least amount of space.

Come to think of it, you're right, that makes sense. But since most of us don't write sheet music anymore (I think), there is probably better ways to compose/learn/read/perform music than using traditional notation.

Richard

[jancivil]

... There is no such literature for the piano roll. Prove me wrong! ... etc. etc.

So you're saying right now there is more music theory literature available for those that read sheet music. You're right. In ten years, that may not be the case anymore. The original poster already knew this, that's why he asked if there was anything piano roll oriented.

I am obviously saying more than that. That it 'just isn't the best medium for the job'. You have only futuristic speculation on your side. I like sci-fi myself for that.

[jancivil]

Back to the topic though, piano roll does help people get started on visualize parts of the theory. I would be interested if there're theory literature that attempts to not use any scores beyond the barebone basic of chords.

what parts of the theory? That's like saying stave paper helps people get started on parts of the theory.

e.g. What a chord "looks" like on piano or guitar, where are the gaps on keyboard when looking at the scale etc. If you don't play any instruments, piano roll is a popular way to visualize them, on screen or in front of a piano. Yes it may only get you so far, but nothing wrong to start with that no? Staff paper doesn't help if you're not familiar at translating what you see to "what it sounds like".

. . . from studying music, intensive study

Good for you, but you don't need to know all that jargon before you can write music. Some are perfectly happy strumming away only knowing chord progressions and some are happily clicking away on a piano roll knowing the minimum.

For one I think just knowing intervals is enough to get a person by on a piano (for building chords from every note). Beginning Jazz studies often just start with playing the instrument and learning chords and modes. Transcription can be all done by ear or by "looking" at how a person hand moves and just use similar patterns.

Well, it's not a lot different than learning a guitar by positions and a visual point of reference is it. Only you don't have different positions for the same notes. I don't have any problem with musicians doing that kind of thing as a start, or really whatever somebody wants to do at any level. BUT, I will say that most that rely on fingering and positions in their playing sound like they do. As opposed to someone with an overview away from the instrument.

Show how a comparable process - eschewing notation, only ever having seen a piano roll in a software sequencer - worked.

Trial and error + copy patterns vigorously. I had the pleasure to help those people and, let just say I'm happy I'm out of that job. I find it odd they enjoy wasting days to learn it that way, but their little hiphop and house track comes out just fine. One guy do HipHop productions for part of his living still look at me blank last I talk to him about slash chords, but his little system developed enough that his stuff are always fits.

You aren't addressing my actual question but quoting me outside of the context. What part of theory is obtained by understanding how to duplicate something by copying it onto the clipboard. I could make a case for compositional methodology in a piano roll, in a sequencer, for someone that is already composing music. Show how they will have the comparable theoretic basis. You verify my point with that if anything.

I am at this time purely a piano roll composer. I do not buy the arguments that this is the way to learn music theory (which addresses the original post on this, the music theory board). The arguments aren't any good. No one has shown anything.

[jancivil]

since most of us don't write sheet music anymore (I think), there is probably better ways to compose/learn/read/perform music than using traditional notation.

For that to be a sensible sentence, composing/learning/reading/peforming must all be the very same thing.

I don't need notation because I have internalized and absorbed many things. To make me an object lesson for someone that lacks my experience would be stupid.

[blueman]

Both of these titles from Groove3 are very good:

http://www.groove3.com/str/music-theory-explained.html

http://www.groove3.com/str/songwriting- ... ained.html

There are references to standard notation but the audio/visual teaching format communicates the themes.

[jancivil]

... There is no such literature for the piano roll. Prove me wrong! ... etc. etc.

So you're saying right now there is more music theory literature available for those that read sheet music. You're right. In ten years, that may not be the case anymore. The original poster already knew this, that's why he asked if there was anything piano roll oriented.

He knew that something will be maybe true in the future?



Also above, you sought to imply that my part in this discussion isn't in good faith because I said this kind of project will be basically a scam. I think it would be. I don't think you've shown in any way that it's a good idea to seek to replace a perfectly sound methodology with a hypothetical ideation. I think that if someone mounts the project they will be taking advantage of people without the best information on what it is they want to learn, based on they'll be in a hurry, a product of this level of technologically dependent society.

I would rather make an argument that a person should have the best information. Your hypothesis isn't even half-baked. I think that's what's not in good faith here. A lot of empty argumentation would tend to follow.

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