KVR Audio

Hello everyone. I've been playing the LinnStrument for over half a year now. One question that has always nagged at me is: what kind of notation actually makes sense for the LinnStrument? My goal is to play piano-style tracks with both hands. I'd like to share some recent modifications I made to the MuseScore Studio source code, which led me to a solution I'm fairly happy with. The upside is that MuseScore's massive library of scores can be converted instantly.

Standard staff notation follows a 7-5 layout that maps neatly onto a traditional piano — but makes absolutely no sense on an isomorphic instrument. What isomorphic instruments (e.g. LinnStrument) call for is isomorphic notation, which is what drew me to whole-tone stave systems. This family of notations fits an octave into three lines and three spaces, locked to a whole-tone scale, and maintains a clean linear relationship throughout. (https://musicnotation.org/tutorials/6-6 ... -patterns/ (https://musicnotation.org/tutorials/6-6-and-7-5-pitch-patterns/))

I've modified the MuseScore Studio source code to enable a 6-6 stave layout. Combined with an additional MuseScore plugin, the modified version can express a variety of 6-6 notations. My personal preference leans toward something similar to TwinNote, where interval relationships can be read at a glance from the spacing on the page and the type of notehead shape — then mapped directly onto the instrument.

I don't imagine the MuseScore Studio team would want to maintain such a niche feature, so I haven't had much motivation to file a PR or polish the user experience. It is what it is. Here's my repository: I've published a Windows x64 portable release of MuseScore Studio 5.0.0 for now. Other versions and platforms will need to be compiled from source.

https://github.com/Cracking-Sciences/MuseScore/tree/6-6 (https://github.com/Cracking-Sciences/MuseScore/tree/6-6)
(Standard type is the normal 7-5 staff. Whole tone treble and whole tone bass are the 6-6 containers we want!)
(Whole-Tone (6-6) Stave)
(Twinnote-like staff)

Now we can use musescore plugins to change the note styles. As in the picture, it is a twinnote-like staff (slightly different to fit my taste). Here is the plugin repo:
https://github.com/Cracking-Sciences/Mu ... /tree/main (https://github.com/Cracking-Sciences/Musescore-Twinnote-Plugin/tree/main)

Let me know your thoughts and feedback. Thanks!

This doesn’t look that interesting. The standard notation is common for other isomorphic instruments like guitars, violins and other string instruments. The standard notation has much more to do with scales than any specific instrument. And the piano is adapted to scales, not the other way around…
That is why standard notation makes it easy to transpose scales with the number of # or b signs. If you learn this, its a blast to read as well. Standard notation is closer to a universal notation than any adapted one for any instrument.
Of course feel free to use whatever suits you. A lot of guitar players can only read tabs and that is fine as well…

Tj Shredder wrote: Tue Jun 30, 2026 4:23 pm This doesn’t look that interesting. The standard notation is common for other isomorphic instruments like guitars, violins and other string instruments. The standard notation has much more to do with scales than any specific instrument. And the piano is adapted to scales, not the other way around…
That is why standard notation makes it easy to transpose scales with the number of # or b signs. If you learn this, its a blast to read as well. Standard notation is closer to a universal notation than any adapted one for any instrument.
Of course feel free to use whatever suits you. A lot of guitar players can only read tabs and that is fine as well…

Fully understood and welcome to your perspective. Traditional staff is the standard, treating the natural major/minor scale as a first-class citizen—every instrument reads from it (since that's how full scores are written ). I built this tool to give large music libraries a one-click conversion path, so the curious can try a notation system that instead treats the chromatic scale as first-class. Whether or not you agree with the idea, there's no barrier to trying it.