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Comment by hanoz | Hacker News Reader

Well that's opened up a fascinating new world to me. Is there a name for that regular logarithmic by linear music notation in the first image? I suddenly feel like a whole lifetime of musical enjoyment has been denied to me by the utterly utterly ridiculous staff notation system.

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It's a representation of a midi step sequencer. It's pretty standard in all DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software. Staff notation is way more nuanced than this. In order to represent all the details on the midi ui it requires layers (like photoshop) for all the different parameters. On staff notation it's all there on one page. Staff notation might be a bigger learning curve but it's also a far superior way of communicating musical pieces on paper.

I recall some composers notes such as 'with great vigor' or 'like raindrops' on sheet music. Midi step sequences would have a hard time representing the "emotion" some composers are looking for.

Satie had some good instructions:

"In the morning on an empty stomach"

"Hypocritically"

"With a lot of difficulty"

“With conviction and a rigorous sadness”

“With a healthy superiority”

“Don’t eat too much”

“Shake like a leaf”

“Do not cough”

“Go away”

“Like a nightingale with a toothache”

Should apply that to lines of code in code review .

   x.ugly_hack=blah <- “With conviction and a rigorous sadness”

> Midi step sequences would have a hard time representing the "emotion" some composers are looking for.

They all allow different amounts of precision and interpretation of the performance. Staff notation is open to interpretation on the performance level. MIDI is an exact recording (or programming) of a performance.

With staff notation you can mark eighth notes and say "staccato, lag behind the beat", and there's an infinite number of subtly different ways to play it, even within the own composers interpretation. With MIDI, it would represented as "Note on A3, 12 pulses after first quarter note, velocity of 87. Note off A3, 54 pulses after first quarter note, velocity of 0. Note on C3 (etc....)". MIDI is great for computers (or routing signals during live performance) because it's exact.

I don't think that's quite right. Different midi sequencers will play in a different way, based on the decisions of the midi sequencers author.

Not quite sure what you mean by a different way, or sequencers author. Do you mean the musician, or like Roland/Korg/ARP?

MIDI is a pretty exact specification. If a sequencer is changing the timing of anything, the underlying MIDI structures are not the same then. You can have different amounts of swing or different PPQ values, but then I wouldn't consider that "the same MIDI".

You can feed it to different sound generators of course, different drum machines, synths, a laptop, what-have-you, (most sequencers have both builtin together) but that's different from the MIDI itself.

That's not how it works. MIDI is a standard.

Given a specific MIDI file, with specific applied quantization, they should absolutely play the same way -- the only exception is the timing resolution they offer and smallish latency issues (which in practice should be 100% transparent).

Because a machine is playing, so as with any computer code, you have to formalise everything and leave nothing implicit.

So much of the notation is not codified, and is part of the artistry of the musician. Even if all those Italian/French words are included (martele, staccato, largo, et al.), and crescendos and ritards and are marked, one cannot play the tune from sight with the desired emotion without first hearing it or playing it over and over.

>Midi step sequences would have a hard time representing the "emotion" some composers are looking for.

Most classically trained players do too.

Besides we have much more control over step sequences than you probably think, e.g.

http://www.steinberg.net/en/company/technologies/vst_express...

Plus, of course, tons of CC, etc.

Compared to the possibilities for expression in step sequencing, something like a piano, which basically just has velocity and sustain/dumper is not even close.

It can be done, you just need to know the variables to tweak and how.

I disagree, at least as far as rhythm and pitch are concerned. For classical music, staff notation is great — but once you get into syncopation, soloing, and the general fluidity that comes with practically all popular music from the past century, it becomes untenable. Seriously, writing down guitar solos in staff notation is just gross. (I've previously written a little about it here: http://beta-blog.archagon.net/2016/02/05/composers-sketchpad...)

Quite an on point explanation; I'd also contend though that modern DAWs like Ableton Live 9 have quite nuanced sequencing and MIDI controls/notation for professionals (and can go deeper with MAX).

"the utterly utterly ridiculous staff notation system"

I think you mean "dense and efficient".

I think you're both right. It's got some seemingly arbitrary quirks. But at the end of the day, it compresses information really well.

I agree, but to me it is extremely hard to decompress. I've tried many times to get familiar with staff notation but I never could get an intuition of how it works.

Sure. I remember when learning to play the piano as a kid that it took sometimes seconds to decrypt the next key when learning a new piece.

I've understood that for a large category of adult learners, when starting on an instrument for the first time in their life, it's the staff notation that creates an usurmountable barrier. So, yeah, it's not definetly 'easy' for most beginners.

What I wish was explained to me at a younger age is the fact that there's nothing "special" about the black keys on a piano.

Musical keys are "mathematically" interchangeable. The physical keys that correspond to notes not in the key of C major (alternatively, A minor) are colored black for practical reasons. That is, for knowing one's place while playing the piano.

Fortunately I sorted this out in college, and I've enjoyed making music for my own enjoyment since.

>What I wish was explained to me at a younger age is the fact that there's nothing "special" about the black keys on a piano.

I wish we had pianos with slightly thinner keys (to allow for the same reach) but with same-level black and white keys.

It would make piano playing normalized (like e.g. bass playing is), and make learning scales, transposing, etc childs play.

It would probably still need some color or small "bump" on C to know where our hands are, but that would be it.

Of course there are also several hexagonal etc keyboards with similar normalized layouts, but they also haven't caught on.

OK, here is yet another musical representation method that you may find interesting (especially if you have a modern bent):

Take a tune, and now arrange some graph paper like the "note pattern view" in a sequencer, with one difference. Instead of arranging the pitches in the normal way, arrange them by the order they come in the tune. (so the first note of the tune will be the "lowest" pitch, second note the second "lowest" and so on.

You might see some interesting things that you didn't hear!

Probably Mozart would be a good target to do this with, and pop music would not, but I could be wrong on that. Possibly this is over your head, but possibly not.

Then if you want to add a ton more formalism, read a little about serialism, and apply this technique to a twelve tone piece. You will be rewarded for your efforts, as a previously difficult to follow piece makes much more sense. Doesn't mean you'll find it pleasing to listen to though.

You might also enjoy Hookpad (https://www.hooktheory.com/hookpad/new) and Theorytab (https://www.hooktheory.com/theorytab/view/daft-punk/get-luck...) for examples. Hooktheory taught me a lot.

Never seen that site before, very useful indeed! Whenever I see something like this I realise there's a world of sites out on the 'net that I'm missing out on, and a whole load of new ways to learn and demonstrate information like this.

I believe it's usually called a 'piano-roll'.

I agree. I used to compose small pieces with soundtrackers [1] and it was a lot of fun. However, I've never been able to learn staff notation system.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Soundtracker

I did barely learn some of staff notation at school, but Soundtracker was my tool of choice! Loved it. So many hours.

If you have an iPad lying around, I recently made an app called Composer's Sketchpad that uses this sort of notation to its fullest. You "draw" notes directly onto a logarithmic pitch grid, and instead of having to snap to the usual array of discrete piano-key pitches (ABCDEFG), you can start your notes at any point on the y-axis and arbitrarily pitch-bend them as you draw. I've found this to be the perfect interface for playing around with musical ideas, and particularly useful for writing out expressive solos — something staff notation is just terrible for!

Homepage: http://composerssketchpad.com

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypsLgTY8NXs

It's called a piano roll, after the 19th century player piano systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_roll

If you like the idea of making music by "drawing" it like this, and you have access to a Windows Machine, I'd recommend playing with FLStudio. With other DAWs I've found that it is more difficult to make music with just a mouse, not requiring real instruments, microphones and (maybe multiple) MIDI controllers.

I've been a Mac user for almost ten years now, but the lack of FLStudio for OSX makes me question that decision every six months or so.

Actually FLStudio has a beta of version 12 that can run on OS X (natively -- not a port based on Wine, although it had that too previously). It will be released sometime soon they say, mid-late 2016 or early 2017 is my guess.

But apart from that, you can do the same things (although less builtin tooling for electronic music, but still enough) with Garageband, and, if you don't have invested in VSTs/AUs, Reason.

Could you describe what about the FLStudio piano roll makes it more suitable for making scores with a mouse than other piano rolls?

10+ year FL vet here.

Most other DAW's have caught up with their piano roll implementation but I still like FL's the most. I think what makes it unique is its toolset -- as in, the toolbar up top -- as its modal editing workflow lets you add, delete, and then transform notes incredibly quickly. Most of these modes have a shortcut to get to them, and its easy to flip between them. It even has a chord option, which functions much in the same way as that hook tool. Other DAWs take a modal approach but in many cases they complicate their implementation.

It's also worth noting that FL is pattern-based, whereas most DAWs are not. ("Pattern-based" means you generally write music phrases/patterns and repeat them throughout the track, this is helpful for electronic dance music.) A repeating bassline pattern in FL is more akin to a series of symlinks back to the original file, whereas in Cubase and Logic, each of these repeats would be copies (unless you specify otherwise, but I found the implementation convoluted and troublesome.)

Most of the other DAWs I've worked with are much more fiddly and require messing with technical details and audio routing to get a good result. FL also requires this, but again the implementation is seamless, has sensible defaults, and stays out of your way until you need to mess with it. (In the middle of a good flow I have very little patience for routing.) I do not find this to be the case with Live, Cubase, or especially Logic... I put in an effort to learn each of these at some point and ultimately left to return to FL.

I've noticed DAWs tend to optimize around performances (Live), MIDI orchestration (Cubase, Logic), recording (ProTools, Reaper) or 'in-the-box' production (FL). All of the above have tools for composing by mouse but FL's workflow is optimized for this specific use-case.

Reason is optimized of ITB too.

Ah yes, Reason! It's been a while :)

This Note Pattern View is standard in all major DAWs :)

Tablature is another common notation system:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablature

For those that don't want to learn how to read proper notation, usually.

Perhaps, but Guitar Tab is one of the great equalizers of the internet - proper notation has typically cost money to access a copy, whereas Tab could spread in .txt format, small sizes, etc. Sure, they could be off or need the song to play along with, but that's the trade-off. Lastly, though it's a personal opinion, Guitar and "proper notation" are really only needed in the same sentence when playing Classical/Orchestra, Real Jazz, or as a Pro Studio Session Musician[1] - as in, very small, elite group of players. Most will get by just growing along with the instrument over the years, for which Tab helps a lot.

[1] Great studio guitarist Glen Campbell supposedly couldn't read music at all, just went along with what he heard and made it work; Tommy Tedesco by comparison could read sheet music upside down.

Ya, plenty of highly successful musicians and "composers" can't/couldn't read music, Paul McCartney being one of the most famous.

Joni Mitchell apparently didn't even use regular tab notation. She'd detune her guitar and annotate the relative pitch shift per string, e.g. D-2 G+1, etc or similar.

But luckily Paul McCartney had George Martin, who could do it very well :)

I agree, I just feel like it ends up as a crutch for a lot of musicians. For example, it isn't very specific in terms of rhythm so you get a lot of beginners who see that part of music as loose or unimportant.

But of course, up to a point, lowering barriers is always a good thing for beginners.

Depending on the style of tablature used, you can convey rhythm, and more. I'd say it can actually get more specific than staff notation when you allow for guitar specific notation, like all the different types of legato capable, harmonics, and specifying which string to play a note one (it makes a subtle difference).

Here's a screenshot I took of a random song in TuxGuitar (a GNU licensed tablature editor/viewer). You can see the rhythm fairly clearly, as well as the difference between pull-offs and slides.

http://i.imgur.com/bg9MitN.png

I disagree; guitar has multiple fingerings for each note or chord and it's not necessarily clear which one will be the simplest to use when given regular staff notation.

There's a huge jump in the complexity of how you need to reason about translating the music to the instrument with staff notation. Tabs solve this by explicitly telling the musician what fingering to use.

Guitar players should still learn to read music because it's useful, but anyone who wants a guitarist to play their music (especially by sight) should use a notation similar to tabs, but with rhythm indicated as well. Good software to convert between the two could be generally useful, but I imagine there is a bit of nuance to what fingerings sound the best.

Properly written tablature uses spacing to indicate rhythm.

Early lute music was mostly written in tablature FWIW. A lot of the renaissance repertoire is still published that way. It uses letters rather than numbers to represent the frets, which takes getting used to, and puts separate timing marks above the staff.

In other words, you haven't yet spent the time learning to read music, so you'd rather trash the system that evolved over several centuries and pretend that it's ridiculous.

Nothing has been "denied to you". You just haven't spent the time it takes to learn. Have foreign languages been "denied to you", too?

What, precisely, is ridiculous about music notation? It represents time, on the x axis, and pitch, on the y axis (on a basic level). Seems reasonably logical, to me.

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