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somattoday at 3:27 PM2 repliesview on HN

The fundamental problem in music notation is that it was designed for an 8 note system and we use a 12 note system. It's.. fine I guess, they got those extra four notes in there and millions of people read music with no problems. But it does create a lot of confusion for novice readers who now think those 8 notes are somehow more important than the other 4 or that the sharps and flats are somehow half notes(they are not, all 12 are equally spaced on a log scale) and don't even get me started on the confusing terminology, there are 12 notes in an octet, semitones? a fifth? a fifth of what? it is seven notes or 3/2's there is no 5.

With regard to the piano keyboard, again not terrible, but it definitely is a compromise to fit the mechanical needs of the piano. I really like the design of the chromatic keyboard(ever see an accordion with the big hex grid of buttons, this is a chromatic keyboard), it has the advantage that whatever key you play a song in it has the same fingering, on a piano every key has different fingering, so there is a big skill barrier to changing keys that interferes with employment of such a critical aspect of playing.


Replies

Liotoday at 3:39 PM

This is actually covered in the video. It's the "we should use a chromatic scale" argument and is surprisingly old.

The answer to why people don't use a chromatic scale is also in there. Very roughy, it's harder to sight read intervals between notes.

Standard music notation is a like a London Underground map, it's symbolic rather than literal.

Being more symbolic gives standard notation many advantages once you learn it.

The video does a much better job of explaining that than I've given. It really is very good.

ihujonigyintoday at 3:35 PM

To sum up: you don’t like the current notation system, terminology and piano keys but also don’t have anything else to add to the discussion other than “I don’t like it”.

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