Re: simplifying chromatic scale notation

[Urs Liska]

Am 26.01.2016 um 00:05 schrieb musicus:

@Simon: I was not aware of Clairnote, but that direction was not my intention...

@Kieren: I agree with you regarding reading...
my point is that this notation could help to understand and remember the structure.
Especially in modern/ contemporary music there are many cases with limited justification for complicated notation .
"THIS is soo simple, why didn't the composer use an easy way to notate it, so that i don't have to put so much effort in reading and learning it??"


Attached a short excerpt of Liszt's Mephisto waltz... Maybe you cannot play this without calculating a bit, but you definitily will get the anomaly of the line immediately.

This is a perfect example why I severely doubt this works.
It is immediately clear that (e.g.) the second measure features a *scale* with a d sharp somewhere. But which notes *exactly* are to be played is totally unclear.
The notation suggest as much that the second measure starts with an a as it suggests an ais. And if I look at that sequence I would immediately say that between the third and fourth note there is a whole tone and not a semi-tone.

The main problem is that I have to *estimate* where the "notehead" is printed and what that means. And if that's intentional or inexact. This definitely does *not* make it easier to read, quite the contrary: it adds ambiguity and room for misreading. This notation looks like (and would IMO be more appropriate for) an inexact and somewhat aleatoric notation where the written notes only approximate the intended "outline" of a melody.
Not giving a pitch an exact position (such as *on* or *between* staff lines) guarantees ambiguity.

A much more consistent approach to what you suggest would be (as was discussed recently) a notation where each chromatic pitch has its own place on the staff, i.e. a system with more lines. This is unambiguous - but I doubt that it makes reading easier either.

My 2cts
Urs

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