Other Alternative Notations vs WYSIWYP for Beginners

Some history of alternative notations.  The search for a simpler system has continued for centuries.  Gardner Read’s Source Book of Proposed Music Notation Reforms (here on Amazon) lists hundreds of proposed reforms dating from 1702 up to 1987.  Most proposals focus on the issues of inconsistent staff lines and key signatures.  Fewer proposals address the issues relating to rhythm.  

The Music Notation Modernization Association (1985 – 2007) mainly focused on the first two challenges with traditional notation: inconsistent staff lines and the use of key signatures.   Almost all of the designs featured on the MNMA website are chromatic wherein all twelve notes in the scale have an equal position on the staff.  Hundreds of other Alternative Notations past and present have been examined, catalogued, and presented on their website for public review. 

What is clear from these collections, though, is that the difficulty of reading sheet music has been recognized for centuries and that new proposals continue to this day. I have reviewed them all and in general they have consistent and logical designs for octaves any of which may appeal to some musicians.  However, in my opinion, none would be good candidates for beginners either because they are not intuitive or are not easy to read even though they are logical in design.  Most do not provide mapping to the keyboard.  Unfortunately, very few address the challenge of symbolic rhythm elements.  This is not to say that someone won’t find their perfect system in there somewhere though since taste is an individual matter.  But even if you wanted to try one out, almost none of them have an inventory of sheet music available.  

In stark contrast to the traditional notation’s horizontal timeline, the Klavarskribo time dimension is vertical.  This permits the sheet music page on the piano stand to line up visually with the keyboard.  Note duration is indicated by the placement of noteheads on a true timeline.  "Count lines" indicate beats (dashed horizontal lines) in a measure (indicated by solid horizontal lines).   A note's duration continues until the onset of the next notehead in time, unless otherwise notated (I'll not go into that much detail here).

The differences between traditional and Klavarskribo are stark.  Learning one would not help much in learning the other.

However, as effective as it is, it is my opinion that Klavarskribo has two barriers for many students.  One is its vertical timeline orientation.  In the domains of math and engineering, a timeline is usually depicted horizontally from left to right.  And Western cultures read text left to right.  Thus, vertical orientation is less suitable for displaying lyrics.  In addition, people tend to visualize tones as going up and down, not side to side.  

The other barrier is due to Klavarskribo's chromatic staff with dedicated positions for all twelve degrees.  As a result, the sheet music can be quite wide for scores with increased numbers of octaves.  And this leads to a large number of staff lines and spaces which can be a challenge to interpret by a beginner.  However, it is still easier than tradition notation in my opinion.  I would say if works for you and you have no intention of learning traditional notation, then use it.

In spite of these two issues, at its peak, Klavarskribo had tens of thousands of adherents and was taught in the Netherlands’ public schools.  Perhaps had the internet been available during its heyday, it might have more widely spread to other regions.  Nevertheless, the project is ongoing today, after nearly 100 years, and has an active community on Facebook.  There are many lifelong users of this alternative notation. This is proof that many players want a simpler approach than the traditional. 

From a project standpoint, I believe Klavarskribo is a model to be emulated.  For the inventor Cornelis Pot (who died in 1977), getting Klavarskribo into the music mainstream was a lifelong project and dream.  Being a wealthy industrialist in the Netherlands, he had the financial means to fund a project staff to develop correspondence courses (starting in the 1930s) to teach students how to play keyboard instruments.  Mr. Pot was a tireless promoter of his design for decades. His project also set up a printing facility to produce a large inventory of piano and organ sheet music for sale by mail. 

To date, it is the only Alternative Notation to be adopted by a significant audience (over 10,000 mainly in the Netherlands and Northern Europe).  But the story of Klavarskribo is proof that with great dedication, promotion, and financing (or I hope, by enthusiastic volunteerism), an alternative notation project can be successful.  And the three essential elements for project success are:

1.       Availability of sheet music

2.       Instruction

3.       Promotion

 This is the exceptional case that demonstrates Alternative Notations can indeed be viable if properly designed, promoted, and supported. 

WYSIWYP  

Many other alternative notations solve at least two of the three main challenges of reading TN.  And virtually all of them offer a consistent and logical solution to the challenges of traditional notation.  So why is WYSIWYP easier to read than these?  I would suggest it's because:

• There are fewer lines on the octave (and thus the staff) to interpret.

• The staff lines map to the keyboard.

• Rhythm is visually intuitive.

The vast majority of alternatives are based on a chromatic octave staff design to remove the need for key signatures.  Like WYSIWYP, they also have the same format across all octaves.  A chromatic approach would seem like the obvious fix to a problem caused by not expanding the diatonic system of the Middle Ages to a full chromatic system where all twelve scale degrees have an equal place on the staff. 

But how do you best define staff lines to make note recognition possible on this wider staff?  This is the focus of most chromatic designers as seen on the MNMA website mentioned above.  There are hundreds of different proposals (as laid out in the sources cited above) with every imaginable combination of lines, legers and spaces. But in my own experience, I find that twelve lines and spaces are too much to quickly process for even a single octave.  There is even some cognitive research that indicates that the optimum number of objects an average human can hold in short-term memory is seven plus or minus two (see: The Magical Number Seven Plus or Minus Two).  

And once you start stacking up octaves to accommodate the entire range of a score, I think the number of lines and spaces can feel overwhelming to a beginning student.  In contrast, WYSIWYP's diatonic octave has only two lines.  The red and blue lines map to the C and F keys on the keyboard.  Naturals, sharps and flats are indicated by notehead shape.  In my view, making the real-time playing adjustments for sharps and flats on a 7 position diatonic octave is a better tradeoff than reading a more complicated octave with 12 dedicated staff positions. (I acknowledge this may not be everyone's choice and so while I advocate for my design, I believe there is no one solution that will satisfy everyone.  Therefore, I believe there is room in the music world for other alternative notations from which to choose because there is no one-size-fits-all solution possible.

As with Klavarskribo, WYSIWYP uses of a true timeline so that distance between consecutive noteheads in time indicates note duration.  But I believe the distance is more clearly seen by the use of “stripes” (WYSIWYP's notetails) which are visually intuitive.   

Thanks to Cornelis Pot, Klavarskribo had a fully funded project and an enthusiastic promotor.  Alas, WYSIWYP has only the latter but this barrier could be solved with some enthusiastic volunteers (but I'm getting ahead of myself before the full pitch).