note name notation?
Hi,
im wondering if a notation could be arrived at, similar to the example , attached.
Its based on they way Cecil Taylor presented his material to us when I worked with him (though Cecil usually wouldnt notate rhythm; we learned the phrasing in rehearsals).
It has some advantages, particularly when material has to be adaptable to different ensemble configurations, for example:
A) clefs arent needed;
B) the lines within complex chord movements can be assigned to various players as the ensemble changes.
while I can write this out by hand, it would be useful to have it in Musescore for instrument transposition.
i ve already read the thread on notating unmetered music, so thats not a problem.
the question is how to replace the note heads. There is under Master Palette - > Symbols, a palette for "Note Name Noteheads," which is similar, but it operates as symbols that you add in addition to note insertion, it doesnt replace the note head itself. Ideally I'd like the actual notehead to disappear and just see the letter .
also, would there be a way to suppress the actual stave lines?
thanks,
Mustafa
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Comments
still hopeful someone can suggest some ideas on this. I did find a few threads on solfa notation, which is getting closer, but it id rather the noteheads themselves not appear, just the letters.
any thoughts?
In reply to still hopeful someone can… by Mustafa Stefan Dill
Here's a possibility:
Enter the notes normally. Select all the notes. (For example, click the first, then Shift+click the last.) Open the Properties tab at upper left. Go to Properties / Note / Head / Show more. Under Notehead scheme set it to "Pitch names" and under "Override visual duration" set them all to the half note shape.
This makes the pitch names much easier to see. I'll prolly use it the next time I need to use solfège as well.
[A few moments later] You can also make the staff lines be, at least, very thin: Format / Style / Score and then set the Staff line thickness to "0.00sp". They do not disappear from the screen, but they become as thin as possible: looks like 1 pixel at any zoom level? Might not be visible when printed? (I didn't try.)
But I must say, trying to emulate a bit of hand-written stuff? The whole point of notation is to make it easy to read, not more difficult!!! I would make a small bet that the guy you got it from simply scrawled this down quickly and, as soon as he could, notated it normally. You just got it before he could get to notating it. (Only a small bet though :-)
In reply to Here's a possibility: Enter… by TheHutch
Hi Hutch,
thanks so much for these tips, I'll give both of these a try!...
and it would be a small bet :) he worked for years exclusively with that notation, much more carefully and elegantly drafted than the scrawl I did as an example for this thread. In addition to the flexibility as described, philosophically he felt traditional notation was an obstacle, that there was too much mental decoding of the symbology -even in real time- that impeded the path of really feeling the note and the sound and intention... he was looking for a more direct way of transmission.
He was a titan in the free jazz/improvised music sphere, so thats the context. He'd hand out the sheets, sit at the piano and play the passages while we shadowed and absorbed the phrasing and timing. ...
In reply to Hi Hutch, thanks so much… by Mustafa Stefan Dill
IMO, any kind of notation is equally an obstacle to "feeling the note and the sound and intention". These letter names are no more a "direct way of transmission" than the strictest Western notation. Notation--whether standard or any kind of personal system--is not intended for "feeling the note and the sound and intention". That's what hearing the music does.
Notation is intended to communicate with other musicians. Western notation certainly doesn't do it perfectly but it's no worse than these letters ... and no better either ... except when you need to communicate to another musician who cannot attend a meeting like you are describing. That's when you need a standard way of describing the music. And, isn't that what you are doing?