Facilitating reading sheet music
Hello,
In order to help me reading sheet music for piano & voice more efficiently, I would like to change the appearance of all non-naturals (including accidentals) in addition to the key signature:
- all flats red and a shape indicating the centre of gravity being a tad lower,
- all sharps green and a shape indicating the centre of gravity being a tad higher.
Notes can already be coloured, and I can do the colour coding on a note-by-note basis, but could there be a configurable scheme for note colours and heads?
Kind regards,
peter
Context
After 40 years or so playing the piano, on and off, I still find it hard to read sheet music, let along real-time sight reading. At some point in the past I simply asked my sister to play a piece for me and I learned it by ear; but that is not realy scalable. I wonder what could be done to make reading sheet music easier. In order to come up with mitigation strategies, I need to understand the obstacles first. To me, with an engineering and scientific mindset, and perhaps somewhat on the autistic spectrum, the issues are as follows (based on my understanding of the evolution of the European notation system, https://medium.com/@peter-wurmsdobler/european-music-notation-history-d…).
The initial notation system by Guido of Arezzo created a more or less bijective system mapping symbols to notes in a one-to-one fashion; as music evolved and became more complex, more notes were added to the scale through "modifiers" such as flat and sharps. These as well as key signatures introduced a one-to-many mapping of a symbol to the actual note to be played or sung: a certain position on the staff results in different notes as a function of the key signature. This effect is exacerbated by the existence of different clefs. All together results in a higher cognitive load when parsing sheet music: the note to be played is a function of absolute staff position as well as context (clef and key signature).
As an engineer I would say, that once all twelve tones were established in conjunction with the equal temperament, there would have been the opportunity to come up with a better system; this was probably a century or so before Bach when the amount of complex written music and legacy was not that large yet. Perhaps there were even attempts I am not aware of. The notation system predicament is very similar to the transition from 7-bit ASCII characters, over 8bit ASCII characters allowing language (=context) specific characters depending on the key maps resuling in funny characters, and eventually to unicode as a superset including 7-bit ASCII.
Most musicians have learned to cope with the shortcomings of the established notation system; given the existing wealth of sheet music in this system, and the fact that this system is engrained in most education (including myself), it would be difficult to un-learn that, learn a new system and transscribe all music, even if a better system was around, such as a horizontal version of Klavarskribo. The only way now is to get over and on with it. Nevertheless, perhaps small modification that address the shortcomings could lower the entrance barrier for me and all others who struggle with reading music:
- only use one clef with a shift in multiples of an octave as necessary, e.g. for piano staves the treble clef for the top (right hand) and treble clef offset by two octaves for the bottom (left hand),
- in addition to the key signature, all non-naturals (including accidentals) are colour and shape coded in a configurable manner allowing a unique one-to-one mapping between symbol and note.
Comments
The coloring should be easy, select one sharp or flat, right-click, more , same suptype, color them
Likewhise with positioning
In reply to The coloring should be easy,… by Jojo-Schmitz
Hello Jojo, thanks for the suggestion. I am aware of that for individual notes as this is what I am doing; however, I wondered if a common colour/head scheme can be applied to all, e.g. through a plugin like the colour-notes one.
Cheers, peter.
In reply to Hello Jojo, thanks for the… by Peter Wurmsdobler
Yes, a plugin should be able to do that too
In reply to Yes, a plugin should be able… by Jojo-Schmitz
Jojo, may I ask what would be required to do that?
Or in other words, how hard is it to write a plugin, is it a matter of writing a configuration file, say json or qml, or a script, say python, or does it need to be compiled code, perhaps C++?
Cheers,
peter
In reply to Jojo, may I ask what would… by Peter Wurmsdobler
qml
In reply to Jojo, may I ask what would… by Peter Wurmsdobler
You could start by downloading similar plugins (musescore.org/en/plugins). Then tinker from there.
Also perplexity.ai was eerily effective for me ...
EDIT: you may need to use v3.xx as I believe Studio does not yet have full plugin support.
In reply to You could start by… by BanjoJake
Thanks for the hint; as it happens, there is https://musescore.org/en/project/color-all-half-step-notes-sharps-flats… , perhaps a good starting point if not already the solution.
In reply to You could start by… by BanjoJake
Esp. 4.4 broke most plugins
I'm an engineer, like you. Pretty sure my problems with sight-reading are different, but here is my approach FWIW, which Musescore makes easy: I never use key signatures nor flats. Every accidental is a sharp, and is notated explicitly (ie, 100% courtesy sharps).
I adopted this approach because I play for contradances which switch tunes instantly within a set. The tunes often are in different keys, and I had trouble catching the change in key signature; And because I also play Klezmer music, which uses weird modes and often nonstandard key signatures, eg combining sharps and flats.
Caveat: I have had zero formal musical training.
In reply to I'm an engineer, like you. … by BanjoJake
Hello, your approach is very pragmatic and does certainly work.
If I am not mistaken, Musescore does allow to present all notes as accidentals, but perhaps my knowledge is rather incidental on that.
peter