Originally Posted By: GHinCH
Originally Posted By: ZeroZero
You have some good points, but the vehicle "classical notation" is not realy fit for purpose. I once saw someone try to notate a sax solo exactly, they ended up with a mess of hemi-demi-semiquavers, Notation is VERY bad at many things.


So is almost any written language. Whatever expression in any language you chisel in stone shows almost no emotion and expression. Yes, there are tricks of the trade to give a hint. But for real expression and often for making sense you need to add another dimension.

In German we have a phrase "Was willst Du schon wieder?" I translate that word by word into "What want you already again?" The sense is in the emphasis of a single word and the pauses between the words ranging from a disturbed "What is it that you do want?" over a forgotten request "What do you want again?" to a surprised "What was it that you wanted?" and a few others to the final "What? You want again? Now?" with wide open eyes after wildly dancing horizontally... (The order of the words doesn't change in the German example.)

Musical notation is the same. There are a few dots and circles indicating (!) what to play. Other times, especially in classical music, they are more rigid. Sometimes there is a hint "lively" or "shuffle" or such things, sometimes there is a tempo given. We as musicians translate this into either a copy of something existing or we transfer it into our own piece of music. One example that I remember is the song Don't Be Cruel. Elvis made the song his with his rendition, and Billy Swan made it also his in a totally different way. The original sheet music was only the conveying agent of an idea that has been interpreted differently.



Who/what drives kids away from music education?
Probably teachers to a major part -- choosing the wrong music, choosing the wrong method. For a minor part, kids have stronger talents and interests in other fields. For a very small part there are the musically illiterate kids.

Yet it's still true that, imagining you are a five year old, and you see a note - say this one

[img]http://www.oratoryprep.co.uk/uf/00056_c283f1b34d7c/images/imagemanager/3rd_line_b.png

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You don't even know what it is, unless you look elsewhere (clef) and then perhaps do some mental calculations. It can be any type of note depending on whether it's transposed, whether its treble clef, bass clef, or any other number of clefs. Even if you know the note is a B (as I was tught it was on trumpet) it might actually be a Db, which can also be called a C# or even B##.

Confused?

The line going up (stem) does not signify much either (it could also go down) and its ever so easy to have your eyes scan a wrong line, if you are watiching fast. When you look at them in clusters, with beams, accents and all, they get even more confusing to the eye. What the learner needs to really understand (as oppossed to know) is the role of that note (root, ...third), in the harmony of the piece. All of these perambulations above dont tell you this, and this is the MOST essential information along with length (in classical music the length of a note is often not notated correctly.

Yes it is possible to play without knowing the function of a note, but it's like a person knows another, by only looking at photographs, never meeting them in the flesh, it's all too flat and two dimensional. It can even be misleading .. IMO smile

Last edited by ZeroZero; 10/09/15 03:27 AM.
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