The Music Notation Project

The Music Notation Project

is a not-for-profit association dedicated to raising awareness of the disadvantages of traditional music notation, exploring alternative music notation systems, and providing resources for the wider consideration and use of these alternatives. We hope our efforts will help make reading, writing, and playing music more enjoyable and easier to learn.

Improving Upon Traditional Music Notation: Chromatic Staves

Many people struggle to learn to read and play music using traditional western music notation. Many even give up before they become proficient at it. Could a better music notation make a big difference? We think so.

This is a basic five-line chromatic staff. Notice how each of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale is given its own line or space on the staff. Chromatic staves come in many different varieties. We are using this basic five-line version just to introduce the concept, not to suggest that it is preferable to other versions.[1] Here is the same chromatic scale on a traditional staff:

Each note does not have its own position on the traditional staff. This is because the staff is based on the diatonic pattern of notes from only one key, the key of C major (the white keys on the piano). Only these seven notes have their own line or space, leaving five notes (the black keys) that must be represented by altering the other notes with sharp or flat signs, either in the key signature or as an accidental.

Music notation systems that use a chromatic staff offer significant advantages over traditional music notation, and can make music easier to read, play, understand, and enjoy. In what follows we will show how these chromatic staff notation systems improve upon traditional music notation in several important areas:

• Key Signatures
• Accidentals
• Clefs and Octaves
• Interval Relationships

Note that we are not promoting one particular alternative music notation system, but seek to educate our visitors about a variety of such systems and the principles on which they are based.

Key Signatures

Since the traditional staff is based upon C major and closely related tonalities, it makes other keys and tonalities more difficult to read, even if they are just as easy to physically play on a given instrument. To become proficient in all keys one must master fifteen different key signatures which are progressively more complex and difficult to learn.

With a chromatic staff there is no need to remember a key signature in order to play the right notes. Each note is directly identifiable based solely on its position on the staff. What you see is what you get, and all of the keys are equally easy to read and play.

In traditional notation, key signatures not only alter the pitches of the lines and spaces but also alert the reader to the music's predominant key. With a chromatic staff, a much simpler key signature system can be used for the latter purpose, letting the musician know which notes to expect.

Accidentals

Traditional notation employs accidental signs (flat, sharp, double flat, double sharp, natural) to represent notes that fall outside of the current key signature. This can become visually challenging when reading music that requires many accidental signs, especially if it is in an unfamiliar and complex key signature.

The rule that an accidental sign applies to a given pitch until the end of the measure, unless it is cancelled by another one, opens up room for mistakes and gives the musician one more thing to remember. Often there is confusion about whether an accidental applies to other octaves of the same note (it generally does not).

On a chromatic staff accidental signs are not needed since normal and accidental notes each have their own unique position on the staff. This makes it easy to identify them and to see how they relate to surrounding notes. Optionally, accidentals can still be indicated by a new symbol that does not affect the note's pitch, but simply functions as a reminder that a note falls outside of the current key signature.

Clefs and Octaves

Traditional notation is commonly written in four clefs: treble, bass, alto, and tenor. Except for the clef signs, the staves that accompany these clefs look identical, but represent different sets of notes. Keyboard players have the challenge of learning to read both bass and treble clefs at the same time. Also, key signatures appear at a different vertical position in each of the different clefs (see key signatures above).

On a traditional staff, two notes an octave apart bear no visual resemblance to each other. In the illustration above, notice how the E on the bottom line of the treble clef does not resemble the E in the top space. On chromatic staves like the one below, notes always appears in their own unique place on the staff, and so always have the same appearance regardless of the octave.

This consistency makes notes easier to identify. It works because all chromatic staves cycle on the octave, which contains the even number of 12 chromatic notes rather than the odd number of 7 diatonic notes. Instead of different clefs that change which notes go on which lines and spaces of the staff, an octave or register symbol can simply indicate a staff's pitch range.

Interval Relationships

Traditional notation obscures the interval relationships between notes. Notice how whole steps and half steps are visually indistinguishable in the image above, as are major and minor thirds. A major scale (a series of whole steps and half steps) appears as a regular sequence, while a whole tone scale (a series of identical whole steps) appears as an irregular sequence. What one sees does not fully and intuitively match what one hears and what one must play.

To fully identify an interval one must take into account the current clef sign, key signature, and any accidentals, going through the mental procedure of calculating the names of the individual notes before their interval relationship can be determined.

This makes it much more difficult to play by reading the intervals between the notes, and has implications for learning to improvise or play by ear -- skills which largely entail playing by interval relationships. It also has implications for understanding harmony, music theory, and the common interval patterns prevalent within any musical work, genre, or tradition.

Chromatic staves give a consistent and accurate representation of the intervals between notes. Compare the two major scales above. Notice how it is easy to distinguish between half step and whole step intervals on the chromatic staff, and how there is no visual distinction between these melodic intervals on the traditional staff. Chromatic staves make it much easier to recognize and understand these and other important diatonic intervals such as major and minor thirds and the chords that are built from them. This clearer representation of intervallic structures simplifies the comprehension of harmony and music theory.

While it may seem that chromatic staves are best suited for atonal, non-diatonic music, they actually do much better than traditional notation at representing the diatonic interval patterns that are the basis of tonal music. While diatonic patterns are built into the traditional staff, obscured from view and from awareness, a chromatic staff makes these diatonic patterns explicit and easy to perceive and understand.

See our Intervals Tutorial to compare how all the different intervals appear in traditional notation and in various alternative notations with chromatic staves.

Chromatic Staves: A Better Approach to Music Notation

All of these features of traditional music notation combine to make reading music much more difficult than it might be with a better notation system. For an analogy, imagine trying to do arithmetic with Roman numerals. It can be done, but the notation system makes a big difference. Of course it is important to view traditional notation in its broader historical context and to keep in mind the innovations and reforms that it has undergone over time. [3]

Alternative music notation systems with chromatic staves avoid each of these pitch-related difficulties, and offer significant advantages over traditional music notation. [4]

 

Next: Tutorials - Learn about various approaches to alternative music notation.

Or: Music Notations - Check out some alternative notation systems.