MNMA Research Project: Results in Brief

This research project spanned many years.  In summary, more than five hundred notations were collected and presented in the Directory of Music Notation Proposals. Forty-five of these notations passed successfully through step two. Thirty-seven passed successfully through step three (see list below). The responses from the seven musicians participating in step four were analyzed and presented in the "Report on the Results of the MNMA Evaluation Test." An excerpt from this report has been included on our website. The full text was published in the Second Quarter 2000 issue of Music Notation News. 

Although the results were not as conclusive as had been hoped, much was learned from the study.  There were two notation systems that were the most highly rated:

• Thomas Reed's Twinline, a variant of Leo de Vries's Chromatic Twinline notation.
• Richard Parncutt's 6-6 Tetragram, considered jointly with Albert Brennink's A-B Chromatic Notation, of which it is a minor variant.

The complete responses from each musician who participated in step four were subsequently published in full detail in various issues of Music Notation News, including illustrations of their transcriptions.

 

Below are the thirty-seven notation systems that passed the seventeen screens of steps two and three and were then evaluated by seven musicians in step four. They are sorted by their average score as awarded by the musician-evaluators, with the highest-rated systems shown first.

The MNMA does not claim that this ordering should be considered authoritative, but it does provide a cursory look at the thinking of the seven evaluators. Note that all seven musicians were well-versed in traditional notation, which would inevitably have an impact on their impressions, as compared with beginners. For a more detailed and thorough look at the results we encourage those interested to consult the full "Report on the Results of the MNMA Evaluation Test" in the second quarter 2000 issue of Music Notation News.

Click on the chromatic scales to learn more about these notations.

 

• Twinline by Thomas Reed
• A-B Chromatic Notation by Albert Brennink
• 6-6 Tetragram by Richard Parncutt
• NotaGraph by Constance Virtue
• DA Notation by Rich Reed
• Untitled by Heinrich Richter
  (one of several 5-line notations)
• Untitled by Johann Ailler
• C-Symmetrical Semitone Notation by Ronald Sadlier
• 
  Untitled by Hermann-Josef Wilberrt
  Untitled by Lukas Brandt
  Volksnotenschrift (People's Notation) by Hans Sacher
  Untitled by Kazimierz Wolf
  A Simplified Music Notation by Edward V. Huntington
  Untitled by Karl Bernhard Schumann
  12-tone Scale from 6 Lines by Heinrich Vincent
  
  (All 5-line notations with identical staves
  whose average scores were very close.)
• Notation Godjevatz by Velizar Godjevatz
• Diatonic Twinline by Leo de Vries
• Untitled by Grace Frix
• Untitled by Franz Grassl
• Ambros System by August Ambros
• Chromatic Twinline by Leo de Vries
• Isomorph Notation by Tadeusz Wojcik
• Note for Note by Walter H. Thelwall
• 0-5-7 Notation by Richard Parncutt
• Douzave System by John Leon Acheson
• Seven-tone or Twelve-tone Notation by Hans Krenn
• Panot Notation by George Skapski
• Proportional Chromatic Musical Notation by Henri Carcelle
  (a vertically oriented notation)
• Notation for the System of Equal Tones Applied to the Chromatic Keyboard by Gustave Decher
• Untitled by Klaus Lieber
• Chromatic 6-6 Notation by Johannes Beyreuther
• 6-6 Klavar by Cornelis Pot
  (a vertically oriented notation)
• Avique Notation by Anne & Bill Collins
• Untitled by Arnold Schoenberg
• Untitled by Johannes Beyreuther
• Untitled by Robert Stuckey
• Untitled by Nicolai Dolmatov

A number of notation systems that are now presented on our website under Music Notations were not included in this research because they were designed after it was completed in 1999 or were unknown to the MNMA at the time. (MUTO and Bilinear fall into the latter category.) See Music Notations Sorted by Date for more information.