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This Mirck version of Klavar notation is Jean de Buur’s horizontal and pitch-proportional variation on Cornelis Pot’s original design. Both the five-line staff and the notehead coloration have a 7-5 pattern. The notes in the spaces between the lines are the notes of the C major scale (the white piano keys), and are also distinguished by having white noteheads. The notes falling on the lines are the the other five notes of the chromatic scale (the black piano keys) and are distinguished by having black noteheads.
Between the groups of two and three lines, there are two adjacent spaces without a line separating them. In the official vertical version of Klavar this distance is a full 2 spaces, so that noteheads on E and F, or on B and C, do not overlap vertically — just like the other space notes that do have a line (and a note) separating them. This irregularity keeps the standard Klavar staff from being pitch-proportional. (It is instead proportional to the piano keyboard, which is not pitch-proportional either.) In the Mirck version the distance between the groups of two and three lines has been adjusted to the equivalent of 1.5 spaces (instead of 2), which makes the distances between neighboring notes of the chromatic scale even and pitch-proportional.
As in Klavar, the noteheads are circular, the group of three lines is slightly darker than the group of two lines, and rhythmic notation is proportional, with the distance between note stems indicating the timing of each note. However, while Klavar always locates black notes on one side of the stem and white notes on the other, in Mirck notation all the notes generally appear on the right side of the stem. This allows the spacing between the noteheads to mirror that of the stems, which reinforces and makes clearer the proportional rhythmic spacing. An exception is made for harmonic intervals and chords, where the black notes always appear on the left and the white notes on the right.
There is an accompanying note naming scheme based upon the standard Solfege system, but with novel names for the five black key notes. Like Solfege it can be used as a “fixed do” or “movable do” nomenclature.
do – dos – re – res – mi – fa – fas – sol – sos – la – las – si – do
Source: Jean de Buur, first published June 2006
Similar Notations: 6-6 Klavar by Cornelis Pot, Isomorph Notation by Tadeusz Wójcik, ChromaTonnetz, Express Stave, Diatonic Twinline Notation, Klavar, Dekker Version by Antoon Dekker
Miscellaneous examples: Major Scale Comparison Triad Comparison
