Some thoughts on 'plain-music'

[dualB]

Hello!
I'm developing some Arduino libraries for teaching purposes, and in the last week I have developed my own musical notation to be able to quickly write score music to be played by a buzzer. It was a simple implementation (you can see it here : https://github.com/TechnoPhysCAL/TGP_Musicien). After that, I searched the web to see if any standard text notation was already existing, because I didn't want to reinvent the wheel. I found your notation (and I have found nothing else really suitable for my needs); coincidentally, many of my notation choices in my own library are very similar with yours.

So, I'm thinking of implementing your notation instead, so I have analyse it and here some thoughts I want to share with you:

• The use of 's' and 'l' for accidentals would not have been my first choice. First, I would have reserved letters only for note names (and rests): having 's' or 'l' mixed with c,d,e,f,g,a,b is less readable for the eye. Like you said, I thought first of '#' and 'b', but the problem is still there. I would suggest the stick with the universally known '#' and maybe another symbol for flats, something like '|', which can be written on the same key on the keyboard, with the '#', or on the numpad.
  -For octaves, the use of the symbol '^', on a french keyboard, is not fun too use, because when we push it, it doesn't print the symbol yet: you have push a vowel to make it appears (examples: ê, â, î, ô, û). To print only the symbol '^', you have to push it twice BUT it makes two '^^' symbols appears (you then have to erase one..). It is not straightforward to use '^' when you want a simple one key=>on symbol. For this concern, I would change it, maybe '*', also available on the numpad.
  -Last thought for now : do you have a better name for it? 'plain music' sounds...well, plain. Maybe something with 'simple' or 'notation', I really don't know.

That's it for now, have a nice day!
Claude

[PelleJuul]

Hi Claude,

Thank you for your thoughts. It seems like a cool project that you're working on.
Regarding your comments

• The use of 's' and 'l' for accidentals I agree, it would be better to use the conventional # and some other symbol for flats.
• About octaves I'm using a Danish keyboard, which deals with the '^' the same way as the french. However, on my system can type '^' followed by right arrow. Still slightly annoying, but not too bad. I'm not sure how I feel about using '*' since, to me, it has some very different connotations compared to '^', which looks like an upwards arrow.
• plain music might be a bit "plain" as you say. I've recently worked on a language very much like plain music, but simpler, which I call Munola

It's been a long time since I've worked actively on plain music. However, I recently had a need for language like plain music, only simpler. That language, called Munola, is described in the PDF file I've attached. I'm gonna make a repository for that language sometime soon, but if you're interested I can share the parse that I've written in C++.

munola.pdf

[dualB]

Hi Pelle,

Thanks for you comments. I finally come up with a new notation which borrow some of your items (like grouping); since I'm want to produce single melody and sound, I decided to focus on stuff that affects pitch, duration, intensity and repetition.

You will be able to see it when it will be completed on my Github page.

Thanks again,
Claude.