Quote:
Originally Posted by adXok
You know... That if we had named only 6 of the notes, and give the other 6 their sharp (♯), flat (♭), and natural (♮) symbols, we could've had reduced the staff to become even more compact vertically. 
Erm... the same way you start from the lowest note and stack them vertically. I know you would point out that doing it so will place the notes of the chords on a different row, hence - in a different octave range, correct? Well, not exactly because it would be:
1 - impossible to play
2 - they have grouping lines where also you coudl specify the root note and also if it is in a form of a [<chord> over a <base note>]
3 - spelling the chords can be done in a usual horizontal writing (it is shown in the examples - photos)
Not sure what do you mean here... |
We could use any arbitrary number of letters and modifiers, but it makes sense to use 7 letters for diatonic based music.
To be clear to others about what we are talking about here, a link to the Plain Notation System:
http://musicnotation.org/wiki/plain-notation-system/
How for example do you differentiate between these two chord shapes in Plain Notation? (guitar tablature)
Code:
----0
-----
-----
2----
2---2
3---3
What I mean by throwing out visual patterns, is that with dots on lines and spaces, there are common vertical spacings between dots across all keys. Sight-readers learn to recognize those patterns, reading pitch in vertical patterns rather than only in pitch names (or pitch symbols). For example, the horizontal move from root to third has a specific spacing between dots, and the dot spacings of triads has a specific spacing pattern. In a single line system, these visual patterns are thrown away. See for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8emRWuhw1ws&t=4m34s
Edit: Changed video url (better example)