Show HN: XY Music Notation

(music.xy.dev)

12 points | by jmole 1 hour ago

6 comments

  • mrob 8 minutes ago
    I like the use of base 12, but IMO it's somewhat wasted on a diatonic staff. This is basically just traditional notation with special coloring to make it easier to read. To better match the keyboard, I'd rather use an isomorphic staff (a.k.a. "chromatic staff", although I dislike that name because it implies diatonic music as a default).

    There's a web site you might be interested in with many examples of isomorphic notation at:

    https://musicnotation.org/

  • erelong 8 minutes ago
    relatedly does anyone have a tool to generate piano synthesia videos from sheet music, maybe with or without AI? They seem fun to play along with. (I'll just look it up, commenting to share the idea too though)
  • skybrian 22 minutes ago
    I think you’d be better off with something compatible with an existing system. Perhaps start with nashville numbering and add accidentals?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_Number_System

  • bennettnate5 35 minutes ago
    It took me a while to understand what the numbers were actually trying to indicate (in part because I'm used to numbers in sheet music being suggestions of which finger should play the given note). If I understand correctly now, are you numbering zero-indexed with C as the beginning (0) and B as the end (Y), as a proxy for remembering which key notes are meant to be played in?
    • jmole 28 minutes ago
      That's right - so a major triad in C would be (0-4-7), or a B-flat minor triad would be (X-1-5).

      It's not required that the pitch notation is absolute though, e.g. you can transpose the numeric notation to any key (e.g., use A == 0 instead of C ==0)

  • BalinKing 26 minutes ago
    What does "isomorphic" mean?
    • jmole 23 minutes ago
      Iso - same, morphic - shape.

      Basically it uses a regular pattern of keys, instead of staggering keys into pentatonic and diatonic scales, like a piano does.

      This makes it harder to "find" the diatonic scales, but easier to transpose between different keys.

      You can see an example here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kMD1qXtDAdg

      • mrob 17 minutes ago
        It's also easier to learn because there's one consistent mapping between notes on the page and the sound, instead of many different irregular mappings specified by "key signatures".

        But traditional notation is more compact, and for music based around diatonic scales, implies information about the harmonic function of notes that could be useful for interpretation.

  • archonis 41 minutes ago
    Site is illegible on mobile.
    • jmole 18 minutes ago
      Sorry about that, it's fixed now.