Many people feel that western notation makes it unnecessarily hard to read music. If we want to sight read, learn music theory or just practice an instrument, surely there's a better way? Right? This has been a hot topic for almost 1000 years... AND I PUT IT TO BED RIGHT HERE!

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Subtitles by Pentameron

---------- CHAPTERS ----------

00:00 - Setting the stage
09:26 - Notation must die INTRO!
15:12 - Ancient Greek notation
19:40 - The history of western notation
31:57 - Chromatic staves
36:15 - The piano roll
42:54 - Clefs (and resistance to change)
44:42 - Muto method
46:45 - Notation & the aristocracy
48:25 - Tablature
51:40 - Guitar Hero
52:51 - Klavarskribo
54:08 - Other types of keyboard notation
55:47 - Musitude!
1:01:18 - Dodeca
1:03:01 - Accessibility
1:04:31 - Farbige Noten
1:06:49 - Jullian Carrillo's system
1:08:26 - The best of the rest
1:11:52 - Where can we go from here?


---------- BIBLIOGRAPHY ----------

BOOKS

Julian Carrillo: Sistema General de Escritura Musical (Mexico City: Ediciones Sonidos 13, 1895)

Charles Francis Abdy Williams: The Story of Notation (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1903)
https://archive.org/details/storynotation00willgoog/page/n28/mode/2up

Willi Apel: The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900-1600 (The Mediaeval Academy of America, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1953)
https://archive.org/details/notationofpolyph1953apel/page/32/mode/2up

Gardner Read: Source Book of Proposed Music Notation Reforms (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1987)


ARTICLES AND BLOGS

A timeline of music notation - Jon Silpayamanant (this is a wonderful resource with circa 900 notation systems covered)
https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/timeline-of-music-notation/

Adémar de Chabannes, Carolingian Musical Practices, and Nota Romana - James Grier - Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 43-98. - University of California Press

Musical Clefs and their Abolition, T. L. Southgate - The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol. 30, No. 559 (Sep. 1, 1889)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3360190?typeAccessWorkflow=login

Cross eyed pianist on the topic of notation being ‘elitist’. https://crosseyedpianist.com/tag/elitism-in-music-education/

The Muto Method
https://muto-method.com/en/score.html

Proposed redesign of piano sheet music
https://medium.com/alex-couch-s-portfolio/how-i-d-redesign-piano-sheet-music-355c4f9012f1

Musitude
https://musitude.com/ 

The Modes of Ancient Greek Music
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40288/40288-h/40288-h.htm


VIDEOS

Reconstruction of Greek music, led by Professor Armand D'Angour https://youtu.be/4hOK7bU0S1Y

Offertorium: Jubilate Deo universa terra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw0Ny4Z4wD4&ab_channel=GradualeProject

An introduction to mensural notation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1F2FSLakVA&ab_channel=EarlyMusicSources


OTHER LINKS

Daseian notation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daseian_notation

Style similar to Nonantolian notation
https://unipub.uni-graz.at/obvugrscript/content/pageview/5564611

Mensural notation wikipedia page (which is very good)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensural_notation

Database of high-res scans of early Christian music
https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/subproject/stgall_music

Mensural notation scan: Missae partes decantari solitae: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus et Agnus Dei cum notis musicalibus
https://search.onb.ac.at/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=ONB_alma21295855650003338&context=L&vid=ONB&lang=de_DE

Mouth pictogram imagery by pch.vector https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/mouth-animation-set_9176068.htm#query=mouth%20speaking&position=0&from_view=keyword&track=ais