Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner This is the strangest staff paper that I have ever seen!

Just take a look at this:





Its a pretty self explanitory staff paper. You write the notes onto the line with the corresponding keys on the staff. I think that its pretty strange, and it would drive me crazy trying to read it while playing. The website where I found it refers to it as "the new method of writing music". Its called pianotab. I think that I'll stick with the normal staff paper, thankyou very much.

Hmmm, when I see this staff paper, it begs the question "why"?

I can't imagine learning to sight-read from this.

I'm with you, JGoo-- stick to the old tried-and-true.

Nina

I suppose that is middle C I see on both staves. Might lead to some confusion. Also, how do you get beyond these two octaves? ledger lines seem problematic, 8va notations would become ubiquitous. This is just another attempt at reinventing the wheel but I suspect it is really just a flat tire.

it's probably only middle C on the treble, and the bottom is one octave below. why would they both be middle C, that makes even less sense than the staffs do in the first place.

Additionally, it destroys the original purpose of the staff symbols. The G-clef's curl no longer curls around G, and the F-clef's two dots don't encompass F. This thing is just an obvious and direct attempt at destroying tradition, and well, fails of course, why else would the current system been in use for hundreds of years already?

I really think it is all about getting used to it....

If we used this staff since we all started taking lessons we might look at the normal staff with disgust.

Rodion,

The top space on the bottom staff and the bottom space on the top staff would both have to be middle C unless you skip an octave in between and that doesn't make sense either. Are you going to fill in the octave in between with ledger lines? What would these ledger lines look like given the fact that there is one line in both staves (between E and F) that is never used. Maybe that would be your break between upper and lower staves. I guess I can see a way that you could make it work but I just don't see any improvement over the traditional staves.

I have seen something similar to this in a book called "A Soprano on Her Head" by Eloise Ristad. It is mainly a book about overcoming stage fright, but it has a chapter called "Journey with a View" about people who have difficulty sight reading. It suggests flipping the staff 90 degrees, because seeing it vertically can sometimes help make the connection between the lines and the piano keys. The middle between the two clefs centers on middle C, and now, "up and down" on the staff relate to right and left on the key board. Sometimes, it takes something outside of the usual to trigger that lightbulb and understanding. Jodi

[ February 23, 2002: Message edited by: jodi ]

I don't think this is such a new invention. My parents have several sheetmusic books written in this way. It indeed needs to be flipped sideways, so the staves run from the top to the bottom of the paper. It was called Klavarscribo. I remember my brother didn't want to bother with the regular method and it was really easy for him to find the tune on the piano, but he didn't get very far (obviously....).

ahhh i see said the blind man...sorry about that. i was looking at the two 'bottom' C's and thinking you meant them to be the same C and i didn't understand why you would say that but i suppose i'm a bit loopy today.

This staff paper DOES present more problems that I noticed when I first looked at it, after hearing what you all had to say. I think that its just more trouble than its worth.

One obvious problem with this "staff" is that there are more lines than the traditional staff. I can't imagine reading this!

This is true. Those extra lines just present more problems with the staff. Also, the fact that your reading the same notes for the two clefs is very annoying. And, how the heck would you notate key signatures? There will no longer be a need for sharps, flats, and naturals, and I just can't imagine written music without it.

[ March 11, 2002: Message edited by: jgoo ]

This staff system might work it the black key pattern appeared every third measure or so to keep the performer oriented, else one would get totally lost.

In Bach's day, they had movable clefs to avoid ledger lines. This worked well for contrapuntal music with stepwise melodies. As musical styles changed toward more skips, leaps and jumps, movable clefs got confusing, hence the reliance on the modern grand staff with fixed treble and bass clefs for piano music.

[ March 09, 2002: Message edited by: MacDuff ]

But not fixed C clefs, unfortunately.

Forever condemned shall be all the violas, celli, bassoons and trombones for having their parts being written in those clefs!

[ March 09, 2002: Message edited by: mrenaud ]

I think that even then, the system would be difficult to use. Ledger lines would be near impossible to remember. Maybe if this was the system that we learned on, we might think that its the greatest thing in the world. I think that the system would be great for someone who doesn't read music but can play the piano. But for the rest of us, I don't think that it would go over too well.