Musical Numbers

C.J. Wang

Description

Twelve musical numbers are created due to the fact that the normal single digit (0-9) can only express 10 pitches. Music deserves to have its own numbers to express 12 pitches.

Pitch

Instead of using 0-9, %, and !, new digits are made so that they look alike with each other. It is easy to learn these new numbers.

The following figure helps to understand how the numbers (4-11) are composed of: adding group number to base numbers (0-3).

An alternative arrangement can be:

Duration

The little circle denotes a double duration, which is my own idea.

Register

A sample

Fault Tolerant Notation

C.J. Wang

LTN is a high fault tolerant notation as shown below.  As long as tails are in a space, they are the second notes in the space. As long as tails on a line, they are the second notes on the line.  Fault tolerance is important especially for hand writing.

12NewDigits

C.J. Wang

Description

12NewDigits is a variant of Numbered Musical Notation (NMN), which has been widely used in China for over 100 years.  NMN has movable ‘1’, which is defined at the beginning. In contrast, 12NewDigits uses absolute ‘1’ and extends from 7 to 12 notes. There are several other changes which will be pointed out below.

Pitch

Instead of using 1-9, %, and !, new digits are made so that they look alike with each other. It is easy to learn these new numbers.

Duration

The little circle denotes a double duration, which is my own idea. NMN uses ‘-‘ to express repeat, e.g., “| – -” meaning “| | |”. 12NewDigits still keeps the use of ‘-‘ though. As for rest, 12NewDigits uses ‘~’ instead of ‘0’.

Register

A sample

Little Tadpole Notation (LTN)

C.J. Wang

Description

Little Tadpole Notation (LTN) is a variant of Down Up Notation (DUN). The little tadpole notehead is my own original work. Each line or space has two notes. The first note uses the normal notehead while the second note employs the little tadpole notehead. The tadpole tail is used to judge whether a tadpole notehead is on a line or in a space. As Doug Keislar pointed out that the staff has been used by many notations. LTN overcomes four disadvantages of Black White Notation (BWN): 1) BWN does not have a fully proportional pitch coordinate, 2) Inconsistent distance for same intervals,  3) pitch is not determined only by height but by color also, 4) rhythm is not fully compatible with Traditional Notation.

Pitch and Duration

The tadpole tails can be:

Sample chords

A Sample

12Digits

C.J. Wang

Description

12Digits is a variant of Numbered Musical Notation (NMN), which has been widely used in China for over 100 years.  NMN has movable ‘1’, which is defined at the beginning. In contrast, 12Digits uses absolute ‘1’ and extends from 7 to 12 notes. There are several other changes which will be pointed out below.

Pitch

How to represent 10 and 11 is a hard decision to make. I chose ‘%’ for 10, ‘!’ for 11 since ‘%’ looks like 010 and ‘!’ can be imagined one over one.  I considered using ‘&’ to represent 11. But ‘&’ is hard to write. If two symbols are allowed, I propose to use ‘0 or /0 and ‘1 or /1 instead of 10 and 11 since it is clear when you see 10, which means 1 and 0.

Duration

The little circle denotes a double duration, which is my own idea. NMN uses ‘-‘ to express repeat, e.g., “% – -” meaning “% % %”. 12Digit still keeps the use of ‘-‘ though. As for rest, 12Digit uses ‘~’ instead of ‘0’ since ‘0’ is not available.

Register

NMN uses dots under or over digits to indicate registers. I use vertical lines to denote registers, which saves a lot vertical space over dots.

Chord

Each note has its own duration and register symbols in a chord, which is different from NMN.

Private Duration vs. Public Duration

Private duration applies to individual notes while public duration applies to a group of notes.

Private Register vs. Public Register

Private register applies to individual notes while public register applies to a group of notes.

A sample

New Accidental Symbols

New Accidental Symbols for Traditional Notation

C.J. Wang

Description

The new symbols for Traditional Notation make it more possible to explicitly mark each note without affecting its neat looking. Moreover, the symbols can be easily hand added to existing sheet music. The new symbols are my own original work.

Symbols

One+Two Notation (1+2)

C.J. Wang

Description

One+Two Notation (1+2) is a variant of Down Up Notation (DUN). The nose notehead is my own original work. 1+2 overcomes four disadvantages of Black White Notation (BWN): 1) BWN does not have a fully proportional pitch coordinate, 2) Inconsistent distance for same intervals,  3) pitch is not determined only by height but by color also, 4) rhythm is not fully compatible with Traditional Notation.

Pitch

Duration

An interval example (5 semitones)

Notice that the distance is measured between the top spots of notes as the red lines indicate.

Ruler

A ruler (on the left of a chord, looks like ‘E’) is added to help measure distance among notes in a chord. With the help of rulers, it is easy to find the same pattern.

Dot Notation (.N)

Dot Notation (.N)

C.J. Wang

Description

Dot Notation (.N) is a variant of Down Up Notation (DUN). The dot notehead is my own original work.

Pitch

Duration

Down Up Notation (DUN)

Down Up Notation (DUN)

C.J. Wang

Description

Down Up Notation (DUN) is a variant of Black White Notation (BWN). DUN was also influenced by Express Stave (John Keller).

Pitch

Duration

Black White Notation (BWN)

Black White Notation (BWN)

C.J. Wang

Description

Black White Notation (BWN) is an alternative music notation system that is easier to read and learn. BWN was influenced by several other alternative notation systems, which are posted at The Music Notation Project. It combines Equiton by Rodney Fawcett (1958) and Untitled Notation by Johannes Beyreuther (1959) with TwinNote by Paul Morris (2009). The noteheads for whole notes are my own original work.

Pitch

Duration