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Welcome to the Music Innovator's Workshop "Grand Staff Upgrade" Site


Hi! It's a pleasure to welcome you to our website. I'm John M. Honeycutt, better known to my students as "Grampa John". Along with my talented associates, we hope that your visit will be a pleasant and productive one.
                                                                                                                                        

What is the Music Innovator's Workshop?
First, this is a free site. There are no charges of any kind. We have nothing to sell.

The Music Innovator's Workshop is a research and development project that aims at providing
effective alternatives for teaching and learning keyboard music through innovations in music notation and teaching methods.

A Worthy Visual Art Form. Along with our desire to make music notation easier to learn is the conviction that music notation is a worthy visual art form as well as a practical means of conveying what sounds to play. Every effort has been made to make these music notation alternatives beautiful and interesting - a joy to see as well as to hear.

This site is a way of sharing the benefits of these alternatives with my students - and with anyone else who may have an interest in them.   

Background. Some 50+ years ago, as an industrial engineer with a music degree, I was commissioned to write a textbook on time and motion study - about the ways that we move our hands and fingers to build things. This led me to thinking about how reading musical notes guides your hands and fingers on the piano and other keyboards. I've been thinking about this (and experimenting) ever since. Industrial engineers know - THERE'S ALWAYS A BETTER WAY! So I thought, if there are better ways to learn and play the keyboard - let's find and develop them. Now, it's 50 years later, and results are in. You will find information about innovative and effective musical notation formats, learning materials, and sheet music on our sites.

This Site Based on the Grand Staff. The notation formats that we feature on this site are focused on the grand staff. That being said, the upgrades that we have developed for the grand staff are equally applicable for notating music for those instruments and voice that use only a single clef, whether it be a treble, bass, or C clef. 

Our Upgrades to Traditional Keyboard Instruction and Notation - As you read on, you will see that our upgrades to the grand staff make learning to play the piano or other keyboard instruments less stressful than learning with the traditional notation. HOWEVER, this does NOT imply that we are trying to replace traditional notation. Traditional notation is the GOLD STANDARD of notations. It's just that we don't believe that learning to play the keyboard and learning to read the traditional notation of the grand staff at the same time is the best way to go. In summary, our alternative notation formats are less difficult to read, greatly reduce student stress, and enable students to learn to play songs and pieces in a much shorter period of time.

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  595k v. 1 Jun 15, 2019, 2:49 PM John M. Honeycutt