Alpha Beat Music Notation Summary

The following is a cursory review of the more essential conventions for Alpha Beat Music Notation.

The primary elements of Alpha Beat are its use of lettered symbols for the pitches (vs. using symbols for the durations) — and that each lettered pitch is assumed to have a default duration (normally 1/8 note equivalency) — after which simple contextual modifiers either expand or contract that default duration.

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Bar (or measure): A forward slash ( / ) delineates each grouping of beats. Eg: /C C G G /a a G - / = 2 bars of 4 beats each.

Pitch: Standard C major letters of A, B, C … F, G as well as x (for the silent note of zero frequency).

Rest: An ( x ) indicates a rest (a stop after a note). As per the above, this is considered to be a note, not a duration symbol.

Repeats: Either standard Coda /: :/ indicators or {…}}’s can be used. Eg: {E D C x /}} = play Three blind mice (twice).

Modifiers: Always placed AFTER the note in the order of:

Pitch (sharps & flats), Chording indicators, Rhythm (durations).

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1. PITCH

Natural tones are represented by upper and lower case letters with a single or double underlining changing the octave, therefore some tones going up in pitch ending on Middle A (just below middle C) are:

( ABCDEFG A ).

And some tones starting on Middle A going up further are:

( ABCDEFG abcdefg abcd etc. ).

Sharp ( # or ^ ) indicates a pitch value raised a half tone only for that octave and bar except for the case of a tied note.

Flat ( v or ' ) indicates a pitch value lowered a half tone (only for that octave and bar except for a tied note).

Natural ( * or $ ) indicates that the pitch tone becomes the natural tone for the key of C (A, B, C, D, E, F or G).

Key Signatures are shown by coding such as the following:

Key Signature: Eg: ( Key of A or Key of Av )

or optionally (& more clearly) as something like the following:

Key of A=FCG#

Key of A Major = FCG# (if modality to be shown)

Key of F# Minor = FCG# (if modality to be shown)

Key of Av=BEADv

Key of Av Major = BEADv (for A flat Major)

Key of Bv Minor = BEADv (for B flat Minor)

Key Italics Assist: All notes that are affected by a key signature can be optionally made italics for easy identification.

Eg for Key of A: ( F C G ) would show all F, C & G's italicized.

or for the Key of Av: ( B E A D ) to show B, E, A, D's italicized

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2. CHORDS

Triad: ( j ) placed after the Tonic note.

Eg: Cj = CEG played together.

Eg: Aj = AC#E played together.

Minor: ( m ) placed after the note.

Eg: Am = ACE played together.

7th: ( 7 ) placed after the note.

Eg: G7 = GBDF played together.

Explicit Method: Use standard brackets around notes.

Eg: (CEG) being the Cj Major triad.

— or one could stack the CEG letters as follows:

Eg: G

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3. RHYTHM

See the Alpha Beat book for more details.

Default Duration: (1/8 duration normally - but as needed)

Unmodified notes (& rests) have 1/2 the Beat duration.

Modifiers and [ ]’s either expand or contract this value.

Reference Duration (Beat): (1/4 note duration normally)

Eg: The counted beats in the bar.

Normally denoted per the bottom number of the Time signature.

Dashes, Spaces, Periods, Commas (& Semicolons) act as context placeholders for the default beat duration, thereby adding or modifying the default value by expanding same.

Dashes are placeholders for downbeats.

Spaces are placeholders for all other beats (non-downbeats).

Commas have exactly the functions of the space (and the period) in regards to basically being a placeholder — as well as — it “sticks, glues or adheres together” the notes on both sides of the comma, so the notes are considered as all being within the Beat. See the below example.

Periods have the same function as a space, but usually only used when handwritten.

Semi-colons are a compacting of a combined period & comma — usually just for a 1/32 context (and sometimes for 1/16 notes).

Eg: /C C G G /a a G - / (note spaces after each letter).

The above example uses spaces to expand the default duration of 1/8 assumed for a pitch letters to 1/4 duration values.

The G followed by a space, dash and space expands the duration of 1/8 assumed for the G to a 1/2 duration value by adding 3 placeholder modifiers to the original 1/8 note default.

Commas replace spaces and also imply that the adjacent notes are glued together thereby creating one Beat — or to give a more explicit visual. A comma implies that the glued notes have [ ]’s around them. This creates the option that the [ ]’s can be removed and that the rhythm would be the same as if the [ ]’s existed. Implicit Bracketing …

Commas are more visible than periods and spaces, so they are recommended for triplet representations such as for:

1/12, 1/24, 1/16 & 1/32 notes.

Square Brackets: [ ] = Beat (duration of 1/4 note)

[CE] or [CEG] or [CECE] each have a 1/4 duration.

Square brackets allow for compacting the note duration values within the [ ]’s by context. Square Brackets are often optional for clarifying.

Eg: [CE] indicates the same duration as CE alone so [ ]’s are only needed so to clarify the grouping.

Eg: [CEG] would indicate a triplet (with 3 notes played in the same duration context as CE alone). (1/8 note triplet)

Eg: [CECE] being faster 1/16 notes (4 notes played in the same duration context as CE alone).

Or use placeholders like commas (or semicolons for "double" placeholders) or else nested [ ] brackets and even special tuplet nomenclature to enable other durations — as is explained in the book.

RULE: A nested bracket duration is 1/2 that of the main bracket (unless for the case of the tuplet exception — see Tuplets section).

[[ABC]D] equivalent to [ABCD,,] if without nesting.

The nested [ABC] still is a 1/8 duration so now A, B and C each have a swung 1/24 duration (1/3 of a 1/8 note) and the D has the remaining 1/8 duration.

Swing: Comma’s enable explicit swing rhythm (delayed notes).

Eg: /G,Gb,bd,de / ( equivalent to /[G,G][b,b][d,d]e / )

For the above, all notes before a swung comma (a triplet representation) become 2/3 of the full Beat and the ones after become 1/3 of the Beat. Downbeats then are BEFORE the commas & swung upbeats are AFTER the commas.

Commas all imply

For a hard swing (using a 1/16 pickup note), use a semicolon which notates for two placeholders.

Eg: /G;Gb;bd;de / equivalent to /[G,,G][b,,b][d,,d]e /

For the above, all notes before a semicolon become 3/16 notes and the ones after become 1/16 notes.

Tuplets:

1/16 note triplets: [[ABC][DEF]] being two sets of 3 notes within 1 Beat.

1/8 note triplet: [CDE] being 3 notes within 1 Beat.

1/4 note triplet: [[CDE]] being 3 notes within 2 Beats.

1/2 note triplet: [[[[CDE]]]] being 3 notes within 4 Beats.

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The following is a sample notating for Alpha Beat Music Notation:

/Row row [row, your]boat /[gent, ly][down, the]stream - /

/C C [C,D]E /[E,D][E,F]G - /

/[Mer ri ly][mer ri ly][mer ri ly][mer ri ly]/[Life, is][but, a]dream - /

/[ccc][GGG][EEE][CCC]/[G,F][E,D]C - /

Alpha Beat's Criteria

Below are the 15 criteria that were used to evaluate Alpha Beat Music Notation

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Examination of each of the following 15 criteria will be investigated (and later revisited in the Evaluations chapter) for both, Alpha Beat Music Notation and Standard Music Notation. Note that for this list, the word “must” is avoided, in order to encourage flexibility as to our choices. It is important to open up more possibilities to significantly promote better musicianship, as well as to improve learning conditions. We must not forget that better music along with more people playing will be our two primary goals.

Criteria can easily be made so inflexible that absolutely no alternatives to Standard Music Notation will be eligible. This is particularly so as per the requirement of needing a staff (a vertical pitch axis). And we also need to avoid our natural status quo bias toward “sunk costs” for our printed scores as well as for our years of training and experience. An impenetrable wall of constraints is far from desirable. Let’s try to avoid walls.

Although there will always be trade-offs between competing systems, the following are appropriate thoughts toward making music easier to learn, play and transcribe. The perceived importance of each of these criteria will clearly vary within the various circumstances of the chosen music, instruments and players.

Answers to how well 2020 Music Notation fared per each of these are included in a later chapter of the book.

GENERAL

1. Universality - Notate for the played music as opposed to the mechanics of a specific instrument.

2. Ease of Learning - Lower the entry level for prospective players via intuitive unambiguous symbols and spatial layouts.

3. Improvisation - Facilitate cleaner lead sheets to encourage better eventual musicianship and earlier-stage improvising.

4. Compact Logical Phrasing - Enable phrasing, repeats and endings to be non-breaking and parallel for discernment and memorization.

5. Ease of Transcribing - Encourage on-the-fly transcriptions via pen and paper or a PC even. Avoid special symbols and colors.

PITCH:

6. Pitch Letters and Intervals - Facilitate discernment of the basic flow and relationships of the notes.

7. Octave Commonality - Facilitate note learning across multiple octaves (also allowing easier instrument cross-usage).

8. Parallel Voicing of Instruments - Facilitate single instrument chording as well as for simultaneous group instrument playing.

9. Key Information - Facilitate discernment of sharps or flats normally played for the chosen key.

10. Accidentals - Facilitate accidentals (sharps, flats and naturals outside of the key signature notes).

RHYTHM:

11. Rhythm Discernment - Facilitate via familiar and minimal symbols — preferably with approximate intuitive spacing.

12. Minimal Counting - Avoid rhythm and mnemonics that add calculational overhead vs. promoting musicianship.

13. Rhythm Precision and Flexibility - Facilitate complexities like tuplets and explicit swing as well as syncopation and beat dynamics.

14. Absolute Beats - Emphasize the timing discernment of the beats as opposed to cumulative durations.

15. Vocal Lyric Rhythm - Facilitate the meshing or attachment of rhythm to vocal lines.

AND BACK TO THE BASICS:

Some reasons as to why any notation is used:

Sight-reading - playing directly from notated music.
Learning - lick practices and accurate classical playing.
Communication - from napkin scratching to full transcribing.
Analysis - pitch, rhythm, identifying patterns, etc.

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Alpha Beat Music Notation Summary

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