the Challenges of Reading Sheet Music

How the alternative notation "What You See Is What You Play" (WYSIWYP) addresses the challenges of reading traditional sheet music notation

The main challenges are:

1.       Inconsistent staff lines for octaves and staves

2.       The use of key signatures

3.       The representation of rhythm 

Some students are not able to meet the challenges and as a result do not enjoy the experience of learning to play music.  They can get discouraged and may even give up playing.  WYSIWYP addresses each of these challenges in a logical and intuitive way.

This proposal is not an attempt to persuade anyone who can already read music to switch to WYSIWYP.  Those who would benefit most by this notation are beginning players players of the piano so this presentation focuses in that arena.

1. Inconsistent staff lines for octaves

Traditional Notation (“TN” in this discussion) has a staff line (full or leger line) on every other scale degree throughout the entire range of notes on the keyboard.  While consistent in this way, it is not consistent with respect to the scale degrees (A through G) because the odd-numbered seven-note diatonic scale doesn’t match the even-numbered line configuration.  For example, if a given scale degree is on a line (or leger) in one octave, then it will be on a space on adjacent octaves.  The figure below (showing only the diatonic naturals) illustrates this with the degree of C in red which alternates being on a line or space with each ascending octave.  

Beginning students start by memorizing a very limited range of notes on the sheet music as well as on the keyboard. As their studies continue, they slowly memorize more to expand the range.  Memorization is required because there is neither a consistent nor logical pattern. 

In addition, treble and bass staves do not have the same line definitions.  Thus, C on the treble is just above the center staff line, but on the bass, it is just below the center line.  Therefore, in order to recognize notes, memory aids like EGBDF and FACE are often used with the treble, and GBDFA and ACEG with the bass.  Effectively, a piano player must learn two different notation systems and then play music with them at the same time with different hands. 

The farther away from the staves, the harder it is to recognize notes on leger lines due to the lack of any additional reference points.  Fortunately, the very high and very low ranges are not often used by beginners.  But many experienced players admit they are not able to reliably read legers in those extreme ranges.  Some former students who haven't played in a long time will often say the same;  while some even say they can no longer readily identify notes on the treble and bass staves either.  This illustrates that memory fades quickly without frequent use or without some logical structure.

Each of the seven naturals (round noteheads) has a unique relationship to the red and blue staff lines. With respect to the red line, notes B C D are touching it from below, on, and above. The same relationships exist with the blue line and notes E F G. Not touching either line is A.  Adjacent degree noteheads overlap by 50% as does TN.  (How to read the remaining five chromatic degrees is described in the next topic, Key Signatures.)

Octaves are stacked up to form the treble and bass staves as needed to accommodate the range of the score.  Leger lines are not used.  Octave numbers display to the left of the red lines.  (For example, middle C is C4.)  Thus, every octave has a consistent format across the entire keyboard range.   The student need only to learn this one format as well as the mapping of the octave numbers to the C keys of the keyboard in order to read the entire range of notes.  The approach is both logical and intuitive.  Students can learn this approach quickly and with practice will soon be able to map every note to the keyboard.

The following figure shows two octaves stacked up with noteheads for all of the naturals starting with middle C.  

The next figure demonstrates sheet music with both treble and bass staves. (The note duration information has been removed, but that will be shown later and explained.)   Scores with a wider range of notes would have more staff lines added to contain them (legers are not used).   Thus, staves are flexible and not fixed as with TN.  The two staves are separated by space for displaying lyrics as does TN.  

2. Key signatures

Traditional Notation must have key signatures in order to identify the full chromatic scale range of twelve degrees on a diatonic staff with only seven degree positions.  The system is a huge challenge for beginning students for a number of reasons:

• Playing a note is a multi-step process. First, recognize the key signature and then remember its associated seven component chromatic degrees.  

• Second, make the appropriate real-time playing adjustments from naturals to sharps or flats when one of those degrees is encountered.  

• Third, remember that the adjustments must be made for all indicated pitch classes on the staff, not just on the positions of the key signature itself but every octave on the staff and its surrounding leger line areas.

• Fourth, there are rather complicated rules that must be applied following accidentals (explicit overrides to the key signature) in the same measure.

• Furthermore, there are a range of unique key signatures to memorize (there exist key signatures for 15 major-minor pairs) depending on the musician’s skill level.

To get around these real-time playing challenges of implicit sharp/flat identification by a key signature, a student could be tempted to markup the sheet music with a text highlighter pen to explicitly identify every note to be played as a sharp of flat. As a result, no memorization of the key signature is required.

WYSIWYP explicitly identifies sharps and flats (without the highlighter pen) via the use of a different notehead shape. Recall that the white key naturals are represented by circles.  A black key represents a sharp/flat combination in between its associated adjacent white key naturals, e.g., the black key C#/Db in between the white C and D natural keys.  

The WYSIWYP octave has overlapping adjacent naturals (just like TN).  The overlapping space on the staff is used to display the sharp/flat combination notes.  The notehead is a black rectangle and is one half the height of a natural notehead’s circle (similar to the different physical piano white and black key widths).  The combination (or, combo) noteheads even resembles a black key on the keyboard.  The figure below shows all twelve chromatic degrees.

Like the naturals, the sharp/flat combo noteheads are uniquely identifiable by their relationships to the red and blue lines:

C#/Db is touching the red line.

D#/Eb is midway between the red and blue lines.

F#/Gb is touching the blue line.

G#/Ab is closer to the blue line than the red.

A#/Bb is closer to the red line.

Here’s an example (without note duration):

The result is effectively a chromatic scale on a diatonic octave.  A given combo notehead can still be identified precisely as a sharp or flat, but that will be described in the next topic.

Most importantly to notice is that once you have learned to identify the notes on one octave, you then know them for all octaves.  And of course, there is no need for key signatures to identify notes (although they key name is shown in the WYSIWYP score header for reference). 

3. Representation of Rhythm

Traditional Notation.  Many of the elements of TN that gives the sheet music such a beautiful and graceful look are the note duration symbols.  But some beginners find that they can be counter-intuitive.  For example, the more flags there are, the shorter the note.  Notes tied together are not really two separate tones, but one continuous tone.  And ties can be confused with slurs.  Dots next to a notehead increase note duration, while dots over the note means decrease it.  

Note symbols define duration in terms of a whole note and its binary fractions.  But these do not tell you how many beats a given one represents, which is what you need to know in order to play the note for the proper duration.  Surprisingly to the uninitiated, for a given symbol, note duration in terms of beats is not a constant.  The musician must use the time signature to know the number of beats in a measure and what is the duration of each beat in terms of whole note fractions.  For example, a quarter note in different scores could be one beat (3/4 or 4/4 time), two beats (6/8 time), or a half beat (2/2 time), the 2nd number of the key signature being the determining factor of duration.  Beginners may find it confusing when a given note duration symbol does not represent a constant duration across all scores.

The horizontal width of a measure expands and contracts to contain the number of notes in order to make a "best fit" of measures per sheet music "row" to the width of the page.  Thus, a score may have a varying number of measures per row and therefore measure width is not constant.  As a result, there are no visual clues of duration provided by the physical width of the measure on the page requiring mental mapping of noteheads to beats.

Then there is the challenge of multiple staves and knowing how notes line up between them, or not.  Often, note onsets on the treble and bass staves do line up which makes it easy, but this is not always the case.  

And finally, in addition to all the note symbols, there is a second system for rests using a completely different set of symbols.  Both note and rest symbols must be used to determine beat boundaries within a measure.  On a given staff, the total durations of both notes and rests must account for the total duration time available in every measure.  If the staff contains multiple voices, this rule must be satisfied separately for each voice.  

WYSIWYP  The approach here is to use a graphic solution to note duration in place of a symbolic one.  The implementation of note duration looks a lot like a MIDI editor display wherein a stripe on a timeline shows exactly when the note starts and ends.  But unlike the editors, also having a notehead at the onset of the tone, helps the player better focus on when to press the piano key with respect to the beat.

Below is how the Silent Night example above looks with stripes (called notetails in WYSIWYP-world).  Each fixed width measure has tic marks along a true timeline to define the beats (below, 3 beats to the measure).  Thus, no time signature is needed because it is visually clear how many beats are in a measure.   And the note duration that you play in relation to the beat is, um, What You See.

Tied notes are represented as a single note with a single onset and the duration of the tied notes combined.  Dots are also incorporated into the notetail, either extending or reducing the duration.  Gone are the myriads of symbols with different notehead fill (hollow or solid), stems, flags, beams, ties, dots, and tuplet brackets.

There are no rest symbols needed to map notes to the measure as with TN.  Thus, blank space on the timeline simply means to play nothing.  

Because both treble and bass staves have the same timeline, it’s easy to see how notes line up on them even in complex passages such as syncopation.  In the next example, a passage of TN is compared with the WYSIWYP approach which reveals that the treble notes’ onsets are not on the start of the beat.  While beginners are not likely to encounter such complexity for a while, experienced players may find this time analysis useful.  

(Side note: the reason there is no notehead on D5 in measure 6 of WYSIWYP is that it is a continuation (tie) from measure 5 which is not shown.)

Notice that for the sharp/flat combination noteheads, the notetails are the same height as the naturals.  The notetail of a sharp has the rectangular notehead at the top of the notetail, while that of a flat has the notehead at the bottom.  Here are figures showing the difference between sharps and flats representing the same tone:

Of course there is no difference in playing the same combo notehead with different notetails on the piano.  But some musicians may have a real interest in knowing the difference.  For example, a violin player may actually play a sharp/flat combination slightly different (not an option on the piano though!).

As forewarned, the notetails permit a 2nd way to read the sharp/flat combination noteheads which is to read the notetail grey stripe behind it and adjust the corresponding natural.  The reader then adjusts the playing up or down from the white key to an adjacent black key. 

Of the three solutions to the TN challenges, this proposed change for rhythm solicits the most pushback, if not outright horror from readers of TN.  "The sheet music looks so techno and is not pretty anymore."  But most beginners can probably understand it immediately because it is intuitive and does not require complicated mental translation of symbols (plus time signature) to actual note duration.

In closing.   The main goal of WYSIWYP is to make the notation as intuitive to read as possible in order to reduce the mental gymnastics required to go from eyes on the page to fingers on the musical instrument.  This is implemented in the following ways:

• Having a standard octave format across all staves.

• Having the minimum number of staff lines per octave (two).

• Having explicit noteheads shapes to define naturals, sharps, and flats, which eliminates the need for key signatures and their associated memorization of rules for playing.

• Having a visually intuitive timeline for identifying the beat, note duration, and note interrelationships across staves.

• For the piano, having the octave staff lines provide a direct mapping to octaves on the keyboard.

It is my unproven belief that a beginning student can learn the mechanics of the WYSIWYP notation in less than an hour.  Of course, it will still take practice to quickly identify any of the 88 notes and then play it on the keyboard.  But it's my observation that students of TN aren't able to do this for years because this skill is acquired slowly by memorization and can even be lost over time.  So a simpler notation doesn't necessarily improve a beginner's playing ability but it can accelerate the learning experience by allowing the student to focus on playing skills instead of interpreting the notation.