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#1 2006-09-06 20:13:18

amokrun
Member
From: Finland
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 413

Computer notation revisited.

Reading through this forum, I noticed that there are quite a few threads about making a program for writing shakuhachi notation. Apparently few people have started making one or have already completed something. It was fairly hard to figure out who was working with who and which project is the most useful one.

I've personally been planning to make such a program for myself ever since I started playing. I've done all kinds of small utilities that have helped me quite a bit. One tiny program that proved to be quite useful takes MIDI files and figures out how hard they would be to play (for a beginner like me, that is) and also tries to alter them in hopes of producing more easily playable tunes.

In any case, I was wondering if someone is currently working on a notation editor and how far you are in the project? Even if I end up writing my own thing (I'm a Linux user and thus want something I can use on Linux) alone, it would be nice to at least share things like save file formats. This is a fairly small community, so it would be nice that I can pick any piece of digital notation and open it up in my program without having to think whose program it was made with.

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#2 2006-09-06 23:10:26

Tairaku 太楽
Administrator/Performer
From: Tasmania
Registered: 2005-10-07
Posts: 3226
Website

Re: Computer notation revisited.

This doesn't answer your question, but for anybody who is working on this situation here's what I'd would love to have:

A program that has all the Kinko symbols and instructions on a menu so that those symbols can be dragged and dropped onto the notation.

I don't understand computer stuff. Is that really a difficult thing to design?


'Progress means simplifying, not complicating' : Bruno Munari

http://www.myspace.com/tairakubrianritchie

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#3 2006-09-06 23:27:47

nomaD43
Member
From: Portland, OR, USA
Registered: 2006-07-22
Posts: 96

Re: Computer notation revisited.

Hello Tairaku,
I am working on developing a font featuring all of the Kinko notational symbols so that they can be placed into a word processing package, like; MS Word, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, etc.
What I am lacking is a full complement of the symbols and their names and usage. Would you, or someone else, be able to write down the symbols, their names and how/where they are used? They can be just drawn on a piece of paper, scanned and emailed.
I would also like to get my hands on as many Kinko-ryu honkyoku pieces so that I can create a selection of music that can be saved as .pdf files and printed at will, emailed, etc.
Any help would be appreciated.
Damon
nomaDesign@msn.com

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#4 2006-09-06 23:29:46

edosan
Edomologist
From: Salt Lake City
Registered: 2005-10-09
Posts: 2185

Re: Computer notation revisited.

...

It's not that difficult, especially compared to developing something like a 'word processor' for Kinko notation (could be wrong about this, but don't think so), and it's a very good idea, I think.

I'm not a programmer, but I believe this would basically be an object-oriented drawing program dedicated to drawing just Kinko (or whatever) notation. The page window of the document could also be set up with a grid, to aid in placing the characters vertically and horizontally. Characters could be made to optionally snap to the grid lines when dagged onto them.

This would require no keyboard mapping to bring up each character; they would all just be sitting out there in plain sight, in a vertical table over on the right side of the window, perhaps.

The font characters could either be bitmaps placed on a white background (to then be dragged from the table onto the document window), or, with more effort, the characters could be vector objects, so they could be scaled in size with no loss in resolution when printing.

Great idea.

Any hot shots out there care to take a stab at it?

...

Last edited by edosan (2006-09-06 23:34:08)


Zen is not easy.
It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?
Bupkes.

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#5 2006-09-06 23:36:12

Tairaku 太楽
Administrator/Performer
From: Tasmania
Registered: 2005-10-07
Posts: 3226
Website

Re: Computer notation revisited.

For the grid each major line would need two minor ones to drop the instructions that traditionally occur either right or left of the main notation. The lines could be done in some kind of manual fashion.

It seems a lot more user friendly than assigning notes to particular keys on the keypad for example.

I have had to use a computer known as Mrs. Ritchie to write my notation lately and she does a great job but I'd rather give her a break and do it myself.

Regarding symbols, I think Nyokai has a systematic list of them, maybe he will donate to the cause. Nyokai?


'Progress means simplifying, not complicating' : Bruno Munari

http://www.myspace.com/tairakubrianritchie

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#6 2006-09-07 00:06:53

dstone
Member
From: Vancouver, Canada
Registered: 2006-01-11
Posts: 552
Website

Re: Computer notation revisited.

In my opinion, there is a spectrum of complexity that "notation editors" can span. 

1. The simplest editor might be essentially a set of graphic symbols, cutouts, meaningless to the host application, that can be "stamped" anywhere on a blank page, copied, pasted, and printed.  No awareness of "notation" or "notes" or "pieces" or breaths or timing or transposition or whatnot. This still fills a void, I'm sure, but is barely what I'd call an "notation editor".  Similarly simple might be a font to be used on a grid or in vertical columns in a word processor or spreadsheet.  I have a ridiculously basic Kinko font here, in case anyone finds it useful... http://bitmason.com/shaku/font/  Limiting, even if the symbol set was expanded.

2. A mid-complexity editor might add guidance for the user in laying out notes, timings, titles, comments, etc. on a page in familiar "professional" styles.  Lines might wrap.  There may be a concept of measures and automatic timing/rhythm marks.  When a note is inserted, perhaps measures or lines would automatically adjust around it.  There may be the concept of commenting or notating special techniques in margins or attached to notes.  Comments attached to notes or phrases would move as the notes or phrases moved with insertions and deletions.  Perhaps there would be hot keys for entering notes and rhythms quickly.  Importing MIDI files, at least monophonic ones, should be possible.  This is the type of editor I am working on, with the guidance and wisdom of at least one other forum member.  It's a part-time labour for me because, well, things like this are beautiful and helpful but they won't pay bills like the day job!  ETA: unknown.  But you all will be the first to know, I assure you.

3. At the highest levels of complexity (dare I say "intelligence", no I'll say "helpfulness"), an editor might allow the user to highlight a phrase and transpose notes up or down, presenting options, when appropriate for alternate fingerings.  Rules of when to notate register changes would be known.  Perhaps it could play back an audio preview of a phrase on command.  Automatic re-rendering between Kinko, Tozan, Chikuho, and Western Staff notation might be possible, with some prompting for difficult spots or choices.  If a user breaks a notation or other convention, the editor might warn him.

At the simple end of the spectrum, the user does all the grunt work and the computer seems like a very labour-intensive tool, but the results could still be attractive.  At the "highest" end, the user puts his effort into the composition and the program actually does some of the notational work for him.

Well, that's my theory.

-Darren.


When it is rainy, I am in the rain. When it is windy, I am in the wind.  - Mitsuo Aida

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#7 2006-09-07 00:27:21

edosan
Edomologist
From: Salt Lake City
Registered: 2005-10-09
Posts: 2185

Re: Computer notation revisited.

I have an idea that would at least let us test a graphical interface along the lines Tairaku is thinking, but it would only be useful for Photoshop users:

I can create a Photoshop (PSD) file with all (or at least most...) of the elements of Kinko notation (as in Darren's font, plus some ancilary marking such as breath marks, atari indicators, and hole-hit number indicators...and anything else I can think of). There would be a layer in the document for each character, so there would indeed be many layers, but the file could be kept in grayscale to keep its size down, and I think it's possible to organize the character layers so that they could be navigated to by the user.

I'd be willing to come up with at least a working model featuring Darren's font as the characters. In order for it to work the Photoshop user would need to open the 'character document' and also create a second new document onto which the characters would be dragged. I could also create a hypothetical version of the second document complete with guide lines.

In this situation the characters would not be scalable without losing some resolution, but at least it may serve to brainstorm the layout and workability of the idea (scalable characters could be created in Illustrator, but I'm not as comfortable with that application as I am w/ Photoshop).

If there are enough Photoshop users hereabouts who'd be interested, let me know.

eB

Last edited by edosan (2006-09-07 00:31:09)


Zen is not easy.
It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?
Bupkes.

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#8 2006-09-07 05:59:54

amokrun
Member
From: Finland
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 413

Re: Computer notation revisited.

I would basically like to have something that does more or less what people are suggesting, but also saves into some standard format that can be shared. It would be mostly trivial to for example create charts in Microsoft Word and then use some special font to add notes into it. Unfortunately this kind of method doesn't scale at all. If someone sends notation to Hi Fu Mi to me, chances are that he did it slightly differently than I would. Maybe some fonts are slightly smaller. Maybe he likes to put meri sign before the note and not after like I do. There are countless small variables that can be different. As a result, it becomes very hard to maintain a consistent archive of songs. If all you want is to write something and then print it, that method may be acceptable. For collecting a "library" of songs, it clearly doesn't scale.

Ultimately I would love to have a program (or several with a common saving system) that could be used to store notation in some common format. MIDI files are a decent example of how this works. If I create an archive of MIDI files from songs I came up with, I can put them online somewhere and anyone anywhere in the world can grab them and print the notation out.

As for the suggestions several people made, I would think that there could be alternative ways to input notation and do other things. I personally like binding notes to keyboard, since this method is faster once you get the hang of it. On the other hand, there is no reason why dragging or clicking notes couldn't work as an optional way to do it.

I would also like to have some sort of easy way to include custom tools in the program. One rigamarole I did myself takes songs and tells me if I have a chance at playing those and if there is a way to transpose or alter them to make them easier (or harder!) so I might succeed. Having a way to include tools like this in the system would greatly help, since there would be no need for five almost identical programs with minor feature differences.

Going back to the save format, I think that it could be fairly simple. There are dozen or so different notes (ro, tsu, u...) with couple of possible modifiers (meri, dai meri, kari...) and octave signs (otsu, kan..). Then each note can have a number of dots on either side. It should be easy to calculate some reasonable limit, since it should become mostly impossible to play at some point. Then we have several special characters (atari, nayashi...) that aren't really notes but appear in the notation in similar way. Even though I'm deliberately skipping some here, we aren't talking about a huge set of possibilities here. I'll try to map it all together later on to see what kind of set we would be looking at.

I'm still thinking of a way to make this kind of thing reasonably portable so that most people could use it. There is no sense in making a program that only a fraction of the community can use when the community itself isn't that large.

dstone, have you decided on things like save file formats yet? Or anything else I should take into account if I work on my own stuff? How far are you generally? Do you have something that is partially usable or is it still closer to concept state?

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#9 2006-09-07 11:27:24

Larry Tyrrell
Moderator
From: Pacific Northwest
Registered: 2005-11-09
Posts: 73
Website

Re: Computer notation revisited.

Hello everyone,

I developed a set of Postscript fonts with a comprehensive set of symbols for both Kinko and Tozan about 13 years ago.  I have been successful in creating convertible scores using Adobe Framemaker and saving as a pdf file.  However, the challenge is not to encompass all the graphical elements but to create a user-friendly application that would allow drag-and-drop pallette entry of note, duration and modifier as well as an import function for MIDI files. Darren (dstone) and I have begun discussing a possible stand-alone application that allow simple input and be able to output either Kinko or Tozan scores.  By the way,  when I say modifiers I mean performance instructions such as mura-iki, etc.  I really makes no sense to think of meri as a modifier when in fact a chu-meri or meri note is really just another note on the chromatic scale.  The important thing to consider in designing a font is that the note symbols ultimately must encomass alternate fingerings for the same pitch, e.g.; (Kinko) HI NO MERI or SAN NO U.  I encourage everyone to look for my previous posting seeking a collaborator.

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#10 2006-09-07 12:09:00

amokrun
Member
From: Finland
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 413

Re: Computer notation revisited.

Larry Tyrrell wrote:

By the way,  when I say modifiers I mean performance instructions such as mura-iki, etc.  I really makes no sense to think of meri as a modifier when in fact a chu-meri or meri note is really just another note on the chromatic scale.

I assume that this was a reply to my post earlier. I believe it's just a matter of semantics either way, so as long as such a program is capable of representing and storing all kinds of notes in a way that makes sense. I was thinking of it from the perspective of the program. To it, a meri note would be a basic note but with another symbol added next to it. Unless, of course, we have a huge font that comes with every possible combination of meri, dai meri, kari and so forth. I doubt that is the case, so you end up having to account for things like that as if they are basic notes with something extra added.

As for your earlier thread on this, I was under the assumption that you are writing such a program for Macs. Unless this has changed, such a program would be of little use to me, as I'm not a Mac user. I would, however, be very interested in being compatible with things you may have already done, as I see no reason to do something incompatible just for the sake of doing so. Do you, for example, have a save file format or other such technical details figured out yet?

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#11 2006-09-07 12:39:56

Larry Tyrrell
Moderator
From: Pacific Northwest
Registered: 2005-11-09
Posts: 73
Website

Re: Computer notation revisited.

Hello,

I should have clarified my meaning.  Although you could certainly make a more compact font by conceiving of the meri, etc. as modifiers when I created my font I was trying to anticipate some kind of cross-mapping with MIDI note numbers  as well as making conversion from Kinko to Tozan possible so it made sense to include the chu-meri or meri symbol as part of the font symbol.  If you are familiar with Tozan you will also know that the Kinko 'meri' becomes a 'han-on' and is represented by smaller symbol.  Again, for the purposes of convertibility between Kinko and Tozan by merely choosing and applying a different font it made since to include all possible symbols.  It makes for large fonts but provides a great benefit in being convertible.  Please correct me if I'm wrong: isn't Postscript a platform-independent format for fonts? Besides, the fonts would be convertible if necessary to TrueType.  I'm frankly baffled if there are interested people who are put off merely by the fact I'm working on a Mac.  Incidentally,  the reason that it is important to include Tozan is that, assuming there may be an application to publishing, there are many more people who read Tozan than Kinko.  Inasmuch as the underpinnings of the Mac OS are now essentially Unix it may not be so difficult to port to other platforms once a working prototype is achieved.

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#12 2006-09-07 13:15:41

amokrun
Member
From: Finland
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 413

Re: Computer notation revisited.

Larry Tyrrell wrote:

Although you could certainly make a more compact font by conceiving of the meri, etc. as modifiers when I created my font I was trying to anticipate some kind of cross-mapping with MIDI note numbers  as well as making conversion from Kinko to Tozan possible so it made sense to include the chu-meri or meri symbol as part of the font symbol.

Yeah, I assumed that your logic was based on that concept. I'm personally still undecided on how to represent the notation. Doing things like MIDI does and assigning numbers to notes makes sense to a point, but it gets confusing fast when you have notes like tsu dai meri which are in a way same as other notes. In MIDI, the numbers make life nice and easy since they are all unique and you can easily assign the numbers. In, say, kinko notation, it's not trivial to tell whether ro should be "before" or "after" tsu dai meri. One way would be to give MIDI equivalent numbers to most generic notes (say, ro is more generic than tsu dai meri, so ro is the standard note for D) and then have some additional number that gets given to all the equivalent notes so you can tell ro from tsu dai meri.

Larry Tyrrell wrote:

If you are familiar with Tozan you will also know that the Kinko 'meri' becomes a 'han-on' and is represented by smaller symbol.  Again, for the purposes of convertibility between Kinko and Tozan by merely choosing and applying a different font it made since to include all possible symbols.

I agree, that makes conversions very easy, since you just change the font. I must admit that my knowledge of various notations is fairly limited. Thus, I do not know for sure if there are cases where direct 1:1 mapping doesn't work. To give an example, one could not map kinko notation to western notation and back, since you can't tell whether D is a tsu dai meri or a ro. If similar problems exist between different shakuhachi notations, you can't rely on just swapping fonts. If I'm not totally mistaken, this problem doesn't exist between kinko and tozan. It might, however, happen with some other forms of notation. Just something to consider, in case the program ends up supporting conflicting notations at some point. I'm sure you know better than I do if that problem is relevant.

Larry Tyrrell wrote:

Please correct me if I'm wrong: isn't Postscript a platform-independent format for fonts? Besides, the fonts would be convertible if necessary to TrueType.

You are correct, Postscript should work just fine anywhere. It has been a traditionally well supported format on Unix systems.

Larry Tyrrell wrote:

I'm frankly baffled if there are interested people who are put off merely by the fact I'm working on a Mac.

It's not really that you are working on a Mac. It's more that (if I got this right) you are writing the program with Mac as a target platform. Now, I should know that programs can always be ported to various environments. However, I'm assuming that if you do this on Mac, we are talking about various Mac-specific libraries and Object-C as a language. If I wanted this to work on my own computer that runs KDE on Linux, I would at least have to write a whole bunch of wrapper code in C++ or something else that can interact with KDE. I'm also not sure how your code takes into account different environments that may not be anything like Macs.

To make it short, the environment I assume you have in mind is fairly different from mine. As such, the amount of effort I'd need to put into getting it to work for me could be anything from minimal to more than it would take to write one from scratch. If I could just drop in the code on my machine and have it works flawlessly with everything, I would be delighted to work on some existing code instead.

Larry Tyrrell wrote:

Incidentally,  the reason that it is important to include Tozan is that, assuming there may be an application to publishing, there are many more people who read Tozan than Kinko.  Inasmuch as the underpinnings of the Mac OS are now essentially Unix it may not be so difficult to port to other platforms once a working prototype is achieved.

Although I don't read Tozan, I would prefer to include it as well. Besides, it's not going to make the program any more complicated, since it's basically just a matter of different symbols and words. The Mac issue, however, is not just a matter of swapping a few things here and there. Mac OSX is based on Unix, sure, but it has an entirely different set of libraries and programs are traditionally written in Object-C rather than C++ or some such that would be more popular outside of Macs.

I'm slowly learning to bring up opportunities instead of problems :-) . As such, I find that there are several ways to have this make sense. One possibility is to write such a program with portability in mind. Obvious choices are languages such as Java which are fairly close to working well everywhere or using some kind of library that hides the details of the platform, such as wxWidgets. Another possibility is that we (and everyone else who wants to give it a shot) each write the programs separately but agree on some common grounds, such as save file formats, fonts and whatever else makes sense. This way everyone can work on their platform of choice but we can still benefit in the end because anything someone does is instantly accessible to others. In the end, the program itself is most likely not the hardest part of this project.

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#13 2006-09-07 13:47:46

dstone
Member
From: Vancouver, Canada
Registered: 2006-01-11
Posts: 552
Website

Re: Computer notation revisited.

One approach to a cross-platform app (OS X, Linux, Windows) is to use a GUI toolkit.  I have experience with wxWidgets/wxPython and intende to use this as the foundation for my notation software.

An app coded on this API can be run on all of the above OS's, either direct from source or bundled as a stand-alone executable (compiled native or bytecode with interpreter).  There are dependencies to be installed, but a good installer (or, worse-case, fool-proof instructions) should take care of this.

Using C/ObjC/C++ will obviously have a compiled speed advantage over something like Python, though I wouldn't expect notation software to be CPU intensive.  To each their own though.

Java is another reasonable approach to use.  Fast and cross-platform.  I considered this, but when I went looking for native Java libraries for Postscript fonts (or multi-platform precompiled libraries), they weren't to be found. 

Qt (the toolkit under KDE) and GTK+ are other cross-platform contenders.  Flavour of the month.  I chose wxWidgets because its licensing is simple and it works well with Python, which is a lovely language to prototype/test/debug with.

Translating a font from Postscript to TTF or back is doable, but because those two formats express their curves quite differently, you may see visible artifacts in such a conversion.  Larry knows about this.  wink 

-Darren.


When it is rainy, I am in the rain. When it is windy, I am in the wind.  - Mitsuo Aida

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#14 2006-09-07 14:59:00

Tairaku 太楽
Administrator/Performer
From: Tasmania
Registered: 2005-10-07
Posts: 3226
Website

Re: Computer notation revisited.

Larry,

When I said I wanted Kinko, it's not because I thought it would be a bad idea to have Tozan, it's just my wish list. Of course if you are trying to develop something commercial you have to use Tozan as well.

I'm primarily interested in something that's easy to use without any particular computer skills. I didn't get into music to become a computer expert although between notation software and protools that's the way it's going. The way I see it is if it's easier to do by hand than with the computer it's useless. To use a comparison, Finale is easier to use than doing Western notation by hand. That's a good thing. If it's easier to draw notation by hand than to use a complicated computer program, then I'll just do it by hand.

Actually I do it by hand first and then because I am a savage, my Asian wife has to redo it. Since she doesn't play shakuhachi I then have to go over it with her while she's doing it. Still that's easier than the Kinko software I've tried from other sources.

And of course it should be Mac, because they are more user friendly.

I hope something simple and pithy gets developed.

Regards,

BR


'Progress means simplifying, not complicating' : Bruno Munari

http://www.myspace.com/tairakubrianritchie

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#15 2006-11-05 13:17:17

JF Lagrost
Shihan/Tozan Ryu
From: Paris (France)
Registered: 2006-10-19
Posts: 73
Website

Re: Computer notation revisited.

Tairaku wrote:

I'm primarily interested in something that's easy to use without any particular computer skills. I didn't get into music to become a computer expert although between notation software and protools that's the way it's going. The way I see it is if it's easier to do by hand than with the computer it's useless. To use a comparison, Finale is easier to use than doing Western notation by hand. That's a good thing. If it's easier to draw notation by hand than to use a complicated computer program, then I'll just do it by hand.

I entirely agree.

I've just discovered this interesting topic. I wonder how far you are in the project : is there something new since 2006-09-07 ?

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#16 2006-11-06 20:29:09

dstone
Member
From: Vancouver, Canada
Registered: 2006-01-11
Posts: 552
Website

Re: Computer notation revisited.

JF Lagrost wrote:

I've just discovered this interesting topic. I wonder how far you are in the project : is there something new since 2006-09-07 ?

Nothing particularly "new"...  but an update... 

My serious but very-part-time design and tinkering on notation software continues.  Regarding concerns raised by yourself and Brian (and probably many) about usability...   while I don't suggest that there will be zero learning curve, I do subscribe to the design principle that common tasks should be easy and uncommon tasks should be possible.

-Darren.


When it is rainy, I am in the rain. When it is windy, I am in the wind.  - Mitsuo Aida

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#17 2006-11-06 20:45:09

amokrun
Member
From: Finland
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 413

Re: Computer notation revisited.

I'm certainly still working on this. My problem is with the notation itself rather than writing the software. Since I'm a beginner, I'm having some trouble figuring out how to best represent the notation. There seem to be several ways to do this and they all pose different problems.

Another problem I'm facing is the platform to use. I'm sure that majority of shakuhachi players who would need such software are either on Mac or use Windows. Then you have people like me who are Linux users. There are many solutions to this, most which have at least some serious issues of their own.

To make it short, yes, I'm very much working on this and plan to get something done sooner or later. Unfortunately my financial situation (or the lack of it, rather) makes this sometimes a bit difficult. Every now and then it feels like there is no job out there for a programmer.

I would like to ask a question from everyone. Do you want to also have an option of writing the type of notation where the length of notes is show with lines? I don't know what it is called, but I'm sure you all know what I mean. It's somewhat different to do than the version with dots, but it's quite doable if there is enough interest.

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#18 2006-11-06 22:56:05

Derek Van Choice
Member
From: Lake San Marcos, CA
Registered: 2005-10-21
Posts: 99
Website

Re: Computer notation revisited.

If it is doable, I think the option for the vertical lines would be a benefit, especially for Minyo players.  It would allow more intricate note durations to be specified, as well as a general timing guide for those just into it.

Doubt there is much income in doing it, but it would be a noble creation and very much appreciated by the shakuhachi community, I imagine.  And, who knows... if it turns out to be ultra-functional, shareware income could materialize, being that said commnity is comprised of pretty good folk.

smile

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#19 2006-11-08 01:58:23

dstone
Member
From: Vancouver, Canada
Registered: 2006-01-11
Posts: 552
Website

Re: Computer notation revisited.

Well, here's a shakuhachi notation program.  Windows only.  Maybe people here have already seen/used it and can share opinions.  (I've only just found this and haven't looked closely at it yet.)

http://software.webmoment.at/

http://software.webmoment.at/Images/ShakuhachiSmall.jpg

-Darren.


When it is rainy, I am in the rain. When it is windy, I am in the wind.  - Mitsuo Aida

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#20 2006-11-09 11:17:29

Bruce Hunter
Member
From: Apple Valley CA
Registered: 2005-10-10
Posts: 258

Re: Computer notation revisited.

Hi All,
Downloaded it and used it last night to set a version of "Ase's Death" (Edvard Grieg). Currently working on a collection of European music that fits well on our instrument, using Excel up to now. I'll see how this compares. Much quicker than grinding your own ink from inksticks, and you don't go through a bunch of rice paper as you make the inevitable mistakes. As a freeware/shareware program, it should meet the need of "quick and dirty" notation needs. Any revelations or major problems, and I'll report here.


Develop infallible technique and then lay yourself at the mercy of inspiration. - Anon.

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#21 2010-03-25 15:14:15

John
Member
From: Minneapolis, MN
Registered: 2010-01-13
Posts: 19

Re: Computer notation revisited.

This is an old thread, but I thought I would perhaps revive it a little. 

Web technology is at the point where a drag and drop web interface might be created, thereby elmininating the cross platform problem.  What  I was thinking of was something that combined a "wiki" model with a page template so that on one side of the page you had a text area for comments and on the other half a certain number of columns of grids you could drop symbols onto or something like that.

On the notation area, I think the easiest might be a thicker main column for the main notes, and narrower columns on either side on which to drop modifiers.  All these symbols would be on some kind of palette.

I'm not sure how to deal with the vertical lines that indicate tempo.  Would there be multiple note pallets, one with no line, one with one line one with two lines, one with three lines for each note?

Basically the idea is you just start a new page with your masterpiece and start dropping your notes in. You could print it. You could share it by linking to it from what ever wiki page you wanted.  The info would be stored by just building up the list in the underlying tables and substituting the images.  Nothing very fancy or midi-like.  I suppose down the road you could play back the notes using a set of OGG or WAV snippets but I suspect it would sound pretty choppy.  That's way down the road.

Does anyone have anything close to a full set of regularized note symbol images as a starting point?  They'd all need to be the same number of pixels H x W so they would look relatively neat stacked one on top of another or side by side in the case of the modifiers.  I can easily resize them enmasse so it would probably be best to make some nice looking fairly large tiles and let me mess around with scaling them down.  Art and graphics's not my strong suit but if someone could create a starter set of PNG tiles I could start playing around with a site. 

It would take a while since it would just be something to work on in spare time but it sounds kind of fun...


"The more necessary anything appears to my mind, the more certain it is that I only assert a limitation." ~ The Book of Lies, Ch. 45 "Chinese Music"

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#22 2010-03-25 15:30:27

Dun Romin
Member
From: Holland
Registered: 2008-04-19
Posts: 136

Re: Computer notation revisited.

I don't know anything about web technology , but for the Kinko notation the shakukana font can be downloaded from the site of Monty Levenson, www.shakuhachi.com. I've created in Microsoft Word a standardpage with some 18 colums and after some exersice I now just type the characters directly in the colums. The only thing to note is the colums are filled from left to right, so after you've finished, you've to mirror them by hand, but with the prefixed colums that's no big deal either. Hope this helps you ahead.


Tomorrow's wind only blows tomorrow. (Koji)

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#23 2010-03-26 03:19:02

dust
Member
From: Albion
Registered: 2007-09-08
Posts: 91

Re: Computer notation revisited.

Hi John, an interesting idea. Two things you might wish to consider...

1,    The thorny question of copyright. Most wikis use only content that is in the Public Domain [or code that is Open Source].

2,    The open nature of the facility to allow the community to comment is just an invitation to relentless spammers, pornographers and trolls.



smile

Last edited by dust (2010-03-26 03:39:33)


imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.

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#24 2010-03-26 14:10:38

John
Member
From: Minneapolis, MN
Registered: 2010-01-13
Posts: 19

Re: Computer notation revisited.

I did a little investigation and I wanted to update with what I've got so far.  It is actually quite simple to write a mediawiki extension.  The way this could work is you would enter a special set of tags like this:

<score>
Title of Piece
Tsu
Tsu
-
U
Ro
-
etc..
</score>

The extension kicks in when it sees <score> and builds some HTML substituting the names of the notation elements it discovers with links to a set of images of the notes and notation elements.  This is almost trivial to implement if we had a decent set of public domain images of the various notation elements and an agreed upon textual convention for entering the notation elements. As long as the images were carefully sized so as to flow reasonably well together it should work. It's like block printing.

The extension could build a supplementary set of fingering charts by analysing the score, or a separate set of substitution symbols could be made, for example

<fingering>
Ro Meri
Go No Ha
</fingering>

The copyright issue raises an interesting question.  I would think with traditional works (like Edo period songs) the copyright lies in the actual written out scores themselves, not in the series of notes.  I am pretty sure anyone can write out their own version of a public domain piece and share it freely if they wished.


"The more necessary anything appears to my mind, the more certain it is that I only assert a limitation." ~ The Book of Lies, Ch. 45 "Chinese Music"

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#25 2010-03-26 16:09:34

Tairaku 太楽
Administrator/Performer
From: Tasmania
Registered: 2005-10-07
Posts: 3226
Website

Re: Computer notation revisited.

John wrote:

The copyright issue raises an interesting question.  I would think with traditional works (like Edo period songs) the copyright lies in the actual written out scores themselves, not in the series of notes.  I am pretty sure anyone can write out their own version of a public domain piece and share it freely if they wished.

Yes.

Even if you're writing out and sharing a piece of modern copyrighted music I don't think that's a violation as long as you don't sell it. People do it all the time. A common teaching method is asking students to listen to something and transcribe it.

The copyright issue seems to have no bounds but it's moving rapidly towards irrelevance because nobody pays attention anymore.


'Progress means simplifying, not complicating' : Bruno Munari

http://www.myspace.com/tairakubrianritchie

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