afteroreo.blogg.se - Hold the line piano sheet music

Hold the line piano sheet music how to#
Hold the line piano sheet music professional#

It breaks up the content and helps the player understand which hand is doing what.

I made the horizontal “chord” lines thinner than the vertical “hold” lines to differentiate the meanings, and to minimize visual weight on the page.Ĭolors: different colors represent a player’s left hand (blue) versus right (green). The lighter horizontal bar simply connects the notes in a chord (traditional sheet music does something similar). The lighter, transparent vertical bars represent held notes, when your fingers stay on the key(s) after the initial hit. The dark circles represent fingers hitting piano keys - they can stand alone, or as part of a chord.

Overview: after a few iterations, I arrived at this upside-down-trident-shape. Usually the blue chords would be to the left of the green ones, as those show left and right hands, respectively. the “Peanuts” theme song) using a different time signature that has 8 beats per measure:Ī few chords and notes, as an example. Below I’ve notated the first few measures of Vince Guaraldi’s Linus & Lucy (a.k.a. For most contemporary music, this default 4/4 should be fine, but others will require custom printing.

Uncommon time signatures: This default state is based on 4 beats per measure, i.e., a “4/4” time signature, so it would need to be customized to fit a 3/4, 6/4, 7/4, or any number of less-common time signatures.

But for learnability, it’s a worthwhile sacrifice.

Precision: because I’m not using exact symbols and signs, where the notes fall is a bit open to interpretation.

I think this is a succinct and sufficient system for this project, but there are two notable shortcomings:

The narrow spaces represent “down” beats, which I’ve noted in the picture above. So instead of dividing up beats and measures with lines (similar to traditional sheet music), I used white space. Measures and timing: I took a cue here from Stephen Few’s work on data visualization blank space can be a very effective means to separate visual elements. Here’s how you count the beats in this notation: top to bottom, with the small spaces being beats, and the large spaces representing whole measures. My new notation is for new audiences, not for those already proficient with traditional sheet music. But, as I mentioned, there’s a hefty learning curve. That notation is flexible, precise, and has stood the test of time.

Hold the line piano sheet music professional#

An attempt to “replace” traditional sheet music: sheet music has been around for over 500 years (thanks, Wikipedia), and it’s amazing! A professional instrumentalist can sit down in front of any piece of sheet music and play it, even if they’d never heard it before.

These are simply mockups intended to demonstrate a concept.

Exact visual forms and shapes: I’ve used basic shapes and formats.

A professional project: There’s no “real user research” here, just a designer, some crayons, and friends willing to give feedback.

Maybe they’d even like to sing over the music! This target user is probably learning easy, contemporary songs, and already knows what they sound like before they learn them.

Hold the line piano sheet music how to#

I’m addressing the casual piano player, one who wants to learn how to play songs well, but doesn’t have the time or attention to learn from traditional sheet music. This is a personal project where I’m trying to A) solve a problem, B) get a conversation started, and C) have fun thinking about a hobby I love. Chords are simple, but sheet music is advanced. Guitar players who don’t read sheet music can lean on guitar tabulature as a learning tool, but a piano player’s alternatives are limited to learning by ear or from basic chords. Here are most of the symbols used in traditional sheet music.