# Converting sheet music into F# major **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 31, 2006, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/converting-sheet-music-into-f-major/370854 "2006-08-31T00:17:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/converting-sheet-music-into-f-major/370854/81 "2006-09-05T06:19:42Z")
[QUOTE=AHunter3] [Here](http://home.earthlink.net/~ahunter03/Stuff/Viola%20Segment.jpg) is what the viola player would see for a section of 1812. [/quote] …which takes up far more space than using conventional notation. Page turns are going to be fun. > [@](#): > > The part at the top is the volume indicator. Each voice (instrument) has (or can have) markup for how loud each individual note is to be. Conventional music doesn’t do this, for very good reasons. Last time, and I’m trying not to seem harsh or rude here: if you don’t understand the way five-line staves enable the clear display of harmonic structure, then you’re not going to see what’s missing from a piano roll. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/converting-sheet-music-into-f-major/370854/82 "2006-09-05T09:27:51Z")
If anyone has studied mid-20th-century composition, you know Pierre Boulez’s scores have stretched convention five-line staff notation to its limits in the direction of **AHunter3** ’s preference… and other scores e.g. by Krzystof Penderecki or [Iannis Xenakis](http://www.academie-des-beaux-arts.fr/membres/actuel/Musique/Xenakis/fiche.htm) have discarded the staff entirely and just use geometrical diagrams to suggest pitch, volume, duration, timbre, and what have you. More like Labanotation (used in choreography) than music. And then there’s _electronic_ music notation, which was developed in the 1960s. But this stuff was notated that way because the conventional staff was useless for kinds of sounds the composers had in mind. For the same old diatonic scales and chords still used in popular genres of music, the blackbirds with funny feathers perched on telephone lines (good imagery there) convey the maximum information my mind needs with the most economical use of space I can imagine. > [@Wikipedia](#): > > Alternative music notations using chromatic staves > > Over the past three centuries, hundreds of music notation systems have been proposed as alternatives to traditional western music notation. Many of these notations seek to improve upon traditional notation by using a “chromatic staff” in which each of the 12 pitch classes has its own unique place on the staff. Examples are the Ailler-Brennink notation and John Keller’s Express Stave. These notations do not require key signatures, or sharp, flat and natural signs. They also represent interval relationships more consistently and accurately than traditional notation. The Music Notation Modernization Association has a website [http://www.mnma.org/](http://www.mnma.org/) with information on many of these alternative notations. > **[Musical notation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_notation)** > > Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The process of interpreting musical notation is often referred to as reading music. Distinct methods of notation have been invented throughout history by various cultures. Much information about ancient music notation is fragmentary. Even in the same time frames, dif... ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2006, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/converting-sheet-music-into-f-major/370854/83 "2006-09-05T10:19:29Z")
[QUOTE=Johanna] And then there’s _electronic_ music notation, which was developed in the 1960s. [/QUOTE] This is the closest to the midi transcriptions **AHunter3** is talking about. And you’re right to bring up alternative systems, but often these came about through the necessity of microtonal systems, or by being able to produce ones which are not intended to be read musically by the human eye. This is quite different from asserting _"Two notes in the same vertical position differentiated by some stupid floating symbol in front? Stupid_", and using this as an argument for reworking established conventions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/converting-sheet-music-into-f-major/370854.md?page=4)