# Unusual Musical Notations You Have Come Across **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [February 7, 2023, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425 "2023-02-07T10:58:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2023, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/1 "2023-02-07T10:58:24Z")
While sight-reading the famous 1st movement of **Beethoven** ’s _Moonlight Sonata_, I came across a notation that left me stumped. The piece is in C-sharp minor, so it has four sharps, namely F♯, C♯, G♯ and D♯ but at one point, F goes double-sharp, then in the next measure, it becomes F♮♯. I had absolutely no idea how to play this. Did it mean that F is natural but the other three notes remain sharp ? The opposite ? Something else ? It turns out that it’s an old way of indicating that you go back to the original F♯. OK, I guess it makes sense when you know it, but I found it definitely confusing. In the more modern practice I’m familiar with, you just write F♯ and that’s it. Have you ever come some unusual musical notation that you had no idea how to decipher ? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2023, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/2 "2023-02-07T12:01:53Z")
I’ve encountered the following, but don’t know how to read them (although they look interesting): 1. [Dodeka music notation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodeka_music_notation) 2. [Klavarskribo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klavarskribo) 3. [Parsons](https://chromatone.center/theory/notes/alternative/parsons/) 4. I can’t remember what it’s called, but there’s a traditional (neither today’s usual musical notation nor the use of numbers for notes common in China) way of notating the music for the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean zithers. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2023, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/3 "2023-02-07T13:23:28Z")
> [@Moonrise](#): > > It turns out that it’s an old way of indicating that you go back to the original F♯. OK, I guess it makes sense when you know it, but I found it definitely confusing. In the more modern practice I’m familiar with, you just write F♯ and that’s it. I must have been reading fairly old music, because the way you first wrote it, with the natural and then accidental, is the way I’m most familiar with. Yes, there has been all sorts of musical notation that has flummoxed me over the years, but no concrete examples are coming to mind this early in the morning yet. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2023, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/4 "2023-02-07T14:14:32Z")
Our high school production of, “Jesus Christ Superstar,” had an interesting notation: during the crucifixion scene, in the minute or two before Jesus’ final lines, the score says (and I quote), “Goof around.” Gotta love it. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2023, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/5 "2023-02-07T16:30:32Z")
It’s not unusual at all, merely old-fashioned. If it’s good enough for Beethoven… For some of the unusual stuff you can start here: > **[Experimental music notation resources](https://llllllll.co/t/experimental-music-notation-resources/149)** > > As somebody with one foot in the visual art world and the other in sound world, I have always been interested in the experimental music notation strategies. Aside from the fact that these are often beautiful artifacts, I love thinking about the... ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2023, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/6 "2023-02-07T16:32:27Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > It’s not unusual Sounds like you’re suffering from **Tom Jones Syndrome**. 😄 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2023, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/7 "2023-02-07T17:00:51Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > It’s not unusual at all, merely old-fashioned. From what I read up about this, that is indeed the case. That’s just traditional notation. Contemporary notation to change a double sharp into a regular sharp would be to simply indicate the sharp. More info here under “double natural”: > **[Natural (music)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_(music))** > > In music theory, a natural (♮) is an accidental which cancels previous key signatures or accidentals and represents the unaltered pitch of a note..mw-parser-output .infobox-subbox{padding:0;border:none;margin:-3px;width:auto;min-width:100%;font-size:100%;clear:none;float:none;background-color:transparent}.mw-parser-output .infobox-3cols-child{margin:auto}.mw-parser-output .infobox .navbar{font-size:100%}body.skin-minerva .mw-parser-output .infobox-header,body.skin-minerva .mw-parser-output .i > I... > Similarly, to cancel one flat or sharp from a double flat or sharp, the traditional convention is to use (♮♭) or (♮♯) respectively, but the naturals are generally omitted in modern notational practice. By “modern” it states somewhere around the 19th century. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2023, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/8 "2023-02-07T17:14:36Z")
From Frank Zappa’s “Piano Introduction To The Little House I Used To Live In”; score transcribed by Ian Underwood (who performed the original recorded version), published 1970’s IIRC. Link is SAFE for work. > ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2023, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/9 "2023-02-07T18:50:32Z")
And a technique that is always used in the traditional tune “London Derriere” ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2023, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/10 "2023-02-07T18:53:30Z")
🎵 Oh, K364y boy… 🎶 ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2023, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/11 "2023-02-07T18:55:44Z")
Trills and mordents in Renaissance guitar (before the guitar had six single strings). They’re more or less what most modern guitarists would call hammer-ons and pull-offs, and they’re represented by symbols in the really old scores. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2023, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/12 "2023-02-07T20:21:37Z")
It’s not really that unusual, but I remember the first times coming across tremolo notation in a piece of piano music and having no idea what it meant. Either like this: [![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ru74V.jpg) ](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Ru74V.jpg) or like this: [![](https://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/tremolopiano.jpg) ](https://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/tremolopiano.jpg) I could not for the life of me figure out what that bottom type of notation meant, before I asked my teacher. (A lot of times I see the notation with the three (or however many) horizontal bars disconnected.) ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/13 "2023-02-09T17:56:28Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > > [@Moonrise](#): > > > > It turns out that it’s an old way of indicating that you go back to the original F♯. OK, I guess it makes sense when you know it, but I found it definitely confusing. In the more modern practice I’m familiar with, you just write F♯ and that’s it. > > I must have been reading fairly old music, because the way you first wrote it, with the natural and then accidental, is the way I’m most familiar with. > [@DPRK](#): > > It’s not unusual at all, merely old-fashioned. If it’s good enough for Beethoven… Well, it goes to show that I’m less musically well-read than I thought. One reason may be that I have few Urtext scores. For public domain music, which represents 90% of what I play, I’ve almost always relied on free scores found online, and these tend to be recent. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unusual-musical-notations-you-have-come-across/979425/14 "2023-02-09T22:39:27Z")
I just looked at a popular program for (semi-)automatically engraving music, GNU Lilypond. There are about a dozen predefined styles for automatic accidentals, but, interestingly enough, the default corresponds to “eighteenth-century common practice”. If you want the modern style you have to specify that explicitly.