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Wow, I have left for a while (less than a day). Now look at the interests and responses. I love these passionate people.

Just a quick acknowledgement of btb's points. They are LOGICAL.

If we put the 4 logical points of yours together, we get the piano roll view (staff), will notes expressed as darkened stripes will different (time) lengths drawn on the correct "pitch stripe".

Essence of Hao Staff invention: piano roll + traditional music notes + Simple Key Signature (i.e. 1=C, 6=A, etc.) to help understand the Key Scale of the piece of music.

I chose this combination of things after balancing many considerations, including how radical a change it is going to be. Many computer programs exist to help people skip music reading. But I still imagine that people just like to have a book or a sheet of paper placed on the piano and play according to it.

Let me make it easy for them to put the note to the right piano key. As to timing, I let them to listen to the music and before long, they get what the different shapes of notes/stem/tails mean.

keyboardklutz mentioned Klavarskribo. Carl MC also mentioned use of color. These are all inventive ideas in the past to try to make "music reading" easier than what is given by the Grand Staff.

When applying for a patent, the examiner will compare the present invention will all ideas/inventions of the past and find the unique new feature.

If one cares to drill really deep on this, here is the Hao Staff patent certificate. As you will see, a long list of "prior art" is cited and compared to, right from the Wright patent of 7-line staff in 1870.

HAO STAFF US Patent Certificate

However, I don't recommend that you read the patent document which is more wordy than necessary given its legal/research requirement.

I recommend to those who are interested to simply look at these two documents (in front of a keyboard, if possible):

The Hao Staff Design and User Guide

Fur Elise on the Hao Staff

Just a note. The actual design of the Hao Staff is not just the patent itself. The patent just covers certain core features. But the actual design has many thoughtful and practical features to make it REALLY USABLE in practice.

I will stop short of promoting myself :-) I am open for comments, including discouraging ones. But I don't easily get discouraged.

Jeff

Scruffies said:....your middle line idea is geared to helping someone associate a letter with a specific key on the piano... is that right?"

Yes, and no. It is possible to use the staff as I explained to find the positioning on the keyboard which represents the 5 lines and 4 spaces of the treble clef and a different location in the bass clef - same principles. Also the shared thumbs Middle C position using a part of both clefs does the same.

The no part, is that you may or don't have to name the note you are looking for - you don't have to convert it to a name - you can play it as found.

I hope identifying the line names from the bottom line to the top of each clef L1-L2-L3-L4-L5 (line 1 etc) and the S1-S2-S3-S4 (space 1 etc) gives you another way to identify the staff besides the note name.

The truth is that eventually, the only reason to name a note is to find the note that starts a "position" or "hand shape". I teach by distance (interval reading making associations and relationship of notes in their movement) as well as direction (did it stay the same - repeat - or step up or step down one note, or did it skip to 2nds, 4th, 6th, 8th, where one of the notes will be a line and the other note will be a space. If the intervals are prime (repeat) 3rd, 5ths, 7ths, both notes will be placed on lines, or both on spaces. Have you noticed that? That's a pretty important discovery. The L1-2-3-4-5 and S1-2-3-4 helps prepare you for knowing the distance between notes.

So, eventually you play without having to name each and every note. It's time consuming and choppy, and totally unnecessary. What I do is mark 5 C's on the staff in orange to designate the changing registers in C's, that along with the middle line centering that I teach, gives you a big bang in finding your way around. Knowing the old mnenomics also helps, but it's pretty archaic and unnatural:

Bass Clef Lines: Grandma Bakes Donuts Friday Afternoon
(Middle C separates the clefs and is used only as needed)
Treble Clef Lines: Empty Garbage Before Dad Flips

(B and D spaces surround Middle C)

Bass Clef Spaces: All Cows Eat Grass
Treble Clef Spaces: FACE

Notice I read all lines and spaces from the bottom upwards. Do that consistantly because it builds your reading choices from left to right on the piano using the LH first followed by the RH placements on the keyboard.

That www.musictheory.com is something! I'm sorry I slipped up in linking it, Kenny. This web site has a lot to offer, but it is not accomplished by starting at the top and following down the categories in a row. There are different points at which it is important to take on the next challenge, but you need to have some idea of what is next. It does not list things in the way that I would use them.

You're going to get yourselves reading dependably and with vigor yet! You know, (ha, ha)just how hard can 7 alphabet letters be?

You have to be able to think ABCDEFG and be able to say it backwards too because the music is often traveling down the keyboard and the alphabet converts by reading it backward.

Then, you have to learn what to say when you skip alternating notes (3rd) C-E D-F E-G F-A G-B A-C B-D etc/and then backwards also. You can do this kind of alphabet practice on the keyboard along with the naming,by using fingers to judge/measure the distance. We might go into a discussion about that sometime. With that video camera I'm going to get.

Are you guys having fun? I hope so!

Betty

Let me come back to my dear friend Thorium. First of all, we have some good reasons to be friends. My best friend since 1990 (MBA days in London) is an Icelander. His name is Ingi. I have visited Iceland twice, each time spending all my savings. Secondly, I am also a guitarist turned pianist. Guitar tabs provided one of the inspirations for the Hao Staff, while back-to-basics thinking and tradition-defying personality provided the rest.

The questions I quoted above are very good ones. And believe me I had to ask myself the same questions again and again before I decide on the journey. That also include: adult or all including children? a replacement of the Grand Staff (got to control my defiant character) or an co-existing alternative?

Here are some honest answers for myself:

1. It is never going to replace the Grand Staff (no mistake about that)

2. This is not time to recommend to children for two reasons: a) limitation of development - how much music can I transcribe to Hao Staff and how fast? We don't want to limite the children's music resources. b) usually parents make decisions for children. What parents will use their children as guinea pigs for untraditional methods? They may not mind it themselves though.

3. Will it help some people? YES. Many. How many people (especially adults) think that "I wish I could just play that one piece/song on piano !". That's the kind of people to whom I want to say: "try it with the Hao Staff". You will figure it out in no time. Get on with practicing it.

The people who start this way will never stop at that one piece. We know that. They will want to play another piece and more. They will want to understand how to read the Grand Staff so that they can play more music. In fact, the Hao Staff is good teaching tool for reading the Grand Staff ! Just read the User Guide and you will appreciate it.

Let me stop here first.

Have a good week ahead.

Jeff

Re point 2 above, I hope I can offer the Hao Staff to children in 10-20 years time (this is a dream now), because

1) Hopefully I would have transcribed plenty of music (masterpieces, courses, music theory books, etc.) onto the Hao Staff

2) Hopefully their parents would have entered the world of piano music with the help of Hao Staff. And they can make informed decisions for their children.

Let me just clear one thing up. Functionally and technically, the Hao Staff sheet music more than matches the Grand Staff (and I know the Grand Staff well although I read it at snail speed!). The only difference is that one existed for hundreds of years, and the other is just born.

I qualify my above statement: it applies to piano music. When it comes to other instruments, it functions the same if properly adapted (e.g. defining the optimal pitch range for the standard staff), with only one difference: the size is bigger by about 3:2. That may limit its application. I can't imagine people writing symphonies on it.

So let's focus on piano for the time being. Is piano itself not BIG enough?

What people fail to understand is that it is rhythm that is the difficult aspect to reading - identifying which key goes with which space/line is pretty much child's play. Identifying a baseball is one thing, hitting it at precisely the right time and place is ... a whole different ball game. People are not used to living in time, they stumble through it.

Hao Staff tries to solve one problem - the "child's play". It helps those people that cannot identify which key goes with which note FAST ENOUGH using the Grand Staff, even if they try.

I don't disagree with keyboardklutz' comment. Nothing can replace learning from from teacher and practising.

I take it you also have a solution for sucking eggs?

I get your point. You don't need it. And you don't recommend it to others.

I respect that.

Especially to children, who are quick to learn child's play. Now, if you could find a better way to indicate fingering...

You are pulling my leg, keyboardklutz. I use the same way to indicate fingering on the Hao Staff.

Since you are a good challenger, tell me things that the Grand Staff can do and Hao Staff cannot do.

Use this: Fur Elise on Hao Staff

So you do recognise some people are faster than others even for learning child's play. I am trying to help the slower lot, or those who cannot afford the time and effort. I myself am one of them.

I know there are many piano teachers here. But I don't think the piano teachers should necessarily object to new methods like this. Why not teach with this as an (OPTIONAL) aide, based on what the student needs and wants.

Hi Jeff,

Perhaps it's because I am used to the GS but I find your Fur Elise unreadable - or at least, hard to read at any speed - there are too many lines - you can't just glance at it and know what line is what - you can with the GS because there are just two groups of 5. The GS is wonderfully compact and evolved for Western music. I think your staff would be good for atonal music because it's generic, but is unnecessarily hard to read (quickly) for most Western music.

I'm always surprised that, though forum rules forbid advertisments in post, advertisers still easily succeed in making their point. Basically, after a couple of warnings, some polite escuses, and a lot of sweet language:


they succeed in having a whole (or almost) thread dedicated to their product.

To paraphrase Joseph II - Too many lines Jeff!

Since I and others have pretty much pulled this thread away from the OP and since the frey very much interest me, the answer to Betty on my use of color is that it is in conjunct with having reordered the key heads to a chromatic form. I have a color tab on each black key. All the c's are red, etc. The tabs are skinny little tape strips and are shorter (by octaves) going to the trebel end. Octaves are immediately identified at a glance on the notation as well as on the keys. After two weeks of rewireing in my brain, I can now play anything I have learned starting on ANY black key. (Only about twenty tunes) I still play those on a regular piano as well. I am not through with the project as I must do it as a hobby since I am required to work and pay bills otherwise.

It is unproven that I will be able to read my own music but I hope it will help me play more and harder works.

It is my thinking that all alternative notation methods will fail without an instrument organized to the benefit of that notation. Mr Hao's included. My notation is adapted from others with the addition of color. The notation came after the key conversion. In fact, I wish there were others with a piano like mine who could colaborate with me on refining the notation. Mine will only succede as long as I use it. It has become very clear to me that scarce few will ever pay to convert a piano as I have. I have a youngster that knows nothing else and will learn on my piano. Perhaps she will make my work known after I am gone.

Multiple thanks to each and all as well as Piano World that makes this possible.
James

Hi LaValse. That is how ALL "Grand Staffers" find it. But think about this: how much time have you spent on using GS now? And how much time for HS?

Or think this way: if you give two complete beginners two sheets (GS and HS) of the same music (I mean complicated music), who will figure out which keys to play first (let's leave the timing factor out)?

Once you become a "user" of the Hao Staff, you don't pay attention to the single lines (stripes). You only see sets of lines (2 blacks + 3 blacks), and the Octave set (2+3 blacks). This is the same as how you will see the piano keyboard.

If we have stopped complaining about the piano "having too many keys", surely we will one day stop thinking "too many lines".

Jeff :-)

I have a five 1/2 octave piano made in 1800 - just the right number for me!

I think perhaps you under estimate the need of humans to stick to the status quo. Most people don't want to change once they become comfortable with any given thing. Particularly something that is so widespread and accepted without question. Plus the complexity provides a structure in which to earn money teaching it.

Exactly true. There is a compactness which conveys much much information with just a glance (and a bit of memory/feel to know the key you are in).