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THANK YOU ! Thank you both, KS and Rich.

I read your explanation carefully. I can only say that I vaguely sense what you are trying to explain to me. I have absolutely no doubt that what you say is true. My study of music is only so much, and I have to learn/develop more to be able to fully comprehend that. My mind is open. The seed is planted.

KS,

Your description about the 2 approaches (including the approach for which the Hao Staff serves) is great. You have described the "Hao Staff approach" better than I do. I appreciate the limitations that you point out, although I am still not sure, overall speaking and in the long run, which approach is better. I am saying this because one approach has an "industry-supported" student body, while the other one doesn't. So we can't compare them on a common basis based on student data.

I am ready to accept the expert's opinion like the ones you gave. But one variable that needs to be taken into account in judging about the system is the size of the population it serves. Only % of people can reach the "nirvana". I hope you can see the risk that many people drop out because it takes quite a long time and hard work (like going to a music conservatory, though not all have to go) to be able to taste the fruit with the traditional approach.

I am sure you know the Suzuki method. Would you agree that the Hao Staff is a good step towards a workable compromise between the Suzuki method and the traditional method (applicable to learning keyboard only)?

I think this has been a thought-provoking thread, for the most part. Jeff, you and btb are tilting at windmills, as I'm sure you must realize at some level. You are in the same position as the inventor of the Dvorak keyboard and facing the same doom: The QWERTY keyboard, despite its flaws and illogical layout, is simply too entrenched to be replaced. The grand staff is not as flawed as the QWERTY keyboard, but it is just as entrenched, and probably more so. After all, the only impediment to using the Dvorak keyboard is retraining oneself to type with it--difficult, but doable. But to get others to adopt the Hao staff would require not only changing the hearts and minds of end users but also the publishers of sheet music, an even more insurmountable task.

However, I do appreciate your description of the Hao staff and the lively debate that has ensued. Having the courage to question whether traditional music notation can be improved helps us all to think about and understand the reasons why music is notated the way it is, and that is ultimately helpful to all of us... even if we remain mired in tradition. Thank you for sparking this conversation.

Jeff, I am no expert, though I have an incredibly weird background that gives me a unique perspective. As soon as you set me up as an expert you create an "us" vs. "them" scenario. I was musically illiterate for 45 years. I did not know note names. I could find C. I acquired a piano less than 2 years ago. I learned to read music to the level you saw (that level is unnecessary - and reading through a score in that manner is also unnecessary) in 14 months. I began to study music theory less than 3 years ago.


I do not agree that it has to take years and years. I do believe that it is learned, taught, and studied in a bad way. Language literacy was also once considered a rare and wondrous thing that only a few people could attain. Music-wise we are living in the Dark Ages. Largely it's probably a matter of approach.

When you write "industry" approach, this is also misleading. That's not what it's about. It involves what works, and what works less well. I'm not part of any industry. I am an adult student who cannot afford lessons currently, trying to make do with what is available. I am neither an elite expert, nor a financial beneficiary.


Absolutely not, because of the approach of Suzuki itself. We should get the Suzuki teacher(s) on board for this one. The Suzuki method seeks to emulate the manner in which Sinjin Suzuki believes language is learned: hear, speak, read. A core premise is that a student should have a lot of exposure to music, be able to hear it, absorb its aspects, and be able to duplicate that music. When reading is delayed, it is done so deliberately, because reading would interfere with that process. The "Hao Staff" would interfere even more, since it does not even reflect the structure of music which the student is hearing. The other purpose of the Suzuki method is to begin with good physical technique. Since attention cannot go to two things at once, attention should be on what the body is doing and the sounds being produced, rather than decoding symbols.
Suzuki teachers?

An interesting aside about the QWERTY, which you might know, Monika, is that it was designed deliberately to be difficult. The first old mechanism could not cope with fleet fingers, so inventors placed the most used letters with the weakest fingers and hand. The music notation system, however, strove to be as efficient as possible.

Sounds a bit like Music Theory.

My understanding was that it was designed to avoid often used keys from being too close and therefore jamming into each other.

But this I didn't know, from Wiki - 'Many more words can be spelled using only the left hand than the right hand. In fact, thousands of English words can be spelled using only the left hand, while only a couple of hundred words can be typed using only the right hand. This is helpful for left-handed people.'

Hmmm, wonder if the same is true of the piano keyboard....

This would make sense with what keyboard klutz said about so many words being typed with the left hand. I don't see a reason why this would be necessary for a piano keyboard. But, if you think about it, do more compositions involve lower notes, hence the use of the left hand? Are harmonies, often played with the left hand more 'verbose' than melodies? I don't have enough experience in music to answer these questions, apparently I created a monster when I posted this thread.

Hey, enfrancais!!! Good to see you back in this thread again. Don't mind the bickering; the internet is one big dysfunctional family and PW is no exception.

My typing analogy was an analogy, only; I wasn't intending to imply that a single process drove both the design of the grand staff and the typewriter keyboard. But I do think it's a useful analogy as a way of showing that sometimes things evolve through history in a form that we wouldn't necessarily adopt today if we designed it from scratch.

Yeah, enfrancais, I was afraid we'd run you completely off.

Apologies for "warping" your thread so far off topic, though it was good discussion I think.

To build on another tangential topic mentioned in recent posts, do you guys really feel that handedness is a factor in either piano or typing? I've never thought so, but I'd be interested in the opinions and experiences of others (and in evidence, too, to extent available).

And how would piano compare in this regard to other instruments where each hand actually does a different task with a different function, like, for example, guitar, violin, accordion, etc.?

Steven

For my part in hijacking your original question, my apologies

You state, "apparently I created a monster"

I think you only shed some light on a full grown monster that hides about in the shadow of pianos and attacks unsuspecting piano students.

Are you French? Your words seem completely structured in English.

And have you gotten anything from the posts?

James

Hi, KS. Thanks for the clarification of above issues. I think you are right. An approach is an approach. I should not have coloured it.

I think I should not take on the responsibility to talk about the differences between the 3 approaches, with Suzuki added to "piece-oriented" and "Alice-in-wonderland". People may have more to nominate.

I hope all would understand that I simply packaged a system that leans towards the "piece-oriented approach" which existed before me. So the system may manifest some limitations that approach has. On the other hand, my system also has its merits, which I will not repeat here because some of you have acknowledged that in different places, implied or overtly. I am pleased with that.

Would it be fair to say that my system may serve all the 3 appoaches in a limited way, i.e. in certain manner for certain people at a certain stage? Guidance from teachers is recommended to make sure that one only takes advantage of it based on his/her own situation.

It is a bit like ... a medicine can be bad if not used properly (under the doctor's advice). But it would be too critical if we say the medicine is bad for that reason. I am dramatising it. But it is an analogy :-). I would take it as a compliment if your answer was ... we are afraid that your medicine should be banned like the drugs.

I acknowledge the lack of doctors who are willing to prescribe this medicine. For that I have to do my marketing. Even pharmaceuticals need marketing. I hope people here (many of you are doctors) don't take marketing as a dirty word.

Thanks. I am eager to share my work as well as to learn more. I have achieve both beyond my expectation.

Best regards,
Jeff

Interesting questions. My own anecdotal experience is that I am continually struggling with not playing the left hand too loudly (and I am left-handed).

Thanks, Monica. Your remarks before and after the above quoted part ... they make me feel ... welcome ... great.

For your quoted remarks, it cannot be truer. That's why I do not treat this as a business project in my heart. Although it is taking a business look, the odds are against it.

That's why I am my own publisher now. First via internet, and then physical sheet music books and fakebooks.

I am going to take it slow, one step at a time. I just want to look back, when looking back is the only thing to do at a certain point of our life, and see what I have managed. It may be just some deserted ruins. Or, the seed may become a sprout, or even develop a root, and if miracles do happen, perhaps some leaves and fruits!

Wish me luck. I need a lot of that, I know.

Jeff

I've been out of this conversation for a while, so I thought I'd pop back in to talk about typewriters

keyboardklutz is right that the QWERTY layout is designed to move commonly used letters away from each other. The design was intended to speed up typing by minimizing the occurrence of mechanism jams that occurred when nearby letters were struck in quick succession (which the typist would have to manually fix). The intent wasn't to slow the typist down...rather it was to allow typists to go more quickly given the limits of the mechanical typewriter. A Dvorak layout on a mechanical typewriter from the late 19th century would probably jam all the time, just as the two-row, alphabetically ordered keyboards at the time did.

Of course all of this is irrelevant now (both to this discussion, and to computer keyboards), but the most highly publicized studies about the superiority of the Dvorak layout are dubious. Keyboard layout probably has very little to do with typing speed (good typists on QWERTY tend to be good typists on Dvorak and vise versa), and given enough training, a person can probably adapt to any layout.

What's the moral of the story? I dunno. Given adequate training, it's just as easy to learn to read the grand staff as it is the Hao staff (at speed)? You should consider the long-term benefits of a given system (QWERTY keyboards are everywhere, and the grand staff is everywhere [as well as the theoretical benefits])?

Yeah, I dunno. Back to your regularly scheduled program..

Ah..., nothing like my early morning stroll through 'reading music'.

Mr Hao continues to sell his chromatic stave snake-oil ... and to date can only offer the sample of an all too obvious (but more difficult to read) chromatic run of 24 minor thirds ... but little realizing that the chief stumbling block to reading music is the complicated format of the neumes which illogically grow more complex ... the SMALLER THE DURATION.

Solve this anomaly ... as with the 10th measure from Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata ... and come up with a Spartan compact image ... and the company might see the persistent bleat as something more than a mere tinkering with a universal notation.

http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/pathetiquem10.JPG

OMG....

Rhythm!

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Hi, btb. If my memory serves me right, you should share the same passion with keyboardklutz about making the rhythm notation easier.

Guess we are working on different axis (how do you spell the plural form of this?)

I agree you are working on something meaningful. But that does not mean that I am working on something not meaningful, or less meaningful. How do you measure the meaningfulness of solving these two problems?

Anyway, if you have a solution for the horizontal problem, I'd be happy to adopt it into the Hao Staff with your permission.

I am sure you have talked about it somewhere on this Forum. Could you point me to it?

Jeff

P.S. Although I have just started the journey, I already have many many famous piano pieces transcribed onto the Hao Staff and offered on my webstore, and I have built up a small clientele with favourable feedback. I am clarifying this because your "... can only offer to date ..." remark is misleading information.