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Comment on Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroomparent

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The English language is messy as hell, and yet, here we are using it because it's a shared set of rules and symbols that pretty much everyone who wants to join in on this conversation already knows.

Same with staff notation: If you want to communicate music to other people, learning the slightly clunky but universally-known written language is generally the way to go.

The choir director at my church, Michael Dodds (UNCSA), covers the early development of musical notation, "From Modes to Keys in Early Modern Music Theory" [0]. Currently on sabbatical at Cambridge. Once in a while during rehearsal he will give an impromptu lecture on music history, always interesting.

[0] https://a.co/d/0bLcrlyE

learning the slightly clunky but universally-known written language is generally the way to go

A certain Amazon Web Services comes to mind…

No, English language is easy as sh... as piece of cake. A lot of it is marginalized French tbh, sorry, no offense, and the English in the USA is further simplified. You think tis difficult, because you never tried Russian, French, or Mandarin - then we discuss again. Had it not for the simplicity of English Language, it wouldn't be so omnipresent. So you are so wrong on this account.

And I really want to see you communicate wobbling bass or fast random notes. Well you can - in Studel.cc - but is impossible in this notation. Same for complex drum sections (as in dnb, yes), and I can give you fair amount of other examples where medieval notation is useless.

Can you give a specific example of a drum patten you think can't be represented with music notation then?

Since you mention Drum and Bass, here's the Amen break in drum notation:

https://www.elephantdrums.co.uk/blog/guides-and-resources/am...

I don't really agree with the person replying to my original comment, but I can see where they're coming from with respect to notating something like the pitched snares in Renegade Snares (chosen specifically because it's an Amen break that I don't know how I could write down in standard rhythm notation).

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