My only criticism is Tantacrul doesn't mention tracker notation.
While I don't disagree with his conclusion about the advantages of conventional notation -- I kept thinking about Iverson's Notation as a tool of Thought as I watched the video -- I do think that tracker notation might be roughly equivalent to conventional notation as a way of thinking about music.
It just that tracker notation isn't optimized for tonal harmony (aka the music of dead German men) and staff notation is.
Instead tracker notation is optimized for precision and machine reproduction.
Tracker notation directly facilitates complex musical composition by an individual, performance by an individual, and mass dissemination of those compositions.
Essentially, Tantacrul's argument is premised on the necessity of paper and meatware performance. Don't misunderstand me, I think MuseScore is awesome and recently I've found composing in staff notation valuable and efficient. This is just a critique of his essay.
And perhaps a deeper criticism is that his assumption of tonal harmony and paper and meatspace may reflect the kind of bias about the nature of music he criticizes elsewhere. I mean trackers are a "folk art" technology. They are a very plain and intellectually accessible way of notating music.
The verbosity of tracker notation means a person can gain competence in a matter of hours rather than years. Tracker notation removes the social gatekeeping that accompanies traditional western music education (that criticism isn't wrong). I mean staff notation puts tonal harmony at the center of composition. Percussion and microtones get short shrift...nevermind samples and noise and effects (what is the musical notation for a dotted quarter note delay?).
Idk which tracker you talk about, but the ones I know are difficult to read. Sure, you can learn to play a single note melody faster, but I doubt it'll work for complex pieces. At the very least, you'll need to constrain the format, if only to know which hand (or foot) should play which note. Trackers also lack notation for fingering, tempo, dynamics, etc. Piano rolls would be entirely a no-no. That would turn into a giant, unreadable staff.
I don't know what social gatekeeping there is for the current notation system. I know a teenager who learns the basics from Duolingo.
> what is the musical notation for a dotted quarter note delay?
Composers have been very free in adapting notation. They make up a few symbols and strokes, and explain them in the first pages of the score. They've made up notation for aleatoric music, free passages with some direction, knocking on the instrument, etc. If someone wants to prescribe a certain echo effect only on a particular note, that's doable.
"Tracker notation" is basically the same as the "piano roll" he talks about, right?
Anyway, I think "meatware performance" also underlies the criticisms he's responding to of standard notation as applied to music students, most of whom are trying to physically play instruments (those trying to compose on a computer are indeed on a completely different track that doesn't need to care about paper or performance). So he may have picked it up from that context of the whole which-notation question. Hopefully this doesn't count as "having an argument". :)
Yes, but tracker fans are obsessive about their preferred UI in the same way as Emacs or vi devotees. I've been making electronic music off and on for nearly 30 years and I can't stand trackers; it's just an event list so now you have to read everything rather than looking at it.
Also the concept of scale/key is not at all limited to European composers; most music systems have a concept of scale degree, but for computer music it's almost always been shoehorned into the 12-tone equal temperament system. Trackers don't alleviate this.
Just to be clear, Tantacrul is (last I heard) head of design for MuseScore, a program for composing music on a computer. That's probably why I feel it is worth the bother of having an opinion about his essay.
Tracker notation is approximately MIDI data with a human readable interface.
Tracker notation is even more complicated in that duration is built into the sample, and whether the sample has endless looping repetition built in or not - none of which is possible to discern from looking at the tracker notation itself.
Let alone thoss 'notes'are actually a bunch major and minor synth chords in different keys, or orchestra hits in a 2-unlimited mod.
Tracker notation is independent of sampling or any particular form of audio production. Usually it is approximately MIDI data.
Sent to a Sound Blaster, you get FM synthesis. Sent to the default Windows sound engine you get PCM samples. Send it out a MIDI port and you can get analog synthesis.
> tonal harmony (aka the music of dead German men)
You mean the basis for 99.9% of all the music anyone alive today in the Americas or Europe has ever heard? And probably 80% to 90%+ of all music in the rest of the world too?
While I don't disagree with his conclusion about the advantages of conventional notation -- I kept thinking about Iverson's Notation as a tool of Thought as I watched the video -- I do think that tracker notation might be roughly equivalent to conventional notation as a way of thinking about music.
It just that tracker notation isn't optimized for tonal harmony (aka the music of dead German men) and staff notation is.
Instead tracker notation is optimized for precision and machine reproduction.
Tracker notation directly facilitates complex musical composition by an individual, performance by an individual, and mass dissemination of those compositions.
Essentially, Tantacrul's argument is premised on the necessity of paper and meatware performance. Don't misunderstand me, I think MuseScore is awesome and recently I've found composing in staff notation valuable and efficient. This is just a critique of his essay.
And perhaps a deeper criticism is that his assumption of tonal harmony and paper and meatspace may reflect the kind of bias about the nature of music he criticizes elsewhere. I mean trackers are a "folk art" technology. They are a very plain and intellectually accessible way of notating music.
The verbosity of tracker notation means a person can gain competence in a matter of hours rather than years. Tracker notation removes the social gatekeeping that accompanies traditional western music education (that criticism isn't wrong). I mean staff notation puts tonal harmony at the center of composition. Percussion and microtones get short shrift...nevermind samples and noise and effects (what is the musical notation for a dotted quarter note delay?).
None of this means I didn't enjoy the video.
And none of it means I want to have an argument.
Notation as a tool of thought: https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/tot.htm