The Importance of a Good Notation

In his 1911 book An introduction to mathematics, Alfred North Whitehead wrote (p. 59):

By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases the mental power of the [human] race. Before the introduction of the Arabic notation, multiplication was difficult, and the division even of integers called into play the highest mathematical faculties.

Probably nothing in the modern world would have more astonished a Greek mathematician than to learn that, under the influence of compulsory education, a large proportion of the population of Western Europe could perform the operation of division for the largest numbers. This fact would have seemed to him a sheer impossibility. The consequential extension of the notation to decimal fractions was not accomplished till the seventeenth century. Our modern power of easy reckoning with decimal fractions is the almost miraculous result of the gradual discovery of a perfect notation.

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Great quote, isn't it? 

It clarifies the two essential benefits of a good notation, to wit, that it:
1. Enables domain specialists to advance the state of the art; and it
2. Enables a higher percentage of non-specialists to master the domain's fundamentals.

That's a pretty powerful combination, which explains why notational improvements have been the key to so many of humanity's great leaps forward.

Likewise, JIMS Isomorphic Music System (JIMS)
1. Enables creative artists to advance the state of the art (through such novel effects as Dynamic Tonality), and
2. Enables a higher percentage of non-musicians to master the musical domain's fundamentals.

Or, at least, that's my claim.  Time will tell.  ;-)

In the meantime, today's music education establishment will continue to argue -- as Greek mathematicians did in their day -- that their domain's high failure rate is due to the inherent difficulty of their domain, not due to the imperfection of their notation (and instrumentation). Perhaps JIMS, too, will astonish domain experts by doing the impossible.

Modulation

If JIMS'staff notates music using "Moveable Do with a La-based minor," how does it notate modulations? How does one execute such modulations on a JIMS-compatible keyboard?

Here's a link to a forum post on that topic. It refers to a hand-written document that I whipped up for the purpose, which I probably shoud have taken more time to draw up carefully.

Transposing Tradition

In a letter to the Austin Chronicle dated July 17, 2008 and titled The Question: How Good are the Musicians?, author Tom Bowman asks

Who wants to go down to Red River and get their ears assaulted by band after band of “musicians” who know about 10 chords, write insipid lyrics, and can’t even transpose their own songs from one key to another? If the level of talent were higher, the established clubs wouldn’t have to bring in so many touring acts.

How fascinating that Mr. Bowman equates the ability to “transpose songs from one key to another” with the bands’ “level of talent”! This is by no means an isolated example, however; the ability to transpose is often equated with musical skill and/or talent. A Google search for the keywords +transpose +sight +key +talent turns up almost 3,000 hits.

Yet the difficulty of transposition has no relevance whatsoever to musical knowledge, skill, or talent. It is merely an artifact of the pitch-focused design of traditional musical instruments and notation. At most, it is an artificial barrier placed in the path of aspiring musicians.

Using the ThumMusic System, transposition is a complete non-issue.

I am reminded of upper-class English schoolchildren, who were compelled to learn Latin as recently as the 1980’s. Why? Because Latin was the universal language of scholarly discourse…200 years previously. To be recognized as being One of Us, one had to speak the upper class' secret language, for purely exclusionary reasons. Anyone who could not afford to waste time and money learning an utterly useless secret language was excluded from the upper-class club.

I don’t think that Americas' taxpayers can afford to waste their time and money attempting – with a low success rate – to teach its children the secret language of music’s upper classes. By using the ThumMusic System, students can concentrate on learning about music.

Which is the point, really, isn’t it?