World Music Online And Remote Learning: Cultivating Music System Diversity.

The banner screenshot above hints at possibilities never before seen in an online music environment - music notation directly driving a wholly configurable variety of instrument models and theory tools in an entirely graphical setting. It doesn't take long to figure out that the music system being represented is based on equal temperament. What, though, of all the other world music systems - of which there are many?

This post examines the music systems underlying notations: the musical configurations and semantic or semiotics (meanings or intentions) notation glyphs or symbols seek to convey.

Music System Diversity

MusicXML is perhaps the most expressive of exchange file formats. Capable of representing entire multipart orchestral scores, it's reputation has earned it integration into web standards under the aegis of the W3C.

MusicXML Exchange File Contents
Tied To One And Only One Notation Type?

Though increasingly capable of representing music notations from other musical cultures (for example Arabic and Turkish makam), in most people's mind's MusicXML is tied to the 12-tone equal temperament (12-EDO or 12-TET) western or classical music notation system. There is pressure to integrate other music systems, but don't hold your breath.

Stripped of the more recent (and -in an age of responsive and algorithmic placement- pointless) screen positioning information, MusicXML specifies a score's structural characteristics. Amongst others: voice, octave, duration, note name (pitch) and note type. Critically, the note appearance is not specified.

This is important, as it on the one hand allows various fonts to be applied, and on the other allows a degree of latitude in the type of notation used. In effect MusicXML invites limited notation 'misuse'.. Let me list a few examples:

• classical scores played on just-intoned instruments
• just intoned folk instrumentalists adopting western classical notation as a base for documenting own folk tunes
• western classical notation being intentionally adapted to accommodate a variety of microtonal music systems

Equally, certain microtonal notation systems (for example Sagittal) are capable of use with equal temperament music.

Master - Slave
Notation The Driver. Reads L to R.

	Notation
MusicXML	1 : many

All that is required are:

• known mappings between notation systems
• an ability to suspend training and/or doubts ("Just Do It")

The relationship between exchange file and notation is demonstrably one-to-many. In recognising that, dear heart, we open up new avenues of exploration.

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Transnotation

MusicXML To Music System Mapping
One To Many, a.k.a Transnotation

To recap, western notation can be -and indeed is- used to represent certain forms of just intoned systems. Equally, microtonal notationsystems such as Sagittal, conceived to represent just intoned music, can be used to represent conventional equal tempered pieces.

To be absolutely clear, we are not merely talking of subtly differentiated glyph sets (as between, say, Gonville and Emmenthaler), but the disambiguation of, and compatibility mapping between fundamentally different musical notations.

We are talking of the ability to represent a piece of music using notations based on one of a number of different underlying music systems.

The concept described here is known as 'Transnotation', and though not yet (to my knowledge) implemented in any online notation system, is long established amongst ethnomusicologists.

My gut feeling is that this -to all intents and purposes simple- capability is the key to unlocking a wave of cross-cultural or comparative musicological interest. Moreover, it's consequent implementation, though in a comprehensively 'music visualization' sense manpower-intensive, is decidedly not rocket science.

Music System To MusicXML Mappings
Beyond Our Control

We might also (logically) infer that a given score can be represented by more than one type of exchange file. Indeed, here we can begin to think of compatibility mappings between exchange files.

As always, to avoid duplication, one should always seek mappings at the lowest possible level in any dependency tree. Our dependency tree stretches from underlying music systems over their semantic or semiotic representations to the formalities of exchange files to actual notations.

Clearly, mappings such as these are not just between various notation families, but effectively to music systems and hence cultures. If these could be formalized, might they not unlock some powerful practical applications?

Let's take a stab at illustrating this slightly confusing topic in one simple visual model. If we think of equal temperament and just intoned music systems as 'orthogonal' to each other, we might nevertheless find 'best-fit' pitch mappings between the two.

Just Intonation To Equal Temperament: Notation Mappings
Red = Equal Temperament Score Representing Just Intoned Pitches
Green = Just Intonation Score Representing Equal Temperament Pitch

We show just two from many potential mappings. Other, perhaps experimental notations could be represented by additional tetrahedrons with an edge common with the underlying notation. The basis for a future animation?

Incidentally, similar results might alternatively (and more accurately) be found by directly overlaying the pitch graphs for the two systems.

For the meantime, we should simply be aware of notation mappings as a means of transitioning between:

• equal temperament and just intonations
• Either of the above and yet more differentiated microtonal and experimental notations

Though those known and applied are limited in number, such mappings open a number of avenues for musical exploration.. The challenge, of course, is not just to indicate that a different pitch system is referred to, but -especially in the case of just intonations- to indicate which (possibly regional) derivative is intended.

At the end of the day, however, there is likely to be a simple and elegant solution. My own preferred hack is to describe the problem, and to allow the old wetware to work on it while sleeping.

Why Explore Music System Diversity?

Music notations in all their forms remain a surprisingly fertile and active area of interest and study among artists and musicians.

Potential Crowdfunder? First Name Email Address

While many have western classical music as context, it's probably fair to assume the similar levels of interest across all music cultures. Moreover, we humans can prove very adaptable. The use of music notations in contexts other than originally intended is no exception.

Often, the easiest way to learn something new is to relate it back to the known. Say you have two notation systems, one designed for equal temperament, the other for just intonation. A specific note may have a wholly different representation within each notation system, yet be so close in pitch that the representation is all but irrelevant.

This is a possible mapping: find enough and you have a general purpose bridge between the two systems. Uses?

Scope Of Changes To Music System
(Flying By The Seat Of My Pants Here)

• To ease transition to unfamiliar music systems - and hence musical cultures
• New notational, instrumental and theory tool freedoms and interworking (for example: documenting experimental music using existing exchange file formats)
• Represents emotional, cultural, commercial, social and intellectual opportunity
• Area of application of artificial intelligence
• A base, context and impetus for the further development of web standards and conventions
• New understandings in relation to other disciplines
• Facilitates progress towards an open, multicultural society

In earlier posts, amongst others, we identified the following two configuration or control levels:

• overall (music system)
• internal defaults (notation, instrument and theory tools)

.. and of the flexibility boost they bring. Here they are illustrated:

Comparative Musicology: Propagation Of Data-Driven Music System Changes in Music Visualization

Here we see two types of configuration change in action: the defaults, driven both by the musical source (here MusicXML) and user's environmental settings, and any directly user-controlled and propagated 'what-if' type changes.

Freedom of navigation between compatible music systems seems likely to serve these ends. For the rest, we will be able to see at a glance where differences lie and why they are rendered incompatible.

Pitch Standards 440 Hz (Standard) 432 Hz ('Nature')

Notes Or Tones Per Octave 12, 17, 19, 22, 24, 25, 31, 41, 46, 48, 53, 58, 72, 79, 88, 96, 1420

Temperaments & Intonations Equal, Just, Meantone, Pythagorean, Syntonic, Well Tempered, Tempered Timbres - and many others..

Configuration Settings
With Each Decision, More Visualization Clarity
(With Game of Hanoi As Visual Metaphor)

Those used to the 'western' 12-tone equal temperament can be truly surprised to learn of the many other music systems in use worldwide. Whether surveyed by ethnicity, region, country, religion or underlying music system, there is vast diversity of musical convention, style - and tonal subtlety. For the most part, the latter is largely lost on ears accustomed only to western music.

Swapping perspectives for a moment, having your musical culture ignored, misunderstood or even disparaged is for many -along with language, food or customs- just another challenge in an increasingly multicultural society.

Music Systems In The Learning Process

The concept of transnotation is intimately bound to the way musical symbols are used to represent intent.

Having got this far, let's go just a little deeper, and see if we can identify how learning is affected by music system -and especially symbolism. Keep in mind: we are not talking specific notations or symbolism here, but the notion of musical intent.

Music Systems In The Learning Process

Goal		Means		Concrete Example
Transsemiotic mappings		Semiotic interworking.		Semantic or semiotic compatibility within same exchange format (source), semantic 'meta-knowledge'. Pan- and music-system-generic symbolism.
Extending Horizons		Microtonal Tunings & Regional Prefs		Expressing fine-grain regional differences in tuning practice.
Musical flexibility		Accommodation of global change.		Accommodation of key change or transposition, and instruments in other than noted keys..
Stylistic disambiguation		Elements of style. Innovation		Semiotics of fine-motor, stylistic intent and their disambiguation. Symbol innovation.
External mappings		Fingering, chord etc representations		Semiotics of pitch-finger position mappings, including chord representation
Detailed glyph-semiotics mappings		Semiotics catalogue.		Survey semiotics of pitch, voice, dynamics etc. What exists? Existing meanings. Gap analysis.
Initial Orientation		Identify applicable music systems		Desired semiotics across time signatures, pitch, dynamics etc.
Music System Application Area		Culture, instrumentation, conventions		What do we want to communicate?

Where There's A Will, There's A Way

Finally, mappings between notations dedicated to different music systems have the potential to open many cultural doors. How might we accelerate their discovery? Here some tentative thoughts.

• General user consensus, perhaps with recognised limitations
• A crowd-sourced approach, possibly using screen bitmaps and/or audio to correlate symbol and behaviour
• A structured test approach, but otherwise as immediately above
• Artificial intelligence engine able to identify notation compatibilities

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Keywords

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online music learning, online music lessons	distance music learning, distance music lessons	remote music lessons, remote music learning
p2p music lessons, p2p music learning	music visualisation music visualization	musical instrument models interactive music instrument models
music theory tools musical theory	p2p music interworking p2p musical interworking	comparative musicology ethnomusicology
world music international music	folk music traditional music	P2P musical interworking, Peer-to-peer musical interworking
WebGL, Web3D, WebVR, WebAR	Virtual Reality, Augmented or Mixed Reality	Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning
Scalar Vector Graphics, SVG	3D Cascading Style Sheets, CSS3D	X3Dom, XML3D