New images have been added to the site in order to more fully illustrate both versions of TwinNote.  They can be found on the home page, Scales page, and Intervals page.

The two versions of TwinNote also have new names.  They are now known as “TwinNote” and “TwinNote, Max 6-6 version”.  While the new illustrations are self-explanatory, the new names probably deserve some commentary…

TwinNote has always come in two flavors:

• One version that uses hollow and solid notes to help indicate duration, as in traditional music notation.
• Another version that uses hollow and solid notes to help indicate pitch and reinforce the 6-6 pitch pattern (the two whole tone scales), for better interval clarity.

This is a pragmatic approach, letting musicians decide which version makes more sense for them.  Some may prefer the Max 6-6 version with its stronger 6-6 pattern.  Some may prefer the standard version, especially if they already read traditional notation or want to learn, and want to be able to easily switch back and forth between the two (without having to switch between two different symbol systems for note duration).

While there are benefits to using hollow/solid notes to emphasize the 6-6 pitch pattern, it does introduce significant challenges in terms of compatibility with traditional notation. (See the Max 6-6 version page for more about this, and to see how this version handles duration.)  So it seems best to offer both versions and let people decide which one meets their needs, especially since music notation software makes it almost as easy to make music available in both versions as in just one.  But to the names…

Here is how the names of the versions have changed:

• Hollow/solid notes for rhythm/duration:
  TwinNote, traditional-duration version —> TwinNote
• Hollow/solid notes for pitch:
  TwinNote —> TwinNote, Max 6-6 version
  

Why change which version gets to be the default version known simply as “TwinNote”?   By choice or necessity most serious musicians will need to learn to read traditional music notation.  So it makes sense to make the default, standard version of TwinNote the one that’s more compatible with traditional notation, and more familiar to musicians.

This also lets us emphasize an advantage of the more radical version by giving it its own descriptive version name.  It maximizes the visibility of the 6-6 pitch pattern, hence the name “Max 6-6″.

I am pleased to announce that TwinNote has been redesigned and the website has been updated to reflect the new and improved version of it.  Take a look around the site to check it out!

The old version of TwinNote has now been re-named “White-Triangle Twinline” (which used to be its name before June of 2009).  You can find it documented on the Music Notation Project’s site.

In a future post I will go into more detail on the thinking and motivation behind this new version of TwinNote.  But in a nutshell, intervals have a more consistent appearance and are clearer in the new TwinNote than in the old TwinNote White-Triangle Twinline.  This is because it has a stronger and clearer 6-6 pitch pattern.

So TwinNote now offers the benefits of a vertically compact staff (like Twinline) without having to compromise  the benefits of having a clear 6-6 pitch pattern, benefits like clarity and consistency in interval appearance!

(See also this page on the Music Notation Project Wiki.)

A simple piano arrangement of the children’s song “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” is now available in TwinNote music notation.  It is the first piece of music to be offered for download in the Sheet Music section of this site.  The goal is to eventually offer a range music covering a variety of styles, instruments, and degrees of complexity.  This will provide visitors the chance to see actual musical works in TwinNote, and experience its advantages first hand.

“Twinkle, Twinkle…” was automatically transcribed (“transnotated”) from traditional music notation into TwinNote using Finale music notation software, see Software.  Let us know if there is a particular musical work or type of music you would like to see in TwinNote.

Over the past month since the launch of the TwinNote website I have expanded the Learn section to include pages with illustrations of Scales and Intervals.  The scale images are interactive allowing viewers to choose to display either major or minor scales, and whether to show the note names or the interval patterns of these scales.  A larger interactive image now appears on the site’s homepage, illustrating how several basic scales appear in TwinNote (including whole-tone, chromatic, C and A major and minor).

These images illustrate how the representation of intervals in TwinNote is clear and consistent.  This makes it easy to tell different intervals apart, and to see and understand the patterns of whole and half steps that make up the major and minor scales.

I am pleased to announce the launch of the TwinNote Music Notation website.  The site is still very much “under construction” so please check back later as more content is added.  Here is the site’s URL:

http://twinnote.org

Please link to the site and share it with anyone you think would be interested.