Chopin: Black Key Etude (beautiful performance and notation)

Express Stave notation has no sharp or flat signs, and fewer legerlines than traditional music notation. It is easy to learn.

My notation converter uses Finale NotePad 2006 which was free, but is no longer offered by MakeMusic on their Finale website. It was a very useful application, in that you could copy blank staves of various different notation styles over the top of any music to transform that music's written form (without affecting the playback) . I now have a free private link for NotePad 2006 if anyone would like to get hold of it.

My challenge in making this Finale file was to get some appropriate expression in to the mechanical performance. Midi files that have good expression including tempo fluctuations do not show rhythmically correctly when transformed into a Finale notation file. Keeping the rhythmically correct notation, and putting in subtle agogic (timing), dynamic (loudness), articulation (note durarion) and pedalling variation was quite a time-consuming process.

I notice we have a lot of knockers saying the expression is not beautiful. To them I say find a mechanical performance with nicer expression where the rhythmic notation remains correct!

To learn about Express Stave notation, as well as many other chromatic music notation proposals, visit
http://musicnotation.org/musicnotations/2linestritone.html#keller

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Chopin
• Black
• Key
• Etude
• Express
• Stave
• Alternative
• Music
• Notation
• converter
• John
• Keller

[junenostalgia]

This is actually very good for a computer simulation. You can hear clearly that it's playing the appropriate dynamics and using rubato in the right places. I don't understand why people are bashing this, it is not very "mechanical" at all considering it's played by a computer.

[ExpressStaveNotation]

@junenostalgia Ahh! Thankyou so much! I dont understand why some people bash this either.

[thomasrobinson222]

Very good for a computer simulation I must say :P

[ExpressStaveNotation]

@thomasrobinson222 Thankyou! Nice to get a complimentary comment for a change : )

[IQ40000]

beautiful performance? What a joke.. This is the most mechanical performance I've ever heard.. As the saying goes,, don't call anything played by a computer beautiful..

[danedaworld]

intresting this is the "white" keys etude now =\

[twooffour]

@ExpressStaveNotation

Thanks for the info!

[ExpressStaveNotation]

@twooffour I didnt use human playback. I programed in tempo fluctuations and note onset and end times manually, as well as note loudness and pedalling.

[ExpressStaveNotation]

@QinChaiLa90 Express Stave notation, like most alternative notation proposals, dispence with key signatures completely, and simply show what notes to play without the player having to know which notes are sharp or flat. This piece is in G flat major (the original key) and all the right hand notes are black because they are black keys on the piano.

[MsVaxxine]

a computer delivering a beautiful performance... right... so what's next? Justin Bieber is the new Beethoven? perhaps Stephanie Meyer is the new Shakespeare?

[spookyben]

Wow - totally devoid of soul or feeling - quite an accomplishment.

[lusteraliaszero]

@ExpressStaveNotation not a puritan here, but the flaws of the mechanised version are pretty obvious.

[LexiLemons]

@twooffour how do you hear clumsy?