1% Everyday – the Design of Musical Notation

I was listening to This American Life: Off Course – the Audition. Near the end of the story there is passing mention that Chinese musical notation is different than Western notation. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/765/off-course/act-one-3

I am not a musician and I never thought about that before. I took a brief travel through some beautiful ways of notating music that I have not seen before.

Bach

Oldest Melody

Byzantine

Korean

Indian

Russian Lubok

Tibetan chant

New universal music notation

Consider the following:

  • What happens to regional designs as common and efficient designs are created to facilitate general access?
  • What examples of interesting or beautiful local designs do you have that have been missed by the generalization of designs?
  • What is the beauty of distributed design like Geocities and Myspace old school?
  • What do you think of the universal music notation above?

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