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Alternate Forms of Notation for Piano

Coming up with alternate forms of notation has freed up some of my students to compose their own music naturally. When they are not limited by learning a fairly complicated system of notation, they are free to be more creative with their “playing” or “improvising”. Before I receive a bunch of negative comments about this though, I want to insert a caveat here and say I thoroughly support, encourage, and teach “proper” musical notation (seeing, hearing, and playing!) to my students. I use these alternate forms of notation to bridge the gap for those students who are newer to reading and making music.

Traditional music notation can be quite complicated — a system of “dots” and signs that indicate pitch, duration of note, rhythm, dynamic level, articulation, attack, and other instructions that composers use universally. If you think about it, notation was developed as a language to communicate a set of instructions from the composer to the performer.

Therefore, in order to compose music, you need to have a way of communicating these instructions for people to perform and enjoy your compositions. After all, isn’t it true that you can’t call yourself a composer unless you can write it down for other performers to reproduce your music?! Otherwise, you’re just improvising!

As a fun exercise, here are some alternate forms of notation that you and your students can explore. I used ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ as my sample tune for each of the “Alternate Forms of Notation”. I often use combinations of them and either simplify or make them more complicated to suit each individual’s needs and abilities.

Just a note that the possible applications of the following alternate forms of notation are endless. I use them to teach composition, to help some students learn their music easily, and some are even applied to sight reading and ear training exercises.

ALTERNATE FORMS OF NOTATION – VISUAL KEYBOARD STYLE

Visual Keyboard Style -- Melody is written out with number of repeated notes on a picture of a keyboardThis is an effective alternate form of notation for younger students who aren’t secure in their reading habits yet. It helps them to learn about keyboard geography. Apps like Synthesia use a similar concept, giving a visual picture of the keyboard and lighting up the necessary keys that need to be depressed.

ALTERNATE FORMS OF NOTATION – LINE GRAPH or MELODY SHAPE

Alternative notation forms - Line Graph Style

This form of notation allows students to recognize the correlation between steps on the piano and variations in pitch. It’s like the method that a choir director uses with small kids to show changes in pitch.

ALTERNATE FORMS OF NOTATION – BAR GRAPH

twinkle twinkle bar graph style

Like the Line Graph option above, the Bar Graph option allows the students to visually see the variations in pitch. For both methods, rhythm can also be incorporated by the length of space between each new dot on the line graph, or the width of the bar on each bar graph.

ALTERNATE FORMS OF NOTATION – FINGER NUMBERS

twinkle twinkle finger numbers

This form of notation is helpful to teach finger position and finger numbers. I use the circle around the 5 to indicate that the pinkie finger will be moving over one keyboard step for those two notes before returning to its original position. This form of notation lends itself well to simple transposition. We explore playing the same tune in different 5-note finger scales.

ALTERNATE FORMS OF NOTATION – RAINBOW NOTES

twinkle twinkle coloured pianoThis form of notation is reminiscent of the toy xylophones that Fisher Price used to make which were accompanied by booklets of simple tunes with notation that corresponded to each colour key. Younger kids love to colour, and why should music be black and white anyway?!

ALTERNATE FORMS OF NOTATION – STORYBOARD / PLAYING BY ‘MOOD’

This is a fun alternate form of notation that I like to use with students who are a little more advanced and may have a few simple tunes of varying styles in their toolbox. We come up with a theme or idea, often told in a story and decide what mood will fit each panel. Then we come up with music that conveys that mood. Think of how old silent movies used to be accompanied by a piano player that would play music that would convey the emotion happening in the movie at different times. Using this form of notation allows the student to explore different articulations and attacks and determine why and how musical passages can connect with our emotions.

ALTERNATE FORMS OF NOTATION – LETTER NAMES AND CHORD CHARTS

twinkle twinkle letter names and chord charts

This version of notation is one that I will be exploring in depth in another article. It is a system that was developed to help adults and teens play popular songs easily and quickly. There are several great side benefits to using this notation: you can quickly see the overall structure of a song, it’s easy to play hands together right away, it develops the student’s ear at the same time, and it’s easy to improvise and expand upon.

Not every student learns in the exact same way. It’s fun to take these systems and alternate forms of notation and mix and match to suit individuals. What works for one person, may not work for another. But it is a fun exercise in exploring music as a language and discovering new ways of communication.

Happy exploring!

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