[optacon-l] Re: Reading Music with the Optacon
- From: "Carrie Green" <midorikeri@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Optacon List" <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 21:52:49 -0600
Hello,
I thought I'd throw my two cents in with regards to reading music with the
Optacon. I personally can't read western music notation, however, I have
learned, and am still learning how to read Japanese Koto Music notation. This
is vastly different from western style music notation, in that traditional koto
music is written on a grid rather than a staff. The grid is divided in to
sections depending on the time signature. For example 4/4 time has four boxes
per bar, with a half line bisecting that box to indicate eighth notes. so if
two notes appear in one eighth note section, you'd have sixteenth notes, and if
four, then thirty-second notes. Chords are written with two or more notes side
by side. generally one line of music is four bars in length, but this is not
always the case. It just depends on the way it was written down. Sometimes
there is five or six bars per line. Also it's not written with western style
notes, they are Japanese numbers. Koto strings are numbered from one to
thirteen, and each string has a number. As any string can be any note value, as
the movable bridge under each string allows the player to position it wherever
they'd like it to be on the board. As all strings have the same tension, it's
easier to indicate notes by the string number rather than a note name like "a"
or "F".
I've probably confused most of you, but it would take me all night to really
describe this fully, so I hope my brief, nutshell description is not too
confusing. It's just really neat seeing an entire page of a grid, like a
spreadsheet or graph, knowing that the numbers on it indicate a musical
notation. And with the Optacon, I'm able to read my music on my own, which is
cool. It does take me a really long time, and sometimes I read it incorrectly.
However, it is fun trying.
I hope everyone is having a good weekend.
Cheers,
Carrie
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