Standard music notation is a remarkable invention, but it was built long before the modern piano, for music with few sharps and flats. Ever since, musicians and inventors have proposed alternative music notation systems that make the keyboard easier to read. Here is a short tour, and where iCanPiano Style fits.
Why people look for another notation
The five-line staff shows seven note names. The piano has twelve keys in every octave. The five black keys have no place of their own on the staff: they borrow the line or space of a white key and add a sign, either in the key signature or before the note. Most alternative notations try to fix exactly that.
Chromatic staves
Some systems give every one of the twelve keys its own line or space. The pitch on the page then matches the keyboard exactly, with no sharps or flats at all. The cost is a taller, unfamiliar staff, and a reader must learn to read from the beginning.
Klavarskribo
Klavarskribo was introduced in the Netherlands in 1931 by Cornelis Pot. The music runs from top to bottom, and the staff is turned to look like the keyboard: black keys are drawn on lines grouped in twos and threes, just as they sit on the piano. It found loyal users, especially in the Netherlands, but it asks readers to give up standard notation entirely.
Colour and letter systems
Other approaches add colours to notes or print the note names inside the noteheads. They help absolute beginners, but they mostly label notes rather than show the keyboard, and readers often find them hard to leave behind.
iCanPiano Style: one change to standard notation
iCanPiano Style keeps the standard staff, the clefs, the rhythms and the positions of the notes. It changes only the noteheads of notes on black keys. There are no sharp, flat or natural signs: a note on a black key is an Eye-note, half black and half white, and the black half shows on which side of the white key the black key is.
- F sharp: right half black. Play the black key to the right of F.
- B flat: left half black. Play the black key to the left of B.
- B natural: no natural sign. A note that is all black or all white is played on a white key.
Because everything else stays the same, a pianist who reads standard notation can read iCanPiano Style within minutes, and can go back to standard notation at any time.
Frequently asked questions
What is Klavarskribo?
A piano notation from the Netherlands, introduced in 1931 by Cornelis Pot. The music reads from top to bottom and the staff copies the layout of the black keys.
Is there a music notation without sharps and flats?
Yes. Chromatic staves and Klavarskribo have none, and in iCanPiano Style the standard staff stays while each black-key note shows its key in the notehead.
Do I have to relearn reading for iCanPiano Style?
No. It is standard notation with one change to the noteheads, so a reader of standard notation learns it in minutes.