southcoastukes
Well-known member
I have been meaning to post on this topic - I got an e-mail awhile back about the way I write notes for tunings. I'm thinking I started out different from most ukulele players, and to tell the truth, the way most notes are written by most ukulele players has never made sense to me.
When I first picked up the Ukulele, I had the great good fortune to start out with the Ukulele Handbook by Alex Richter. The way he wrote notes was a bit mysterious to me at first, but in short order, I figured out what he was doing. He uses what some folks call "standard pitch notation" and others call "Helmholz pitch notation". This Helmholz fellow was a real, real genius - along the lines of Da Vinci. He dabbled in all sorts of scientific endeavor including acoustics.
I've posted his system below. It's by far the most widely used way to write notes, and the only one that's ever made sense to me (without getting unnecesarily complicated). It covers a lot more range than you get with just small and capital letters, and does it in a simple straightforward manner.
The shorthand often used by Ukulele players seems awfully inconsistent and subject to misinterpretation. Lots of times, I see people write out a tuning and then have to explain it "in relation to" something else. Seems it would be simpler to skip all that.
What say you?
When I first picked up the Ukulele, I had the great good fortune to start out with the Ukulele Handbook by Alex Richter. The way he wrote notes was a bit mysterious to me at first, but in short order, I figured out what he was doing. He uses what some folks call "standard pitch notation" and others call "Helmholz pitch notation". This Helmholz fellow was a real, real genius - along the lines of Da Vinci. He dabbled in all sorts of scientific endeavor including acoustics.
I've posted his system below. It's by far the most widely used way to write notes, and the only one that's ever made sense to me (without getting unnecesarily complicated). It covers a lot more range than you get with just small and capital letters, and does it in a simple straightforward manner.
The shorthand often used by Ukulele players seems awfully inconsistent and subject to misinterpretation. Lots of times, I see people write out a tuning and then have to explain it "in relation to" something else. Seems it would be simpler to skip all that.
What say you?
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