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by jnetterf 2837 days ago
It's neat that Hacklily is right next to an article about Reicha. Very musical day on HN.

Anyway, here's a piece by Reicha in Hacklily: https://www.hacklily.org/#?edit=jnetterf/sheet-music/Fantais...

1 comments

Your tempo is a little slow. It's in cut time (2/2) not 4/4. OK, I'm being churlish. I recorded this piece for Chandos Records last year, so I have an opinion. Excerpt here: https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010950

It is indeed cool that Hackily is near Reicha; he would have loved it (and Hacker News, for that matter). Music notation software has been ripe for disruption for a while. The problem is that for what most people want to do the interfaces are too complex and slow to learn.

The problem seems to be getting worse because of the desire to make possible the notation of as many far-fetched extreme cases, rather than making the core use as simple as possible.

Imagine if you were to use Finale or Sibelius (two of the best known) as a novice. Imagine you were JS Bach trying to write his first Prelude from Book one of the WTC with the software. The patterns should be faster to notate.

A tough problem, admittedly, but an important one to solve for future generations of young musicians learning the craft. Writing music by hand is still easier for simple pieces, for solo instruments.