[Jeff_Brown]

That does appear to be its origin. And if you take 12 equal divisions of the octave as a given, Clairnote seems more natural. OTOH once you're thinking in terms of a 7-tone subset, maybe traditional notation is more natural. (It certainly is to me, but I haven't given Clairnote a try.)

Traditional notation uses the scale degree as the fundamental unit, whereas this uses the 12-edo chromatic tone as the fundamental unit. While it's not a big deal to most musicians, there are a lot of microtonal variations of traditional notation (my favorite is HEWM[1]). A 12-edo notation like CLairnote could be similarly modified, but it seems awkward, because (most) microtonal systems don't start from 12 equal divisions of the octave.

I don't think the sitting/hanging notes are indistinguishable. But they do need to be distinguished, which means it's more work than looking at a traditional between-two-lines note. I find it difficult.

Clairnote does make key signatures available. Surely any real composer would include them, or something equally or more informative (e.g. the text "G dorian").

[1] http://www.tonalsoft.com/enc/h/hewm.aspx

[iainmerrick]

I'm very surprised they don't make the sitting/hanging notes semicircular, so they're much more visually distinct (like stalactites and stalagmites).

Instead they seem to have tried two different systems for the sitting/hanging notes, both of which look very hard to read to me: https://clairnote.org/clairnote-dn-clairnote-sn/ (although as you say, if you already know traditional notation it's hard to look at this with an unbiased eye).

[InitialLastName]

> I don't think the sitting/hanging notes are indistinguishable.

They aren't indistinguishable when rendered by a computer. When rendered by hand (where space notes have a tendency to float from the line to avoid being interpreted as line notes), the F and G especially would be indistinguishable.

[dwringer]

I always thought one of the main benefits of a 7-tone subset is that it fits inside working memory. It's also what anyone who grew up with commercial pop music or western classical music has a natural ear for. Not to mention that even just looking at it harmonically, all 12 tones are most certainly not equal from a given root.

AFAIU, historically 12-TET is really a compromise, sacrificing some harmonicity to simplify and enable having symmetrical 7-note tonality in any traditional mode starting from any point in any scale. Some modern styles definitely subvert this idea, embracing the full range of chromaticity - but without abandoning 12-TET, they are still playing with the audience's harmonic preconceptions that are based in conventional tonality.

[Jeff_Brown]

> AFAIU, historically 12-TET is really a compromise, sacrificing some harmonicity to simplify and enable having symmetrical 7-note tonality in any traditional mode starting from any point in any scale

It is. And it's a surprisingly lucky compromise. By some metrics 19-EDO, 22-EDO and 31-EDO dominate 12-EDO for traditional (5-limit) music theory. (And of course every multiple of 12 does.) But if you want strictly better thirds and fifths, the smallest EDO that qualifies is 41.

For anyone interested in big microtonal scales, there's a great website[1] that will render a touchscreen-friendly virtual keyboard with whatever scale and layout (provided it's hexagonal) you want. Don't worry about all the menus to start, just pick something from the first menu, "Tuning\Layout Quick Links".

[1] http://terpstrakeyboard.com/web-app/keys.htm

[exabrial]

> microtonal variations

The vast majority of music probably doesn't need this

[nameless912]

The vast majority of _Western_ music doesn't need it, but microtonal music is extremely important in a number of Asian, Middle Eastern, African, and even Eastern European systems.

[exabrial]

Ok... so? Use a different notation, duh. See my point about letting edge cases drive the bus off a cliff.

[Jeff_Brown]

Continuing to use the status quo notation would hardly constitute driving the bus off a cliff. And the cases of microtonality are not that edge. Beyond allowing interoprability among musicians from different cultures, western notation has been critical to most (and there's a lot of it) western microtonal music.

[exabrial]

Who the hell cares? Use a different notation for the .00000000001% of the time you ever have to interop with a non 12-tone equal temperament scale.