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philosophy

These are notes from the author's perspective on glyph notation. This writing assumes knowledge of contemporary percussion notation and Western staff notation, as well as general knowledge involving contemporary percussion performance.

movement


Glyph notation is intentionally designed to focus on the actual movement of the asalato within the player's hands, and not on the rhythm produced. This is because I think that asalato playing is so intrinsically tied to the specific techniques and movements. Simply knowing the target rhythm is often not enough to know how to play a particular passage of music.

independence from Western staff notation


Glyph notation also doesn't depend on Western staff notation to function. Most asalato players cannot read Western staff notation anyways, and Western staff notation already has issues with notating unpitched percussion instruments when it is used to notate percussion music.

Some of these issues include the need to invent new noteheads for multiple-percussion solos if too many instruments/techniques are used and the difficulty of notating visuals and theatrical elements (staff notation isn't intended at all to notate visuals). These are both huge considerations when notating asalato music.

It also has the added flexibility of not needing to be inside a time signature, which means it doesn't have to emphasize any given beat.

comprehensiveness


Finally, glyph notation is designed to be very comprehensive. It can accurrately transcribe very obscure combinations of techniques. Additionaly, because all of the glyphs are modular, it can be used to find new combinations of techniques methodically. Western staff notation would need increasing numbers of noteheads and extra text, to the point where unique symbols would need to be invented to accomodate for all the techniques. At that point, it makes more sense to simply create a system from the ground up that already uses unique symbols, where the symbols resemble the techniques themselves.

drawbacks


Glyph notation still has issues: namely the time it takes to notate scores in glyph notation, as well as the difficulty for musicians who already know how to read staff notation to learn how to read glyph notation.

final thoughts


I don't actually expect other people to use glyph notation (but if you do, I would be flattered!), but I made it as a tool to at least be able to record asalato rhythms in written form, without the limitations of Western staff notation.

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