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The

visualisation

is called CushionScore

(patent pending).

It combines a Piano Roll view with a shaded grid showing rhythmic and harmonic patterns.

Comparison with traditional sheet music
  • In sheet music notes are depicted by different symbols
  • Dynamics are shown as text annotations (pp, p, mf, f, ff)
  • Multiple voices can be mixed up easily
  • Breaks of lines and pages are disrupting the flow
  • Key changes are not obvious
  • CushionScore shows all notes as bars
  • Dynamics are visualised as the thickness of the bars
  • Voices are distinguished by colours
  • Continuous flow is achieved by animation, pan, and zoom
  • Key changes are very obvious
Song structure
  • There is no overview of the whole song
  • Musical sections can only be indicated by text annotations
  • The miniature view is providing an overview of the whole song
  • Musical sections can be visualised and key changes are visible
Rhythm
  • The time signature is only shown at the start or when it changes
  • There is no subdivision of bars
  • Strong and weak beats are not shown
  • The beat pattern is visible everywhere
  • Each beat of every bar is visualised
  • Strong and weak beats are distinguished by their shading
Tempo
  • The tempo is only defined at the start of the song
  • Tempo changes are shown by text annotations or special symbols
  • The tempo is shown everywhere by the density of the beat grid
  • Tempo changes are visualised by stretching the grid
Intervals
  • The pitch scale consists of full and half-tone steps
  • Major and minor intervals look identical
  • The tritone (most disharmonic interval) does not stick out
  • The pitch scale is linear using half-tone steps only
  • Intervals show their actual number of steps
  • The tritone is distinguishable
Chords
  • Chords consist of major and minor thirds which look identical
  • Different kinds of chords look the same
  • Major and minor thirds look different
  • Different chords can be distinguished
Musical key: Tonic
  • The pitch grid shows absolute pitches
  • Different keys are denoted by the number of accidentals (#/b)
  • It is necessary to memorise the different clef symbols and the Circle of 5th
  • The tonic pitch is not shown
  • The pitch grid is relative to the tonic pitch
  • Absolute pitch is denoted by reference to the middle C
  • No special knowledge is required
  • The tonic pitch is shown explicitly
Musical key: Mode
  • The pitch grid only matches major or minor mode
  • Modes can only be distinguished implicitly from the context
  • Systems can overlap and show the same note in different places
  • CushionScore can visualise any mode (e.g. pentatonic, chromatic)
  • The differences between scales are shown explicitly
  • There is no ambiguity
Audio comparison
  • Both axes for time and pitch are non-linear
  • The axes are incompatible with audio plots
  • Both axes are linear
  • The visualisation can be combined with audio plots for comparison
Media
  • Traditional sheet music is suitable for ink on paper
  • Cushion Score is suitable for screens
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Contact
info@songpanion.com