Letter heads (easy note heads)

Hmm I've always been dubious about the value of putting letter names on note heads, as it doesn't teach you how to recognise interval, which is the fundamental technique you use for reading music.

When you read a book you don't spell the letters of each word out - that would be counter productive as the words are made up of sounds, many of which have a distinctive shape.

In my own teaching I tend to emphasise the graphic shapes that occur when notes are a particular interval apart.

It has seemed to work so far :)

The 'Note Names' plugin might help.

Hi, has there been an outcome yet on getting the names of notes inside the note heads? I have been desperately waiting for this feature, for absolute beginners. All the other paid software giants have finally implemented this feature, realizing there is a demand for this feature. Alpha fonts would be fantastic to assist struggling beginners & provide them with the confidence to progress further, instead of quitting their music learning early.

I would also like to be able to create music with the note name inside the note head. I know that this is not the most pedagogically-sound way to teach music literacy. However, there are situations in which this would be useful. I personally would love to have this in my own teaching situation at present.

Just adding my voice in favour of an option to shoe note names inside note heads. It might involve a bot of work for the developers. Every chart I've seen this in has quite large notes and tall staves, just to allow room for legible names the note heads. Worth it though.

Me too, as a teacher, i'd love this feature.
Especially if also noteheads with Italian names were available. :)

There are a number of different note heads available (to use for percussion), but it would be nice to be able to create a complete, custom, note. This would include 1 or more of the note head (like a note with a slash through it for Rim Shot or a bell shape for a cymbal bell), as well as marks on the stem (like a 'z' for a buzz roll) and marks above/below the note (like 'o' for open hi-hat or '>' for accent). By having all these parts of the 'note' defined, you could enter them much quicker and not have to readjust them when resizing measures or moving or copying notes.

For drums, you can set up a drum set which is listed in the drums 'palette'; if you could set up a palette for other instruments, you could build a 'note set' of your own 'named' notes.

See also http://musescore.org/en/node/25170

I like how Finale has used the AlphaNotes font, to place note names inside noteheads, which is a fantastic option for those entirely new to music. Don't know if something like this would be possible in MuseScore?
ref: http://www.finalemusic.com/blog/the-finale-alphanotes-font/
and
https://www.finalemusic.com/UserManuals/Finale2012Mac/Content/Finale/Fi…
Why I like the note names inside note heads:
For those relevant beginners, it gives them the ability to play something straight away, and encourage a little bit of excitement and confidence to progress further. Very beginners of all ages are now used to having immediate results for everything and things in general are more fast-paced these days. People are less inclined to wait around and persevere like they once did. The easy note heads are one way to stem drop-outs, and avoid initial frustration for those struggling beginners.

I wish to offer the following as it relates to Letter heads (easy note heads).
I am a retired licensed Professional Counselor and spent over 30 years focusing on individuals with various language based disabilities. A conservative estimate of individuals with reading disabilities is at least 18 to 20 percent of the population. A reading disability is caused by a lack of timing in the firing of the neurons necessary to create an accurate internal image of the external image of printed language. This means that every time a person with this disability sees a word they get a different internal image. Therefore, there is no repetition which is required to read fluently. This is also true of printed music/sheet music. It is an axiom in neural plasticity that neurons that fire together stay together. Neurons that are out of sync never link. There is no possible way to correct a errors in the timing of the firing of any neural network required to create an accurate internal image of the external image of a printed word or note. A reading disability is unrelated to knowing how to read. Many concert pianists have teachers. Why are the teachers not the concert pianists? Just because someone cannot do something you cannot assume it is because they do not know how.

I have played the piano all my life and at present have memorized over one and a half hours without stopping. Unfortunately I have never been able to study piano to learn to make music because the focus was always on "learning how to read music." I know how to read music but I can't do it. I auditioned at the University of Tennessee music department with Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor. I was accepted and the most reputable teacher wanted me as his student. At the first lesson he realized I could not sight read sheet music and refused to teach me. That was not the first or last time that happened. Notes printed on a page is not music. The one question no teacher ever asked was given my obvious passion for music and playing the piano, why would I not want to learn to sight read sheet music if I could? Why would anyone with a reading disability not want to learn to read fluently? Clearly it is not because of a lack of ability or intelligence.

It is essential to understand that sheet music is a means of storing musical information in a form that others can access. It is a storage device like a book. Reading or sight reading music is a means of accessing the musical information stored in the printed sheet music. It isn’t the music itself.

I have three masters degrees, one in special education, have been on the adjunct faculty in a state university graduate program, and have been published among other things. I still read on a third grade level at best. However with the technology of books on tape and the fact that my computer will read anything to me at an accelerated speed I am not disabled by my reading disability when accessing printed language.

There is only one way to accommodate a reading disability in sheet music. That is to have the names of the notes in the note heads which enables me and others to access the music stored in the form of notation in printed sheet music. Once we can access the music in the sheet music, we can memorize the music and hopefully learn how to "make music" and not just play a lot of notes in a particular sequence. Unfortunately the only music notation programs with adequate note head names that enable this access are the most expensive and beyond the reach of most with the disability.

I have seen as patients over the last thirty years hundreds of students and young people with reading disabilities who loved music but were prevented from playing an instrument because of their inability to access the music stored in sheet music. One patient earned a full scholarship in music to a well known university but had to leave because he could not accommodate his music reading disability. As I am sure you can imagine he was devastated. Had he been able to add note names in the note heads and access the music, he could have completed his degree. It would have been more difficult and taken more time for him than the other students but he would have put in the effort if he had the choice. What a shame.

I implore you to develop the ability to put the note names in the note heads in MuseScore. It will make it possible for the thousands of individuals like myself with reading disabilities to access the music stored in printed sheet music. It would enable us to play an instrument and have the music in their lives as so many others take for granted. It is a shame that so many people including many music teachers accept the negative stereotypical view of individuals with reading disabilities. I have spent thirty years studying the research and many publications on these disabilities. I have seen nothing to support that it has anything to do with learning how to read, being lazy, unmotivated , or anything promoted by these publications. There is no evidence or research anywhere to support these notions. As a matter of fact there were over 100,000 publications on reading disabilities between 1966 and 1998. The conclusion of the NICHD review was that there was no significant evidence that any program or combination of programs made and difference individuals with reading disabilities fluency in reading. Most of the research publications promote the lack of phonetic awareness as the cause of a reading disability. If this were true, why would it have to be proven over 100,000 times? The research promotes the negative stereotypical view. The only thing worse is the level of indifference especially by the researchers. It hurts not to matter.

FYI, the number of Chinese and Japanese students with reading disabilities is estimated to be similar to the estimates above. These languages do not have an alphabet or any phonics. If a lack of phonetic awareness was the cause of a reading disability as the research states then how could so many Chinese and Japanese students have any reading disabilities? But they do have the same timing errors in the firing of the neurons necessary to create an accurate internal image of the external image of printed language.

The person most responsible for accommodating their disability is the person with the disability. There are however some situations where they cannot choose. Not having the ability to put the note names in the note heads denies us the choice to accommodate our disability. Even with the names in the note heads it is a laborious and time consuming process to memorize the music. But it makes it possible. I beg you to add the ability for individuals with reading disabilities to access the music stored in music notation. How do you think you would feel if you were arbitrarily denied access to sheet music and thereby the opportunity to learn to make music?

I appreciate your taking the time to read this rather long comment but I felt that the information is necessary to provide you with a more accurate understanding of the importance of this request. I have seen nothing in this discussion to suggest any negative stereotypical view expressed by anyone with regard to individuals with reading disabilities. It is the omission in the discussion that I make these comments. As someone who’s life would be lacking without being able to play the piano, I believe it is essential to any discussion regarding the ability to insert the note names in the note heads in printed music that these ideas be considered. The very nature of the many individuals who put so much time and effort into developing MuseScore that demonstrates not only their generosity and a genuine understanding of the needs of so many but also the high level of interest in music and making this fine program available to anyone who wishes to learn to make music. The power of music to heal the soul and bring a undefinable spirit of connectedness and community seems part of the nature of all people. Please make that available to those of us with reading disabilities.

Respectfully,
Clifton Willard

Hello stevebob,

I very much appreciate your willingness to consider my proposal. I can assure you that to have the ability in MuseScore to put the names of the notes in the note heads (easy notes) would have a profound impact on many, many people of all ages. It would make possible what for those like myself is otherwise not possible.

My reference to "notes printed on a page are not music" is actually a line from the movie, Mr. Holland's Opus, 1996, starring Richard Dreyfuss. It's about play the notes correctly as written or bringing them it to life. There is a difference.

I am aware that some people can look at sheet music and hear what they're seeing in their minds ear. Something I very much wish I could do. I can however hear music in my minds ear that I have memorized or heard. However I cannot play what I have only heard. In order to hear what you see it is essential that the person be able to correctly perceive the sound of any particular note in context on a page. A reading disability is essentially a perceptual deficit printed language and therefore the person with the disability is not able to accurately perceive the correct sound of printed notes. When looking at a printed note I must figure out or usually guess what it's name is before I can strike a key. This is true for every note, even the same note every time it appears on the page. This makes the ability to "audiate" impossible for someone with a reading disability when looking at sheet music. That being said, my ability to sit at a piano and perform music I have memorized is dependent on my ability to hear in my head what I have memorized and then play what I hear. If what I play and what I hear are different I need to go back to the sheet music to make the correction.

2. I appreciate your explaining the difference between 'site-reading music" and "reading music." The few teachers I have had tried to teach me to read music and referred to the ability to play what I saw as site reading never explaining that is a subset of reading music. I knew a person one time who could sit at a piano and play any music you put in front of her flawlessly. If you turned the music upside down she could still play it flawlessly though it didn't sound very good and clearly there was no music there. However most people I know who can read music can play what they see reasonably well. Some believe they cannot memorize the music and therefore are dependent on reading it to play it while others read it, memorize it, and then learn how to create the nuances and choreograph the hand and fingers to express those nuances and bring the notes to life or make music. My goal has always been to learn how to make music. When someone makes music you feel it emotionally. When they play a lot of notes you just hear the notes, no real emotional response. As I pointed out to the piano teacher at the University of Tennessee, “I may not be able to read music but I played the Rachmaninoff well enough that you argued with the other teacher present at the audition to have me as your student.” He was not impressed ;-)).

Stevobob, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your comments. It is very unusual for someone who does not have a reading disability to understand the impact that it has on not only their education and vocation but also on their ability to access printed information in a book or music printed on a page. In addition to being on the adjunct faculty of a graduate program at a state university, I spent over 20 years traveling around the Southeast giving full day in-service training to educators, psychological groups, university faculty, parents and individuals with disabilities. I cannot recall a single incident in which someone without the disability was able to express the empathy that you have in your comment. Because of my reading disability I used slides and animation I created on my computer as my notes. It also provided me with an opportunity to show the audience what it was I was saying. Often when we returned from lunch I would ask the audience if anyone believed me. This was in reference to whether or not they believed I actually had a reading disability. Not one hand would go up. At the end of the seminar eight or 10 hours of training I would ask the same question. Almost all the hands would go up. It normally took 8 to 10 hours of speaking with multi-media support to overcome the stereotypical view that, "if you can't read you must be stupid." I have three graduate degrees so I couldn't have a reading disability. Your understanding and support is truly remarkable and I thank you.

As a side note, it is interesting to note that Dorothy Taubman who was one of the most gifted piano teachers and developer of the Taubman Technique never played a concert but taught concert pianists. The point is that just because you can't do something doesn't mean you don't know how to do it. Her students could do it but didn't know how. She knew how but could not do it for what ever reason and chose not to concertize. Clearly you understand this concept but most do not.

I like how they work but I wanted to also make it work w/ Note heads in various shapes so people w/ certain disabilities can read the music.