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FILARETOS A. AMARANTIDIS
The Trigram
Music Notation System
EPN 1375
ISBN 978-618-5313-21-0
Pages: 64
Size: 170 x 240 mm
Introduction
Within this manual is included Filaretos Amarantidis’ proposition for the improvement of the existing music notation of Western music. As early as 2009 he had conceived the idea of the trigram, as a replacement for the usual staff. During his studies in the USA, he was further convinced that the staff system was excessively complex, to the point where it can divert attention away from the music itself, as well as of the fact that it was representative of the pre-digital era, with all the consequences of this fact, and should hence be modernized. His main focus was simplicity, through minimalism, leanness and precision in writing, which would have as a result a more direct understanding of the musical message from the musician/reader.
I present here the advantages of the trigram, as he himself propounded them:
• It is extremely simple to learn. A student would need no more than six to ten hours to master reading music in it.
• It abolishes the use of clefs that are now being used. The notes have a fixed position.
• It is lean, therefore making writing in it fast and reading it very easy.
• It abolishes the use of ledger lines. A note that would need for example 10 ledger lines now has a position in the new notation that does not need complex calculations
• Transposing instruments are written in the same way as all other instruments.
• It has a modern look.
• It can easily be transcribed in braille and it can be read a lot easier by the visually impaired.
Filaretos always believed that many musicians, especially of electrical instruments (guitar, bass etc) choose to learn to read music from tablatures because they find the standard music notation of staves very complicated. He believed that the trigram is the ideal mixture of a tablature with the staff system. He characteristically said that: “Music should not be the art of writing (music notation)”, meaning that the notation should be as simple as possible so that more musicians will be able to write and read and therefore express themselves through it.
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