The 0H Tune Writing System

Subject: The 0H Tune Writing System
From: Pappy Fiddle
Date: 04 Apr 26 - 08:54 PM

In the interest of possibly "helping the universe", I give you:

0H

I pronounce it "Oh-H". It's spelled "zero-H". This is a system for writing tunes in text. I use it mostly to quickly jot down a tune, maybe on my phone, before it escapes my mind.

A tune is the same in any key. Like the solfège (do-re-mi) system, 0H expresses tunes in a keyless fashion. If differs in that do-re-me (and CDEFGAB) only name every other note or so, with sharps/flats for the rest; 0H identifies at the same level all 12 notes in an octave.

We start with the fact that Western music works with 12 half-steps or scale degrees to an octave.

In normal situations we count starting with 1. In computer science we often start with zero. So I'm numbering the notes 0 thru 11. Because of octaves.

The 0H system is basically base-12 math. Base-10 uses ten symbols: 0123456789. For base-12 you need 2 more; A and B are usually used for them. Here in 0H I use X and H. X is the Roman numeral ten, and H looks like 11 sort of.

So, 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 X H.

Any major scale in any key is 0 2 4 5 7 9 H '0. The tick mark ' designates the higher octave and the next higher gets a double tick ". Lower octaves are given a comma , or a semicolon ; (couldn't find a double comma on my keyboard.)

To specify a key, I use "key = F#" or whatever key.

Transposing is easy. For F# to B, add 5 to every note's number. To raise or drop by an octave, fiddle with the tics and commas.

To indicate timing, I use a few odds and ends. Period, colon, dash and equal sign.
0   The digit itself gets one beat
0. Two beats
0: Three
0.: Four (easier to recognize than 0:.)
0- a longish pause, of some duration or other.

I usually fret not over timing at first. I throw in a few -s and fix 'em later.

0= Like a fermata

I use the | character to indicate a measure, like in abc.

To indicate a chord, I put digits together: 047 is the tonic major. 059 is the subdominant chord and 27H is the dominant. 047X is a "7th" (warning: parallel numbering system, potential source of fistfights). Chords can be inverted, for instance 470 which is still quite recognizable. I put 'em right in there with the single notes of a tune; the first note of the chord is the tune's note.

With that, here's a tune:

|470 2 0 2 |470 4 4. |27H 2 2. |470 7 7.
|470 2 0 2 |470 4 4 4 |27H 2 4 2 |047=

After I've jotted the tune down, I can use software I've created that can turn 0H into abc, when I get around to it; and other people have created tools that can turn abc into dots-on-staff or an mp3 file or whatever.

How this came about: I heard that a few obscure souls were using something called integer notation, but I never learned much more about it than that; I just sort of took that bare idea and ran with it.

I say no more at present, but if anyone has a question I be duty bound to at least try to guess an answer.