Cancelled 'The Weitz Method'

[lessonslearned]

Quote

"The traditional way of learning the piano can be daunting. The Weitz Method is almost instant! It’s absolutely incredible." -Grammy-Award winner Dionne Warwick

 

The Weitz Method, created by Andrew Weitz, a Juilliard-educated professional musician, is based on a revolutionary method of music notation called Weitz Notation that allows students to play piano in minutes. Once a student learns the basics of The Weitz Method, they will have the ability to play any song in Weitz Notation. Andrew Weitz wants to bring The Weitz Method to people all over the world via downloadable video lessons.

 

Why 'The Weitz Method'

• 'The Weitz Method' works by breaking down each song into simple notation using familiar shapes. No need to spend hours learning how to read music!
• 'The Weitz Method' gives you the freedom to learn the songs you choose immediately. Say goodbye to the typical beginner tunes and hello to your favorite pop melody.
• With the funds to purchase song rights, 'The Weitz Notation Library' has the potential to grow exponentially.

 

Let's face it: you're busy! With responsibilities, friends and family, your time is at a premium. You deserve the freedom to pursue your passion for music at your own pace. That's why 'The Weitz Method' will consist of a downloadable material that's always ready when you are.

For more information or to donate, click the link below!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/11668449/the-weitz-method/description

[Darsc Zacal]

A pre-emptive reminder that even though this project is not hobby related it is still allowed by the current board rules.

[Pingo]

I'm a little boggled that anyone would begrudge taking "hours" to learn something so useful as standard musical notation, but whatevs.

 

Says the person who's spent decades learning to paint.

[Doug Sundseth]

Let us assume that this musical notation system is as much more efficient than standard notation as shorthand (whichever form) is more efficient than cursive. We will further stipulate for the sake of argument that it is also easier to learn than standard musical notation.

 

(I will pause to note that I find both of these claims somewhere between dubious and risible, but we're accepting them for the sake of the discussion for now.)

 

So once I learn this great new innovation, where do I find the music in this notation? Oh, that's right, you can only find it from the company running this Kickstarter project.

 

While music in standard notation is available pretty nearly everywhere.

 

Using the most charitable possible interpretation of this product, there might be someone for whom this is the answer to a question they've been asking for decades. After all, you can find books published in conlangs like Esperanto and Lojban, maybe this will find a similar market. But the someone looking for this is not me.

[terminalmancer]

Classical musical notation is kind of an arbitrary jumble of concepts and ideas that have slowly been bolted onto what was originally a simple framework. I think it's actually quite reasonable to think that there could be an improvement.

 

Andrew Weitz seems like a very good teacher. I do find, however, that the lack of any examples of this notation makes me skeptical, and I'm also dubious of the idea that any notation created by a team of one--no matter how talented--would be an adequate replacement. I suppose it's possible that I have spent too long staring at sheet music to realize how low the bar is, but I'd like to think I'm more self-aware than that.

 

Seems like it might potentially have some use for people with visual limitations, but it's hard to tell since the only thing the kickstarter page seems to provide is platitudes! You might have more luck if you post some samples so we can determine for ourselves whether we think the system is a good fit for us.

 

2 hours ago, Doug Sundseth said:

So once I learn this great new innovation, where do I find the music in this notation? Oh, that's right, you can only find it from the company running this Kickstarter project.

 

While music in standard notation is available pretty nearly everywhere.

 

And yeah, I agree--this is a pretty major problem. Although it hasn't hurt Apple, Google, etc. too much so far...

[Knight of the Dinner Table]

I do not know much about piano (and classical music for piano), but most people playing guitar in the field of rock/blues do not read standard notation. Studio players in Nashville use the "Nashville number system" and most publications for rock/blues/pop use a notation called tablature. It is extremely widespread.

 

Add to that that some intricacies of playing (the guitar) are very hard or impossible to show in standard notation (or it makes the notation very cluttered, hard to read. There are also different positions on the guitar where you can play the same note, but the timbre of the note is slightly different. Do I play the "D" with the open D-string or on the low E-string on the 10th fret? Or on the A-string 5th fret? But ok, that's not something to worry about on the piano ...

 

On the other hand, I remember when I was learning the flute in primary school ... they started with a notation that had the head of the notes in colours. Green was a "G" for example. But the notes sat on the right lines or between the right lines, too. Nevertheless, it was like almost starting from scratch when we switched to standard notation without colours.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Knight of the Dinner Table

[Pingo]

My eldest learned classical Spanish guitar from a professional jazz musician using standard musical notation.  I had not realized there were teachers who didn't teach standard musical notation.  It feels a bit like learning to sing without ever learning to read.  

 

Musical notation is a massive kludge, yes, but it is one in which much of the corpus of music we have is written.

 

I think -- odd as it may sound -- it makes more sense to me for someone to learn to play by ear without reading music at all than it does to learn a nonstandard notation in the face of a near-universal standard.

[Knight of the Dinner Table]

Spanish or classical guitar: standard notation

Jazz guitar: I think standard notation (though most "melody lines" jazz players play are improvised - but you must be able to play the "theme" of the song and that's probably written in standard notation).

Rock, blues, pop, country: people playing those styles often do not or cannot read standard notation (at least not fluently ... there is a joke: How do you get a guitar player to turn down his volume? - Give him sheet music.) Most of the books which contain songs by popular rock bands offer tablature.

 

I can read standard notation and I can teach it ... but it all comes down what the person I teach wants to accomplish. And there is the question of when to teach standard notation as it is a huge bore for many people who just want to play - teach them to play a bit and after they are hooked, torture them with sight-reading.

[Kangaroorex]

There are a lot of ways to learn music.  some work for some better than others.  My main concern here is I don't see any examples of this notation on the website or the webpages.  Just as there are a lot of notations that work, there are many more that don't.  I wound up playing the tin whistle because I found a notation book that showed the fingerings on the whistle below each of the notes.  this has helped me immensely.  On the other hand, I really do what to see what I am getting into. a signature that shows me what keys to hit with what fingers is great, a system that shows me a squiggle for a major seventh chord is about the same as showing me the notes, I still need to develop the positional memory and I can do that from the sheet music.

[Pingo]

5 hours ago, Knight of the Dinner Table said:

Spanish or classical guitar: standard notation

Jazz guitar: I think standard notation (though most "melody lines" jazz players play are improvised - but you must be able to play the "theme" of the song and that's probably written in standard notation).

Rock, blues, pop, country: people playing those styles often do not or cannot read standard notation (at least not fluently ... there is a joke: How do you get a guitar player to turn down his volume? - Give him sheet music.) Most of the books which contain songs by popular rock bands offer tablature.

 

I can read standard notation and I can teach it ... but it all comes down what the person I teach wants to accomplish. And there is the question of when to teach standard notation as it is a huge bore for many people who just want to play - teach them to play a bit and after they are hooked, torture them with sight-reading.

 

Well, I said classical Spanish guitar, but really he taught all kinds.  He just started them with classical guitar first.

 

He firmly believed that once you mastered the fingerings and reading music of classical guitar you could play just about anything.

 

At his concerts he mostly had his guitar students blasting out hard rock on electric guitars.  They were something extraordinary.

 

ATM my eldest is playing her own covers of all sorts of songs as ending theme music on her Youtube channel.  I'm pretty sure that's all by ear.

[Knight of the Dinner Table]

The only "problem" I see with that teacher's approach: Will those students who actually want to play Rock or Blues sit through the classical guitar training (which is much more difficult than what you need to know if you want to play blues or rock) or will they be frustrated because they feel they don't learn what they want to learn (and what they learn is more difficult) and quit? No doubt, if you see that through, you have a great basis to play (almost) anything.

[Maledrakh]

This does have the taste of "do this exersise on this machine you need to buy from us just 5 minutes once each week, and you will be ripped like a body builder in just three months" BS sales pitch for the lazy.

 

What if what I want to learn to play is, say, anything by Meshuggah, or the infamous Rachmaninov III piano concerto?

 

One thing is that they might have a groundbreaking, very easy and intuituve notation (where were the examples again?) but the 1000 hours+ of practice needed to imprint the muscle memory that makes your body fluent in the instrument of your choice are not so easy to shorten.

 

 

[terminalmancer]

25 minutes ago, Maledrakh said:

or the infamous Rachmaninov III piano concerto?

In this kickstarter's defense, any piece that can't be played on most consumer-grade pianos (or, I hear, you will damage your piano) is probably "beyond the scope of this adventure"!