Nested Notation app for iPhone and iPad

Nested Notation is a new musical notation that provides coordination and structure to group improvisation. In a Nested Notation performance, each musician uses a web browser to view and interact with the musical score. 

The app acts a central server that keeps all of the musicians together on the same page, updating the information on each players screen as the group collaboratively chooses a path through a pre-defined harmonic structure composed of "rings".

Each ring has 12 notes, corresponding to the 12 notes of the chromatic scale. Unlike traditional music notation however, a nested notation ring is rotation-agnostic, meaning that the music is not fixed to a particular musical key. The key is determined by the musicians at the start of a performance and only then does the correspondence between the notation on the screen and actual musical pitches become concrete.


HOW TO RUN THE APP

The easiest way to start using nested notation is top open the "viewer" tab in the app. Immediately on startup the app will load a score and open it in the viewer. Opening that tab, you will see a ring. Before playing anything, select one of the notes (black dots) on the ring and assign a musical pitch to it. All other pitches in the ring can now be identified by counting positions around the ring as chromatic half-steps.

Pressing anywhere on the screen opens the meta-ring, which shows other nested rings that represent options for other harmonic structures to improvise on. Clicking on a purple-coloured ring inside of a meta-ring allows you to move into the next ring in the composition. In this way you move through a network of nested harmonic structures called rings.


HOW TO CONNECT WITH OTHER MUSICIANS

The nested notation app supports collaborative improvisation by connecting a group of musicians together via a local network. The easiest way to connect to the nested notation app on a mobile device is to use the photos app in a second device to scan one of the QR codes in the QR codes tab of the app. Scanning the code takes you to a link that can be opened in any web browser. The view you see in the browser on the second device is synchronised with the view in the server. Scanning the "player" QR code takes you to an interactive session, while the "rider" code follows along in real time but does not permit you to interact to direct the flow of the music.