9. "standard notation fails for a few reasons" In response to In response to 7 Thu Jun-14-07 01:50 PM by jamesL
first of all, i've always had a problem with the way western notation dealt with rhythm. i think the system of note shapes is a terrible way of demonstating rhythm. it gives a very poor sense of not just note length, but measure placement, which is terribly important with rap. at the very least, it gives you some sense of patterns, but it's not very good at all for complex, syncopated rhythms, and rap has some of the most complex rhythms.
another reason is more practical: there are lots of words in a rap and it's hard to fit those all underneath a staff like that. since the words ARE the most important part of any rap, i feel one should be able to read the words fairly easily, and the most desirable system would simply illustrate what rhythmic and rhyming values the different words have as they are written fairly normally.
a third reason is because a rap typically is written around a consistent 16th note rhythm with different variations. it would be terribly redundant to write so many 16th notes over and over.
EDIT: I also want to demonstrate rhyming visually, which I do with color. it gives you an idea of how the end (and sometimes middle) of lines connect and sometimes give very interesting structures.