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I was considering making a tracker for my music engine some time in the future, and I might represent effects with musical symbols instead of letters. Any suggestion for better symbols?

If you've never seen open noteheads attached to sixteenth or thirty-second notes before, the symbols for fast and slow arpeggio are inspired by tremolo notation as described in a recent discussion about slow arps.

Looks pretty good and easy to read to me. The volume symbols - while they make sense to someone who can read scores - aren’t selfexplanatory though. Maybe piecharts could work? ”Full moon” would be 100% and ”empty circle” would be 0%

What’s the method of input?

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Some alternative ideas:

1. The slash in the grace note has a different meaning than the slashes in the "off" commands, which might be confusing. In the "off" commands, maybe use a slash along with a gray color? (Inspired by European "end of speed zone" signs.)


2. You skipped p and f. Some people might wonder where they are. Maybe just using a single volume symbol (like a triangular ramp shape) along with a number would be easier to understand, and allow more than 4 levels.


3. The note stems imply a specific note duration. You might use a filled notehead without a stem as a way to represent a note with no specific duration, but maybe that's more confusing.