In order to understand the intentions of notation, why it was created and what inspired its conception the questions were posed to its contributors.

Interviews

-Daniel Cerkoney is a current member of the Naming Committee in the UPSB Research Department which works on finding ways to improve notation.

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-What are the main flaws of current notation?

"Ambiguity in terms of palm stance in informal notation, lack of consistency of notation due to informal means of learning it and cross-cultural differences"

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-How do you personally use notation?
"I use notation to explain links that I or others do which are otherwise difficult for the untrained eye to understand, or to explain new concepts or complex and unique hybrids that would be mistaken for simpler ones otherwise"



-How has notation changed over the years?

"Notation has formally evolved to become more thorough, while informally it has stayed relatively static in terms of notation syntax, and simply grown in various names of hybrids or new tricks, continuous tricks/hybrids, etc."



-Is notation useful to you?

"Notation is useful in explicitly describing a linkage to others. notation loses its usefulness when used to break down an entire combo, as the length and complexity often exceeds the respective complexity of the combo itself, but for complex linkages and hybrids that are not as lengthy, the opposite can be said. So I use it when sharing linkage ideas with others, or explaining new/unique concepts that I hope to be recognized rather than overlooked"

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-What kind of things would you change about current notation?
"I would work on incorporating the important concepts in formal notation that informal/casual notation is lacking without increasing its length and complexity to the point where it becomes undesirable to use, and work on finding a more structured and universal means of teaching the community notation, which applies both to new spinners and old spinners that use outdated/depricated/ambiguous notation (not international necessarily, due to dramatic cross-cultural notation differences). We need more resources for this, and it should be discussed among various board representatives in order to facilitate agreement and encourage a retreat from various personal and often incorrect or improper notation syntax/style."

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Daniel addresses a very important point that became evident while reviewing the survey responses. Many spinners are never educated on formal notation, and while they pick it up and know its importance, even intermediate spinners may not be able to utilize it. Differences in trick names and notation syntax cause confusion as well, as I observed in the differences between Asian and European modifier nomenclature. While formal notation has evolved to accommodate such complexities, it is seldom taught, and in all the survey responses no examples of intensive formal breakdowns are found. When Daniel refers to ambiguity of palm stance, he is referring to the lack of depth when it comes to describing hand positioning, palm side notation describes (PD) (Palm down), (PS) (Palm side), and (PU) (Palm up), but many tricks require more information, or switch palm side in the middle, and thus become more complex (if not impossible) to  properly notate.

-Alexander Garner is a student at the University of Florida, and led the release of the first formal pen spinning notation, interrupted trick (hybrid) notation.

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​-What was the inspiration behind the development of pen spinning notation?

-What was the purpose of notation at the time of inception?

"These are both kind of answered the same way. At the time, pen spinning was developing ridiculously fast. A user named GizzardSmack introduced me to pen spinning, and I was at his place watching videos and we realized there just plain wasn't a way to notate the things that were happening. It was generally known that most things being done could be described using basic tricks, so the term "hybrid" took off. At first, everyone just tried to give a unique name to every hybrid (See: Demon's sonic/Devil's sonic, etc), but it quickly just devolved to saying "twisted sonic/shadow hybrid" in the middle of notations.

We just decided that it would make sense to create a more specific way of saying that same thing. Instead of just saying "Trick A/Trick B Hybrid", we developed a way to specify what part of the hybrid came from each trick."



-What are the main flaws of current notation?

"I guess it depends on what you want out of it. The misconception is that the current notation is designed to be like sheet music. If you see Beethoven's sheet music, you know what the song sounded like. With PS notation, it's not meant to do that. It'd be like if sheet music just had the notes and not length, volume, tempo, etc. PS notation strictly tells you what tricks are happening, not how they're done. It shows the path the pen travels and that's it."​



-How has common notation changed over the years?

"Not much to be honest. The only thing that comes to mind is the stupid Swivel situation. That's another case of someone just wanting to name a trick themselves instead of being logical. A Swivel is a fingerless sonic. That's it. But the name took off before anyone could really look at the trick, so it is what it is.​"



-How do you personally use notation?

"Not very often haha. I'm not a big fan of copying combos, so the only time I really ever use it is to describe something I'm thinking about to other people. Other than that, my thoughts on what it "should" be are above.​"

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Alex's responses gave me some perspective on the situation. Despite the fact that notation exists it seems as though common trick names ignored the community standards at times and simply used their own names. The Sonic, for instance, a fundamental pen spinning trick in which a pen is transferred from one slot to another in a conic motion, requires a single modifier "fingerless" to describe another trick, however common naming emerged the trick name Swivel.​