Comments on: Graphical Music Notation

Graphical Music Notation

mediareport — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 19:58:56 -0800

Pictures of Music - fascinating site about graphical music notation, i.e., "non-traditional musical symbols arranged in a visual design rather than conventional musical syntax." Includes zoomable example scores, bios of folks like Morton Feldman, instructions for musicians, lots of sound clips and a detailed animated analysis of Cornelius Cardew's Treatise, the "Mount Everest of graphic scores."

By: thatwhichfalls

thatwhichfalls — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 20:16:23 -0800

This is really good. Cardew was interesting - his work with the scratch orchestra (and look at how many of the chorus went on to other things!) was part and parcel of his genuinely democratic approach to art music. Sadly, his work became less compellling as he drifted towards Maoism ...

By: effugas

effugas — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 20:49:56 -0800

Of course, there's a combination of the two: Arc Diagrams (And, just for completeness purposes, a similar algorithm for text)

By: Laugh_track

Laugh_track — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 22:21:33 -0800

Awesome.

By: LoopSouth

LoopSouth — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 23:14:36 -0800

I thought the same thing as I clicked the comments link: Completely awsome... I have produced two albums, but I don't know how to even read classical notation... I was trying to develop my own graphical system for representing music but just about gave up trying once I really got into it. I still doodle... but nothing serious.

By: Satapher

Satapher — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 01:30:52 -0800

awesome post, ive read that Bowie would scribble out graphic representations of what he wanted certain guitar solos to sound like to Ronson

By: digaman

digaman — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 05:48:49 -0800

Would love to look at these scores, am very interested in the subject, but I'm locked out because the site is not Mac compatible. A shame.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 06:41:10 -0800

digaman: I'm using Safari on a Mac and I can see most of the site just fine (although I can't zoom in on the scores, unfortunately.) As to the content... Speaking as a musician, I find that it's hard enough to interpret music when composers are explicit about the pitch & duration of notes. These scores look nice, sure, but I pity the poor souls who have to figure out what the hell you're supposed to play. But maybe I'm just a hidebound reactionary.

By: erebora

erebora — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 08:55:47 -0800

Digaman, if I click 'Larger Image View' first, I get a window that lets me zoom and pan (Mac/Safari). Disclaimer: My spouse was a consultant on this project. The interface is a bit clunky, but the whole thing went from conception to launch in about three months. Gratuitous tangential self-link/plug: Block Museum Anyone in the Chicagoland area, please stop up for a visit!

By: Satapher

Satapher — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 12:14:26 -0800

the point is not to have an accurate recreation, but to either stretch or confuse the minds of the performers to a point where they play something they would have never dreamed of before hand... obviously, every time one of these pieces are performed it sounds completely different standard notation/western music theory is the weatherman, and you dont need the weather man to know which way the wind blows (see: you dont need a standardized abstract system to tell you what sounds good and what sounds bad)

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 12:45:37 -0800

Barry Guy.

By: thatwhichfalls

thatwhichfalls — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 14:59:20 -0800

Thanks for that link languagehat. I like the look of the adaptation of "Un Coup de Dés". Mallarmé seems highly appropriate for this kind of musico-graphic experimentation.

By: mediareport

mediareport — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 20:41:10 -0800

Digaman, if I click 'Larger Image View' first, I get a window that lets me zoom and pan (Mac/Safari). Funny, I had to do the same thing on a Windows machine. I thought it was me. I pity the poor souls who have to figure out what the hell you're supposed to play I dunno, insturctions like these seem like they could be fun. I recently saw Eugene Chadbourne perform a similarly abstract improvised show, with changes signaled by performers picking up objects like plastic shovels and such. It was wonderful, and got even better after I'd looked at the notes he'd written for the performers.