Music 5 1/2 Examples of Experimental Music Notation

listopencil · 06-05-2013, 11:54 AM

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/desi...usic-notation/

With the development of music notation, music was set free from the delicate bonds of oral and aural traditions. A standardized, underlying structure meant that everything from Gregorian chant to “Johnny B Goode” could be preserved and proliferated with relative ease. However, beginning in the years after World War II, some more progressive musicians and composers began to think that the music staff might be more restricting than liberating and began to experiment with new, more expressive forms of graphic music notation.

American composer John Cage explored the use chance and indeterminacy in his musical compositions with the aim of erasing his own subjectivity from his music, the hand of the artists, as it were. To communicate his indeterminate “compositions,” to use the term loosely, Cage developed elaborate methods of graphic notation involving a series of transparencies. He first used this method in the 1958 score for “Variations I,” which consisted of six transparent squares – one with 27 points representing sound and five with five lines, representing any assigned musical value. The composition was derived by placing the squares on top of one another in any combination. Cage would continue to develop and expand this method throughout the 1950s and ’60s, as seen in the top image depicting the somewhat more elaborate score for “Fontana Mix.” Cage’s notation consists of four multi-channel cassette tapes, ten transparencies inscribed with tiny dots, one transparency bearing a straight line and ten sheets of paper on which colored squiggly lines were drawn, and a graph paper-like “staff.” The transparencies were used to derive coordinates that were then used to determine which tape was used, as well as the values of the sound from the tape: length (in inches), volume, timbre, and so on. According to the All Music Guide to Classical Music, Cage described the score as “a camera from which anyone can take a photograph.”

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/desi...usic-notation/

cosmo20002 · 06-05-2013, 12:27 PM

Have you ever heard 4'33" by John Cage? It's really something.

listopencil · 06-05-2013, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

Have you ever heard 4'33" by John Cage? It's really something.

It really comes together in the third movement, yes?

06-05-2013, 11:54 AM
listopencil Immanentize The Eschaton Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: In Partibus Infidelium Casino cash: $2205880	5 1/2 Examples of Experimental Music Notation http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/desi...usic-notation/ With the development of music notation, music was set free from the delicate bonds of oral and aural traditions. A standardized, underlying structure meant that everything from Gregorian chant to “Johnny B Goode” could be preserved and proliferated with relative ease. However, beginning in the years after World War II, some more progressive musicians and composers began to think that the music staff might be more restricting than liberating and began to experiment with new, more expressive forms of graphic music notation. American composer John Cage explored the use chance and indeterminacy in his musical compositions with the aim of erasing his own subjectivity from his music, the hand of the artists, as it were. To communicate his indeterminate “compositions,” to use the term loosely, Cage developed elaborate methods of graphic notation involving a series of transparencies. He first used this method in the 1958 score for “Variations I,” which consisted of six transparent squares – one with 27 points representing sound and five with five lines, representing any assigned musical value. The composition was derived by placing the squares on top of one another in any combination. Cage would continue to develop and expand this method throughout the 1950s and ’60s, as seen in the top image depicting the somewhat more elaborate score for “Fontana Mix.” Cage’s notation consists of four multi-channel cassette tapes, ten transparencies inscribed with tiny dots, one transparency bearing a straight line and ten sheets of paper on which colored squiggly lines were drawn, and a graph paper-like “staff.” The transparencies were used to derive coordinates that were then used to determine which tape was used, as well as the values of the sound from the tape: length (in inches), volume, timbre, and so on. According to the All Music Guide to Classical Music, Cage described the score as “a camera from which anyone can take a photograph.” http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/desi...usic-notation/
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06-05-2013, 12:27 PM	#2
cosmo20002 Debunking your bullshit Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: KC area Casino cash: $5180315	Have you ever heard 4'33" by John Cage? It's really something.
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