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REFRAMING THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE THROUGH THE PROJECTED SCORE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2018

Abstract

Over the past ten years, performance scores have been radically foregrounded in a variety of performance practices. Whether such notations assume a prescriptive function, visually projected for musicians to interpret, or a descriptive one, unfolding as a documentation of a live coding performance, how might such a foregrounding reframe the listening process for an audience? Does a notational schema help promote a deeper, structural level understanding of a musical work? This article will consider these various questions, exploring how principles of graphic design and the transparency of notation contribute to the listening experience. It will suggest that works featuring projected scores find aesthetic value in the juxtaposition of notation's traditionally mnemonic function and the unique temporal modalities that projected scores establish.

Type
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

1 Pedro Rebelo refers to such scores as reactive scores Rebelo, Pedro, ‘Notating the Unpredictable’, Contemporary Music Review 29/1 (2010), pp. 1727 Google Scholar.

2 Freeman, Jason, ‘Extreme Sight-Reading, Mediated Expression, and Audience Participation: Real-Time Music Notation in Live Performance’, Computer Music Journal 32/3 (2008), pp. 2541 Google Scholar.

3 Common practice notation is arguably used far less often than other forms of notation in this practice.

4 Jobina Tinnemans, Imagiro Panoramic Score, https://jobinatinnemans.com/portfolio/imagiro/. (2017). Accessed 2 January 2018.

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6 While these may indeed include a desire to provide listeners with a deeper understanding of underlying musical processes, they may also be driven by a response to pragmatic challenges involved in presenting screen scores to small ensembles or simply an appeal to visual aesthetics.

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9 The types of animation techniques employed in a screen score often underscore a work's formal structure. Consider, for example, how performers might approach a performance of Hope's Longing should a ‘pages’ methodology for displaying new information be used, or how the event-driven textures of Ryan Ross Smith's various percussion works are related to temporal synchronicities and collisions between on-screen graphic primitives.

10 The scrolling animation technique that underscores Hope's work is one of a series of animation types embedded in the Decibel Score Player application, required for a performance of the work. Further information on the application is available at Hope, Cat & Vickery, Lindsay, ‘The Decibel Score Player – A Digital Tool for Reading Graphic Notation’, Proceedings of the TENOR2015 First International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation. (Paris, 2015)Google Scholar. Available at <http://tenor2015.tenor-conference.org/program.html>.

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13 This is not to suggest that colour has not been used in paper-based scores, refer for example to the use of colour in fourteenth-century Ars Subtilior notation, as a means of clarifying complex mensural division.

14 McLean, Alex, Griffiths, Dave, Collins, Nick, and Wiggins, Geraint, ‘Visualisation of Live Code’, EVA'10 Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on Electronic Visualisation and the Arts, (London: 2010), pp. 2630 Google Scholar.

15 Personal communication with the composer.

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20 Installation/Performance Notes provided courtesy of the composer.

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27 Subotnik, ‘Towards a Deconstruction of Structural Listening’.

28 Adorno suggests that rather than developing as an aide-memoire enabling performances to be recreated, notation in fact served as a means of reifying musical practice most notably through techniques for indicating mensuration. Adorno, Theodor, Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction: Notes, a Draft and Two Schemata, trans. Hoban, Weiland (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

29 The performance challenges involved in interpreting a generative notation are tangential to the focus of this article. The reader is referred to Jason Freeman, ‘Extreme Sight-Reading’, for more in-depth discussion.

30 Cat Hope, Personal communication, 2016.

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