There are many different kinds of graphic scores, some providing very minimal performance instruction, and therefore requiring considerable interpretative strategies, others replete with detailed instructions, differing from conventional scores more in layout than in concept. Are these scores art or music, or some kind of fusion? How does indeterminacy relate to performance in comparisons with traditional notation?
This course will be a forum to study and analyse graphic scores by Mark Applebaum, Anthony Braxton, Earle Brown, Herbert Brün, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Anestis Logothetis, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Alvin Lucier, Robert Moran, Boguslaw Schäffer, and new generations of emerging composers. One of the reason composers started to experiment with graphic scores in the 1950s and '60s was to develop a kind of musical notation that could be read, and therefore performed, even by those who did not identify as musically literate. This course is, accordingly, open to all students; no prior knowledge or instrumental expertise is required. |