# Graphic scores



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

How do you feel about graphic scores? There seems to be some that are more detailed in instruction, like Stockhausen's and Crumb's, while some that are completely up to the performer, as this one






Is it a marketing ploy? An opportunity for new artistic endeavours? Or is it putting the score above the heard music?


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## Flutter (Mar 26, 2019)

Phil loves classical said:


> How do you feel about graphic scores? There seems to be some that are more detailed in instruction, like Stockhausen's and Crumb's, while some that are completely up to the performer, as this one
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What a strange coincidence that I was just looking up Cardew........
I have a disk with a few of his works on but he doesn't pop up in my life near as much as his peers (which are frequent when I'm in 'classical mode')


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

_Treatise_ and _The Great Learning_ are considered to be Cardew's greatest compositions (and also two of his most wildly experimental). This is, of course, before he went AWOL and started making "people's liberation music."

As for graphic scores, if the performers are able to make something interesting of them, I don't have a problem at all. In fact, that YouTube link is a cool interpretation.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Never heard that before - very interesting, weirdly beautiful. I have absolutely no idea how to even begin reading that "score". Does the graphic even represent the sound in some meaningful way? Nonetheless, quite beautiful.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Fascinating! This is the sort of thing I would have liked to explore in the thread about comparing jazz composition with classical composition. The design of Cardew's composition seems to leave a lot to the performers to decide? I can't imagine how it works as a score or how players approach it. It makes me suspicious of the music seeing what it comes from. But mostly it makes me want to understand how this way of composing works.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's The Great Learning VII









and here's a performance of it. What I'd like to know is whether it's a final performance, how much rehearsal time there was, how many collaborative decisions etc.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

And here's an example from Cage's Song Books









which gives this type of result


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

And here's Cardew's Treatise with score -- very well presented


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

And the rather beautiful score of Xenakis's Pithoprakta with the music rolling out


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Three ideas seem to be operating in this music. One is radical indeterminism, more than the sort of inderterminism that you find in the Boulez 3rd sonata. I suppose there's a quasi surreal idea that the non-determined can produce some inspiring results. And the other is freshness, the freshness of very minimal structure -- the same sort of inspiration that Boulez found in Debussy's Jeux.

And the third, present in Cardew at least, is that this type of music is less elitist, more democratic (you don't have to be a college graduate, with all that means _de facto_ for social exclusion, to participate etc.) So it's a reflection of and an implementation of an egalitarian idea.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

mbhaub said:


> Never heard that before - very interesting, weirdly beautiful. I have absolutely no idea how to even begin reading that "score". Does the graphic even represent the sound in some meaningful way? Nonetheless, quite beautiful.


I heard it said that Cardew expected performers to agree on a certain interpretation and approach to the score before performing for consistency. In this case I noticed they generally did follow the tradition that lower position on y-axis means a lower pitch. Some of the more complex and closed shapes they did seem to wing it and stuck something more arbitrary in, but in a few cases ignored it completely.

But the question is does the score even represent a musical work? There are an infinite number of interpretations and each one is it's own piece of music unrelated (or is it?) to the other interpretations.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)




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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Maybe a naive question: Aren't "traditional" scores also graphic scores, but just ones that we're very used to?


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

apricissimus said:


> Maybe a naive question: Aren't "traditional" scores also graphic scores, but just ones that we're very used to?


"Graphic notation (or graphic score) is the representation of music through the use of visual symbols *outside the realm of traditional music notation*." So no, not exactly.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Portamento said:


> "Graphic notation (or graphic score) is the representation of music through the use of visual symbols *outside the realm of traditional music notation*." So no, not exactly.


I would add that traditional notation have much less room for interpretation. Some can visualize or hear the music just by reading the score. You can't do that with Cardew's, which is on the extreme side of the spectrum. Some have less room and give a range of pitch, as I recall at least Feldman's earlier pieces do.


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