Graphic / Instructional Scores

[Stephen]

I'm looking for some graphic or instruction-based scores and thoughts on interpretation. The pieces need to be for indeterminate instrumentation.

So leaving aside from the obvious Cage works and Treatise, can people recommend modern and contemporary composers who have worked in this area? What have people here played themselves?

Also interested in any texts in the vein of Cardew's "On the interpretation of indeterminate scores" (or whatever the exact title is)

[RFKorp]

I assume pointing you to our own Robert Kirkpatrick's blog posts is already redundant for your purposes. But just in case. Or maybe someone new the board will find this thread and it'll be a useful part of the discussion for them.

some really great detailed thoughts here about how he goes about translating two of his own graphic scores for solo performance:

http://www.spiralcage.com/blog/?p=837

[Stephen]

Yes, should have mentioned that I had just finished bookmarking several of hatta's blog pages for future reading. Skimming over them a few interesting titles came up. Notably Ichiyanagi's Sapporo and some Christian Wolff ones. I'll go more into depth through those posts soon.

Don't want to get a lawsuit sent my way, but if anyone knows of a kindly bootlegger of such items in PDF format.. well..

[kp*]

off the top of my sleepy head:

Check out Jim Tenney Postal Pieces

look at the Cage Notations book (for Cage hisownbadself, check the gigantic songbooks) and also take a peak at Notations21 by Theresa Sauer

[simon reynell]

where's Hugh Davies when you need him? he'd have come up with 100 names (plus lots of extra details you didn't need) But two names from the clasical world who spring to mind immediately:
Roman Haubenstock-Ramati did several lovely graphic scores, some of which were recorded & released on hatart about 10 years ago. They're mainly Kandinsky-esque drawings, some of which do specify instruments, others of which are completely free. I think they're published by Universal Edition, but there may be rogue examples floating round the net.
Anestis Logothetis also did a lot of graphic scores, in fact I think he worked almost exclusively in this mode from the 60's onwards. Pictorially they're also very abstract, though slightly more cartoonish in style than Haubenstock-Ramati's. But I can imagine good interpreters producing interesting stuff from them. Several of his pieces appeared on LP's in the 70's, of which I have just one - a very nice realisation by the American New Music Ensemble. And there've been just a couple of cd's that I know of, of which I have one, simply called 'Anestis Logothetis - Volume 1' on the Extraplatte label (he was based in Vienna, I believe). I've not played the disc for a long time, but remember being slightly disappointed with it as against the New Music Ensemble piece. I should try it again. I've no idea if Volumes 2, 3 etc were ever released.

[simon reynell]

Just googled both Haubenstock-Ramati and Logothetis and discovered that the Extraplatte cd 'Anestis Logothetis Volume 1' disc is still available from their site (no signs of vols 2 or 3). Also you can see and (if you have several thousand spare euros) you can buy art prints of some of Haubesnstock-Ramati's scores from here http://www.ariadne.at/?artist_id=90&language=en

Unfortunately the images online are too small to simply copy and use, but it'll give you an idea of his graphic style. There were potentially more usable reproductions of some of the other scores on the HatArt release 'Roman Haubenstock-Ramati - Graphic Music' which might be good enough quality for you to blow up and use.

[kp*]

Also interested in any texts in the vein of Cardew's "On the interpretation of indeterminate scores" (or whatever the exact title is)

Also see:

David Behrman, "What Indeterminate Notation Determines"

[Stephen]

Check out Jim Tenney Postal Pieces

look at the Cage Notations book (for Cage hisownbadself, check the gigantic songbooks) and also take a peak at Notations21 by Theresa Sauer

Yes, I have the Postal Pieces discs - hadn't thought of them.

All 314 pages of Notations are available as a PDF here: http://www.ubu.com/historical/cage/index.html
Thanks!

Anestis Logothetis

oh, really... will definitely look into these. Thanks.

[simon reynell]

I've just played the Logothetis disc on Extraplatte, and have remembered why I haven't played it for ages. A lot of the tracks are for voice (or interpreted for voice in these realisations) and are very uninteresting to me. The instrumental tracks are ok but sound like pretty standard New Music pieces of the time, and you wouldn't know from hearing them that they were graphic scores. So don't bother ordering the cd, Stephen. But it might still be worth trying to track down some of his scores anyway. You could give them new life. I suppose it's both the strength and the weakness of graphic scores that they can be resurrected 30 years on in this way. New players can bring new attitudes and new technologies to the score producing sounds that the composer couldn't have imagined. But equally you might as well start from thousands of other graphic phenomena and produce just as interesting results. Apparently Haubenstock-Ramati once said that he couldn't understand why people didn't 'play' Kandinsky's pictures as music. That might be a good way of avoiding copyright problems, as Kandinsky's works are available cheaply in good-quality reproductions, and they couldn't claim any intellectual property rights on whatever music you produced from them.

[Stephen]

But equally you might as well start from thousands of other graphic phenomena and produce just as interesting results.

Yes this has often occurred to me, but I nevertheless feel like an understanding of the compositional and interpretational methods people have used are pretty important to embarking on turning a photograph to music.

I might of course be completely wrong - that sort of knowledge can be completely inhibiting...

as you can tell I haven't exactly fully thought this one through yet.

[simon reynell]

Stephen wrote: "I nevertheless feel like an understanding of the compositional and interpretational methods people have used are pretty important to embarking on turning a photograph to music."

I agree with this. I think that a good deal of rigour is essential to make projects like this come off. Hard work and being prepared to really follow through the logic of whatever rules or system you are applying.

Going back to Haubenstock-Ramati (who was very rigorous), as well as the Graphic Music disc there are a couple of graphic pieces for piano on the excellent 2-cd collection 'Pour Piano' that also came out on HatArt back in 1996. They're interpreted there by Carol Morgan, who lives in Vienna and studied with Haubenstock-Ramati. The sleevenotes reproduce one of the pieces, 'Catch 2', in a rather micro form, but this is one that would be of particular interest to contemporary experimenters, I think, because Haubenstock-Ramati himself suggested not only that the interpreter should play inside the piano as well as on the keyboard, but also that (s)he should use unspecified "electronic resources" to increase the amount of "non-musical sounds" in their interpretation of the score. (The score is orderable from Universal Edition, but is a bit pricey at 36 euros)

Both the other graphic pieces in the collection, 'Pour Piano' and 'Tenebrae II', also use electronic elements, though possibly only tapes, I'm not sure. But according to the sleevenotes Haubenstock-Ramati wanted the pieces to raise the questions "What is taped and what is live? What instrument am I hearing? Is this composed or improvised?" That's still a pretty good set of questions for a piece of music IMO, and Carol Morgan's realisation of 'Tenebrae II' especially is fantastic.

[faster]

I put a couple things from Japan online here.

[kcorcoran]

You might be interested in Eco's The Open Work which spans a few disciplines.
Admittedly I've only read an excerpt which was included in Audio Culture, but I remember it being one of my favorite essays there with reference to visual scores and chance operation.

[orangettecoleman]

I'm not sure but I think "December 1952" Earle Brown had no strict instrumentation instructions, could be wrong though. It's one of the more famous graphic notation pieces as well so it should be pretty easy to find people talking about interpretation strategies...

[Moon]

http://www.scambi.mdx.ac.uk/

Scambi by Pousseur.

Url is full of research and examples with explanations from the artists, as well as comments by Pousseur himself. It's one of my lecturers' project and knowing him he would be more than happy to help you over email and feature your finished work on that page.

Oh, the actual Scambi samples aren't available from the site, but I can upload them somewhere for you.

[cdeupree]

Fred Frith had a 2-CD album of graphic scores a while back, Stone, Brick, Glass, Wood, Wire. The booklet that came with the album has the scores, and they're all based on photographs. Sometimes he overlays different musical notations on the photos, but includes all the directions as well as the scores. Plus, there are recordings, so you can hear how the musicians interpreted them.

Another book on open form is Thomas DeLio's Circumscribing the Open Universe, which contains essays on one work each by Cage, Feldman, Wolff, Ashley, and Lucier. I posted a little bit about the book here.

Also, Polwechsel has posted some of their scores on their web site in their download area.

[Stephen]

Thank you all for your input. I am just binging through the library for stuff of interest. Even though it's not graphic I am pretty taken with Brown's Twenty Five Pages for 1 to 25 pianos, I am beginning to understand why Four Systems is such a favourite among interpreters.

Also liking the look of Wolff's slightly more graphic For 1, 2 or 3 people.

For those interested: the aformentioned Behrman article, and Brown's "The Notation and Performance of New Music"

[kp*]

Another fat anthology that has tons of stuff is the venerable old:

Scores: An Anthology of New Music
by Roger Johnson

[vomir]

Walter Marchetti 'De musicorum infelicitate'
the score was published (hrdcover book + LP) by Alga Marghen

[jkudler]

having recently been working on a concert of michael pisaro's music and one antoine beuger, a lot of that is text/instruction based, for indeterminate instrumentation (though often number of players is specified). beuger seems super-helpful if you try writing him.

there's also the various brief lamonte young scores from his fluxus/quasi-fluxus period, and various sonic arts union works, many for solo performers. lucier's are the ones i've seen the most of.

-jesse