The Future is Graphic: Animated notation for contemporary practice

A growing number of musicians are recognising the importance of re-thinking notation and its capacity to support contemporary practice. New music is increasingly more collaborative and polystylistic, engaging a greater range of sounds from both acoustic and electronic instruments. Contemporary compositional approaches combine composition, improvisation, found sounds, production and multimedia elements, but common practice music notation has not evolved to reflect these developments. While traditional notations remain the most effective way to communicate information about tempered harmony and the subdivision of metre for acoustic instruments, graphic and animated notations may provide an opportunity for the representation and communication of electronic music. If there is a future for notating electronic music, the micro-tonality, interactivity, non-linear structures, improvisation, aleatoricism and lack of conventional rhythmic structures that are features of it will not be facilitated by common practice notation. This article proposes that graphic and animated notations do have this capacity to serve electronic music, and music that combines electronic and acoustic instruments, as they enable increased input from performers from any musical style, reflect the collaborative practices that are a signpost of current music practice. This article examines some of the ways digitally rendered graphic and animated notations can represent contemporary electronic music-making and foster collaboration between musicians and composers of different musical genres, integrating electronic and acoustic practices.

Interactive sound art and animated notation as an ensemble performance platform in primary level music education

This article showcases excerpts of my artistic research in progress. In particular, I demonstrate how an interdisciplinary approach combining knowledge from the fields of artistic research, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and game studies mayinspire primary level music education of today. I highlight examples of novel digital music technology and present an innovate approach to using these for group performance exercises in the music classroom. In particular, I report from a study where my interactive sound art exhibition LINES, in combination with animated music notation, was used as a digital ensemble music platform. The data of the study comprises five workshop sessions with pre-schoolers using this platform. An autoethnographic method and analysis of video documentation of the workshop sessions were used as methods for the study. The results showed that LINES was both engaging and easily accessed. Moreover, it allowed the majority of the target group to perform musical exercises as an ensemble. I argue that the use of traditional instruments and traditional notation creates a democratic issue in primary level music education. Furthermore, with support from the study and related research, I argue that platforms such as this may democratize music education involving pupils aged 5-15 years.

Electronic Scores for Music: The Possibilities of Animated Notation

This article argues that animated notations are the most exciting new direction for music notation since the conception of the real-time score. The real-time score revolutionized performance practices in new music, with the composer Gerhard E. Winkler calling it a “third way” between improvisation and fixed scores. Developing upon the idea of dynamic notation epitomized by the real-time score, animated notation features movement as its foundation, and may be presented as an interactive program, video, or application environment generated in real time or preset. It extends the possibilities presented by graphic notations, engaging the processing power of computing toward new complexities of shape, color, movement dynamics, form, synchronicity, and the very performability of music scores. Beginning with a brief historic overview of trends and background that may have informed the development of animated notation, I then examine contemporary practices and their application to a range of music. I will argue that animated notation brings particular benefits for scoring music featuring electronics and aleatoric elements.

The Limitations of Representing Sound and Notation on Screen

Animated screen-based notation and visual representation of sound provide an important solution to visualising a range of musical phenomena and techniques including continuous parametrical changes, synchronisation with prerecorded audio or live processing, and nonlinear formal organisation. The limitations of human visual capabilities, however, place some constraints upon the efficacy of screen-based representation, particularly in regard to notation reading. Findings from sightreading studies exploring the manner in which notation is encoded, processed and executed are examined with the aim of identifying the perceptual and practical boundaries of presenting animated notation on screen. The development of efficient visual representation is proposed as an important requirement for alleviating the issues created by the time constraints of reading on screen. Studies in semantics and cross-modal activation are discussed as a foundation for the expansion of approaches to the visualisation of sound.