Notations 21 Exhibit Visuals
Works by Pozzi Escot
Music Scores As An Art Exhibit
Notations 21:Breaking the Boundaries is a celebration of innovations in musical notation, employing an appreciative aesthetic for both the aural and visual beauty of these creations. The musical scores in this exhibition were created by composers whose creativity could not be confined by the staff and clef of traditional western notation, but whose musical language can communicate with the contemporary audience in a uniquely powerful way.
The Hutchins Gallery Exhibition Notations 21: Breaking the Boundaries, curated by Theresa Sauer, celebrated the debut of Notations 21 (Mark Batty Publisher, NY/ Thames & Hudson, Internationally, 2009), which is the 40th anniversary of John Cage’s groundbreaking collection of notational styles, Notations (Something Else Press, 1969). Both Notations 21 and this exhibition were inspired by a common interest: that is, to collect and appreciate the creations of modern and contemporary composers, to publicize their works, and to inspire today’s audiences with their brilliant innovations.
I sought out today’s graphic composers to explore the direction graphic notation has gone in recent decades. The graphic scores of today possess the same aesthetic appeal and duality that stir the visual and auditory senses as those of Cage’s generation, but they have cast their net of possibility wider. Over 150 composers from all reaches of the globe are profiled in Notations 21, following in Cage’s footsteps of making even more public the next generation of convention-breaking composers. Gorgeous artwork adorns essays on personal philosophies that, like Cage, reveal through artwork the interface of these composers’ inner and outer lives.
Chollobhat by Daniel Schnee
“Begin Anywhere.” – John Cage
The music history taught to Western scholars typically impresses the idea that creativity and innovation in composing have held infinite possibilities while confined to the clef and staff of traditional notation. However, in the 20th century, particularly in the post-atomic age, new notational forms began to emerge, and composers were challenging the idea of the score. Earle Brown, one of these first innovators, described his understanding of these new notational developments in the following way: “There must be a fixed (even flexible) sound content, to establish the character of the work, in order to be called ‘open’ or ‘available’ form.
We recognize people regardless of what they are doing or saying or how they are dressed if their basic identity has been established as a constant but flexible function of being alive.” 1
In other words, the identity of notation comes from its purpose for the creation of music, a phenomenon that can allow for spectacular variations in musical scores. I have examined this phenomenon and the impacit has had on performance, as well as our collective consciousness as consumers of art and music.
My own research has led me in many directions, to many different composers, and their varied styles; the results of this research comprise Notations 21.
The backgrounds and personal histories of the composers also imprint themselves upon the compositions they create.
Works by Makoto Nomura
Many composers rely on their scientific minds, using the latest computer technologies to expand the definitions of music. Others come from the improvisational traditions of jazz. Some are inspired by modern pop culture: films, rock music, even comic books. They may be visual artists looking to create music, or composers looking to create visual art. Poets and avant-garde performance artists seek to translate their unique messages into visible sound. For some, their scores are products of their quest to use music as therapy. There are musicologists, educated by the greatest schools or self-taught, whose analyses of the most ancient (or most recent) musical developments reveal themselves in their creations. Genius takes many forms, especially, so it seems, in the production of innovative scores.
Indeed, composers who choose to make innovations in the field of notation/graphic scores represent various compositional ideals, as reflected in their philosophies. Their philosophies encompass the desire to improve communication amongst composers, performers, and audiences, to develop a wholly different language, to encourage creative improvisation, and to challenge the way we understand music and sound. Some seek to create from the viewpoint of function, and others from the viewpoint of aesthetics. Still others seek to unlock the secrets of the human mind, the spirit, or the natural world through the forms of their music—to heal, and to enlighten. These many fascinating philosophies result in an amazing variety of scores and notational styles. Not only do they look different from the scores of traditional Western notation, but they are also performed with different mindsets, different structures, or even different sounds.
To quote Sylvia Smith, the passionate curator of the long-running Scribing Sound exhibition of music notations (1952-1984): “Even scores that may appear similar may actually be extremely different in their notative function as different notative systems can use the same symbols in much the same way that different languages can use some of the same letters in their alphabets.”
Cacklecabin by Laura Toxvaerd
Notations 21: Breaking the Boundaries is not meant only to introduce people to the fascinating world of innovative notation and graphic scores, but also to provide a forum for composers, and a new way of bringing awareness of their compositions and philosophies to the forefront of the musical collective consciousness, aided by new technologies and media not available to John Cage in the 1960s. Cage himself once said, “My favorite music is the music I haven’t yet heard.
I don’t hear the music I write: I write in order to hear the music I have yet heard. We are living in a period in which many people have changed their mind about what the use of music is or could be for them.”3 The innovators presented herein have embodied Cage’s ideal, particularly keeping with the changes we witness in our global culture.
Theresa Sauer , Curator
Meditation 1 by Theresa Sauer andRegina Bouguyon
1 Brown, Earle, and David Ryan, on Brown’s Available Forms 1. Contemporary Music Making for Amateurs (CoMA), 2006.
2. Smith, Sylvia. “An Introduction to the Scribing Sounds exhibit.”
3. Cage, John. John Cage, Anarchic Harmony: ein Buch Der Frankfurt Feste ‘92/Alte oper Frankfurt. Cage, John, Stefan Schadler
and Walter Zimmermann. Schott, 1992.
more to come…….
