Musical notation

L'obiettivo perseguito è lo sviluppo delle capacità degli alunni di suonare insieme, il miglioramento della capacità di riconoscere le strutture musicali tramite l'improvvisazione, la conoscenza di codici principali della musica semi-improvvisata. Si è cercato di dare l'idea di tattica e strategia dell'improvvisazione come un mezzo per trasmettere un messaggio e di coinvolgere gli altri in gioco.

This is a double research paper: (1) Tipology and evolution of the musical forms across the three 13th-century notated MSS. of the Cantigas de Santa Maria: the first systematic revision of the subject since Anglés (1958) [a few mistakes crept in and were corrected in the same author's paper "Jograis, contrafacta, formas musicais: cultura urbana nas Cantigas de Santa Maria", in Alcanate. Revista de Estudios Alfonsíes, nº 8 (2012-2013), pp. 43-53, where the table of musical forms was expanded from codex T to the whole collection]. (2) The notation of codex T.j.1: the first systematic analysis of the Escorial type of notation, with the differences between codices E and T outlined in detail.

Computer code is a form of notational language. It prescribes actions to be carried out by the computer, often by systems called interpreters. When code is used to write music, we are therefore operating with programming language as a relatively new form of musical notation. Music is a time-based art form and the traditional musical score is a linear chronograph with instructions for an interpreter. Here code and traditional notation are somewhat at odds, since code is written as text, without any representational timeline. This can pose problems, for example for a composer who is working on a section in the middle of a long piece, but has to repeatedly run the code from the beginning or make temporary arrangements to solve this difficulty in the compositional process. In short: code does not come with a timeline but is rather the material used for building timelines. This article explores the context of creating linear ‘code scores’ in the area of musical notation. It presents the Threnoscope as an example of a system that implements both representational notation and a prescriptive code score.

It has long recognized that Byzantine art exerted a significant influence on the West. This is particularly been shown to be the case on art history. The eminently important question of the relationship of Latin to Byzantine neumatic notation has long been unclear – understandable because systematic comparative studies on the neumatic notations had not been undertaken.
Every investigation of connexions between Gregorian chant and Byzantine church music must give consideration to the fact that in the sixth, seventh and eight centuries the closest relationships must have existed between Rome and Constantinople. During this time period numerous chants of byzantine rite were introduced into the Roman Church.
My own investigations caused an enormous sensation. Suddenly amazing connections between Byzantine Church music and the notation of Gregorian chant were exposed. Numerous Latin neumes and corresponding Byzantine signs (semata) proved to be onomatically, paleographivally and semasiologically (semantically) related and in many cases identical.
The great number of names of Latin neumes have been shown to be borrowed words or borrowed translations from Middle Greek. The medieval classification of the Latin neumatic repertory comprise five classes and has the advantage that it is compatible with the typology of the Paleobyzantine signs: 1. neumae simplices (tonoi haploi); 2. neumae compositae (tonoi synthetoi); 3. ornamental neumes; 4. notae semivocales (hemiphona), 5. litterae significativae (grammata). The most frequently used litterae and the most important grammata have similar meanings. Comparing Byzantine and Latin notation we came to the conclusion that both had a partial stenographic character. Neumes like the quilisma, pressus and genarally speaking every sign based on different forms of the oriscus are considered as stenograpic signs. It could be shown that the closest connections existed between Paleobyzantine and Latin neumes.

This paper (written in Albanian) aims to be a modest contribution in the history of Albanian music, namely as regards the beginning of the Western notation system. It is about an English edition of the year 1804 (“Lyric Airs by Edward Jones, consisting of Specimens of  Greek, Albanian, Walachian, Turkish, Arabian, Persian, Chinese, and Moorish National  Songs and Melodies”), where popular lyric airs from Balkan and Eastern peoples are
included. The Pyrrhic dance is included there, among other tunes.
This was the first presentation in notes for this dance. The importance of this book
is great, because it contains data not only about its origin, but also its melodic line is  presented there. Its place in a music anthology with airs from peoples of the region is  not only an identification effort, but also a classification tentative in the Balkan cultural  group, and further, in the Eastern culture. This implicit classification reflects the  perception of the foreign musicologists and scholars about the music patterns of the  region. .

Bağlama için yapılmış metot çalışmalarının önemi ve gerekliliği ortada olmakla birlikte bu çalışmaların çoğu, ticari kaygılar taşıdıkları ve akademik çerçeveden uzak, teknik, estetik, pedagojik ve metodolojik açılardan yetersiz oldukları gerekçesiyle eleştirilmektedir. Halk müziği alanında çalışan akademisyen sayısındaki artışla birlikte bu alandaki akademik yayın ve çalışmaların da kayda değer bir şekilde arttığı ve nitelik bakımından tatmin edici, oldukça düzeyli metodolojik yayınlar yapılmaya başlanmasının gelecek adına umut verici olduğu görülmektedir. Ancak geçmişten itibaren bu yayınların çok azında bağlama için kullanılan notasyonun görece bir durumu yansıttığından bahsedilmektedir. Bir çalgının evrenselleşebilmesi adına oldukça önemli olan bu hususun çoğunlukla gözden kaçırıldığı ve gerekli açıklama, bilgi ve uyarıların yayınlarda yeterince yer almadığı gözlemlenmektedir. Araştırmamız bağlama öğretimine ilişkin ulaşılabilen yayınlardaki bu durumu ayrıntılı ve karşılaştırmalı olarak ele almayı amaçlayan kaynak tarama modelli betimsel bir nitel araştırmadır. 
It is an undeniable fact that method studies for bağlama are very important and necessary for teaching. However; most of the studies have been criticized for being commercial, not being academic and being insufficient from the points of technicality, pedagogy and aesthetics. As the number of academics who have studies in the area of folk music increases, the number of the academic publications have also increased as well. When we examine the publications in this field of study, we realise that they are very well qualified and satisfactory from methodoligical perspectives. However, there are only a few studies from the past to the present which mention that notation which is used bağlama reflects a relative situation. It can be easily realized that there aren’t enough necessary information, explanations, and warnings about it in most of the publications despite the fact that it is very important for making an instrument global. Our study tries to examine the publications about bağlama teaching in detail and comparatively from the perpective of notation relativity and it can be accepted as a qualitative, descriptive research which is based on review of literature.

This paper presents a comparative rhythmic study between two editions of Sequenza I for solo flute composed by Luciano Berio (1925-2003). The first one, from 1958, uses proportional notation and was published by Suvini Zerboni Editions. The second one, published by Universal Editions in 1992, was reviewed by the composer and uses traditional notation.

Sequenza I was dedicated to the Italian flautist Severino Gazzelloni and is the first work of a series of fourteen pieces for solo instruments entitled Sequenze. Composed over forty-four years, Sequenze are pieces of great prominence in the solo repertoire of the XX and XXI centuries and became famous for using a detailed technical sophistication musical language and for exploring a high level of virtuosity. In this sense, the first and most evident challenge that Sequenza I presents to the performer is within the rhythmic scope – deciphering the notation, whether it being proportional (Suvini Zerboni edition, 1958), due to the lack of familiarity with this type of writing, or being traditional (Universal Editions edition, 1992), due to the large presence of complex rhythms.

The use of proportional notation in Sequenza I was not the first choice in the work’s conception by Berio. The composer originally wrote it with traditional rhythmic notation. However, the complex rhythmical patterns, along with the utilisation of extended techniques, recurrent presence of large melodic intervals, diversity of articulation and extremely wide range of dynamics, made the piece so difficult that Berio resorted to proportional notation in order to facilitate the work’s performance. Thus, the rhythmic durations in Sequenza I (1958 ed.) are associated to the distances between each note on the stave.

Some years later, Berio proved to be discontented with the recordings and performances based on the first edition. According to him, the absolute time in the proportional notation was not as important as the maintenance and consistency of rhythmic proportions. The excessive liberty adopted by the performers, who considered spatial notation almost as a pretext for improvisation, led the composer to rewrite his own work thirty-four years later, replacing the proportional notation with traditional rhythmic notation. Nevertheless, much of the music community, with a focus on flautists, seems unaware of this or at least does not use the aforementioned later edition.

From this perspective, I argue with ideas presented by Folio and Brinkman in the article Rhythm and Timing in the Two Versions of Berio’s Sequenza I for Flute Solo: Psychological and Musical Differences in Performance (2007) and I consider some questions concerning structural and technical aspects present in the work. Do the performers feel greater facility or insecurity in dealing with proportional notation since it is an unusual language? To what extent does the rhythmic notation with traditional complex writing inhibit performer?

In conclusion, I place myself both in the role of performer and analyst, mapping points of convergence and divergence in both rhythmic, tempo and proportionality aspects between each edition, and how the interpretative issues influence the performer.

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This is the first book of the NOTUS PIANO COURSE.

ABOUT THE PUBLICATION

For whom?
The NOTUS PIANO FOUNDATION Textbook has been compiled for the layperson in the field of music. It starts from absolutely zero knowledge of music and piano. The book is used during the first 3 to 4 months of self-study or teacher-guided study.
The book is suitable for ages 12 and up but it is aimed primarily at the adult and senior beginner. This is reflected in the layout and no-frills didactic strategy. You can preview the book (under the DESCRIPTION TAB) here: https://notus.world/en/products/par007-piano-foundation-textbook/
The study of this book is also required for people who have already experimented a little with the complex conventional music notation and have doubts about it: firstly, to phase out their knowledge of conventional music notation and secondly to build their knowledge of the new NOTUS Music Notation.
Focus
The focus in the NOTUS PIANO FOUNDATION Textbook is on learning how to read ALL the notes of the piano keyboard and play ALL the corresponding piano keys. This is done through 134 exercises and short pieces for beginners. NOTUS piano courses are characterized by their smooth and steady evolution. By the end of the first 3 to 4 months, you’ll be playing pieces that are at least two years ahead of the pieces typically learned by the four-month mark using conventional notation.
Whereas, in conventional courses, piano practice during the entire first year is limited to the middle of the piano (approximately 21 white piano keys), NOTUS learners start familiarizing themselves with the entire piano keyboard from the very first lesson. By the end of the NOTUS PIANO FOUNDATION Textbook – that is, after 3 to 4 months – NOTUS learners have control of the entire 88-key piano keyboard and, as such, ALL the notes of this entire keyboard. This makes a significant difference compared with conventional piano lessons, and this in turn has a positive follow-on effect on subsequent study. The NOTUS PIANO FOUNDATION Textbook is an extremely solid music foundation on which to build further.
Final Goal
The specific focus of the NOTUS PIANO FOUNDATION Textbook is for the learner to master the reading of the pitch of all the notes so that this does not form an obstacle to subsequent study, i.e. PIANO TEXTBook 1 and onwards. Indeed, being able to read all the notes is highly encouraging as one progresses toward new pieces and musical knowledge, not to mention improved piano technique. By removing the stumbling block of reading music (a typical pitfall of conventional notation), the NOTUS learner makes very smooth progress, without added performance stress. With NOTUS, the introductory phase of training offers, in other words, precisely what piano training should: the relaxed enjoyment of lessons, progress and playing, coupled with the appreciation of the value of specific exercises. The NOTUS approach to teaching focuses on stress-free, natural mastery of music notation and piano, not on being able to play a few memorized pieces, as is so often the case in conventional courses targeting young people and adults alike.
VIEW A SELECTION OF PAGES, including contents and index (under the DESCRIPTION tab)

Integrated Music theory:
• octave group, octave group number, octave segment;
• tones and notes C, Cs/Df, D, Ds/Ef, E, F, Fs/Gf, G, Gs/Af, A, As/Bf, B;
• double or half note value relationship, till 1/8 note and rest, beam;
• time value rest sign;
• dotted whole, half and quarter note;
• finger numbers and theit use and interpretation;
• tempo and metronome, metronome value;
• the concepts beat, pulse, accent, measure, measure line;
• the time signatures four-four, three-four and two-four, and main accent and weak accent;
• tie;
• slur and phrase mark;
• basic dynamics with abbreviations and NOTUS restyled wedges;
• basic concepts of intervals: melodic, harmonic, ascending, descending, prime, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, octave and their visual relationship through notes on the staff and between the piano keys;
• some basic information about chords: consonant, dissonant, tertian triad, tonic, broken chord and of naming chords;
• NOTUS signs for immediate repeat, repeat of a whole measure, repeat of a rhythmic unit;
• fermata;
• staccato sign, marcato sign and accent sign;
• notation by hand of NOTUS;
• chromatic and diatonic division of the octave;;
• FLAT- and SHARPnotehead;
• the concept ‘enharmonic’;
• ostinato;
• informative: damper pedal.

Composers in PIANO FOUNDATION Textbook:
Barók, Gurlitt, Rövenstrunck, Kirby-Mason, Sartorio, Burgmüller, Wilton, Hook, Baumfelder, Beethoven, Köhler, Stravinsky, Strauss, Oesten.

This dissertation looks at the strategies for teaching music theory to dyslexic contemporary music students in higher education to help them decode it. Through looking at secondary research, it became clear that the majority of suggested methods for teaching dyslexics were aimed towards primary/secondary education, or not music theory related. In order to assess whether these methods were also appropriate for teaching dyslexics to decode music theory, primary research was carried out in the form of interviews to two professors in the field of dyslexia and music in higher education. Based on the secondary research and interview analyses, the conclusion reached is that these methods are indeed appropriate for teaching dyslexic contemporary music students in higher education to decode music theory. The primary research also provided more higher education and contemporary music specific techniques for teaching dyslexic students to understand music theory.

For an audio-video animation of the manuscript with the modern transcription see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO56v7qltNo

An edition of the anonymous labyrinthine ballade on three canons, "En la maison Dedalus" (In the House of Dedalus) from the Berkeley Manuscript.

This edition includes a modern transcription of the music, the original manuscript excerpted, poetic and literal translations of the text, reconstruction of the 11-tier labyrinth upon which the music is overlain, and pedagogical materials/explanations of the musical and poetic medieval Ballade forme-fixe.

The traditional music notation system is riddled with idiosyncrasies that hamper intuitive learning and has theoretical complexities that are no longer needed in the age of equal temperament, but there haven't been many alternatives since the mid-twentieth century that would be both conceptually sound and easy enough to learn.

A fully-chromatic notation system with emphasis on legibility and the use of Greek naming conventions could be a useful evolution for many musicians who weren't schooled in traditional notation, or who would like to get closer to the mathematical nature of musical sound.

In this paper Dr De Baerdemaeker analyses the graphic notation system of Tibetan music, which symbolically visualizes the chant lines, rhythm patterns, and arrangements of the instruments.

The striking originality of the Tibetan musical scores consists of notations that differ depending on whether it refers to voices or to musical instruments. Moreover, the in- strumental notation is written differently for each instrument, and does not indicate the pitch or durations of the notes. This particular form of notation, read from left to write, has developed several distinct graphic styles with great variations across the monastic traditions of the four main Tibetan Buddhist schools.

The vocal notation system usually consists of curves with varying undulations written in black ink, and in some occasions with the addition of red and yellow ink. The waves are accompanied by Tibetan syllables which form the words of the text, however, although the graphic notation does not indicate the pitch of the notes nor their duration, it sometimes represent some of the melodic changes that affect the notes.

The above also applies to the instrumental notation, which consists either of graphic indications that accompany the vocal notation (or the text of the prayers to be recited), or of annotation independent of a text. Conventionally, a complete Tibetan monastic orchestra consists of two conch shell horns (dung kar), two short trumpets of bone or metal (kangling), two longhorns (radong), two oboe-like instruments (gyaling), two dif- ferent kinds of large cymbals (rolmo, tingsha), drums (chos rnga) , a hand-bell (dril-bu) and a hand drum (damaru). The instrumental notation applies not to all instruments of a Tibetan orchestra at once, but only to some of them, and each has its own unique graphic indications.

The chief function of Tibetan musical notation is mnemonic, serving as a didactic tool in relation to an oral tradition with no reference to fixed tonal scales, which explains its few descriptive aspects. Since all the monks are expected to know the rituals and the music associated with them by heart, the manuscripts containing the Tibetan musical notation are never used during the ceremonies.

The presentation will be abundantly illustrated with different original and unique examples of Tibetan, Bhutanese and Mongolian manuscripts which he proofed in situ, in archives and library collections during his study visits in Bhutan, Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal, India, and from his personal collection.

This study is part of De Baerdemaeker’s practice-based research project, in which he aims to find typographic solutions to integrate this unique visualization system of Tibet- an music in the design and development of a digital typeface that can be used for printed works as well as on screen.

En este artículo se discute la importancia que han tomado los sistemas de escritura musical para el berimbau hoy en día. Se proponen varias categorías para el análisis de esos métodos de escritura, según la visión de los insiders y outsiders de Capoeira, tradición musical a la cual está íntimamente ligado. Se analiza con particular énfasis el papel del outsider en la creación y uso de estos métodos, según su grado de inmersión en Capoeira y de entrena- miento en otras tradiciones musicales escritas.

Este trabajo versa sobre el alcance de la partitura en términos de transmisión de la información y como herramienta de comunicación a partir de los elementos que la conforman, los cuales pueden ser implícitos o explícitos. La pregunta clave es que si la partitura tiene elementos que son implícitos, entonces cómo es posible que comunique una idea musical y cómo es que ésta puede ser interpretada por los ejecutantes (entendiendo lo implícito en un sentido pragmático). La propuesta es que tal interpretación se da a partir del contexto musical, histórico, cultural, etc. en que se sitúa la partitura, mediante ciertas inferencias que realiza el ejecutante a partir de toda la información explícita que contiene la partitura. La propuesta concluye que esta forma de inferir la información se da en todo tipo de notación musical: partituras, tablaturas, notación gráfica, etc. Para sustentar este postulado, se han utilizado: la teoría de la relevancia de Sperber y Wilson, La teoría conversacional de Paul Grice y la teoría de las representaciones epistémicas de Axel Barceló.

Palabras clave: pragmática, notación musical, filosofía, representación.

To coincide with the eightieth anniversary of Willi Apel’s The Notation of Polyphonic of Music, 2022 will see the publication of the first substantial study of tablature notation in early modern Europe since Apel’s book. The fruit of a decade’s work and the study of thousands of works for close to forty instruments, it extends far beyond the alphanumeric representation of sound that co-existed alongside mensural notation until its demise around the middle of the eighteenth century. This paper seeks to offer new ways of defining tablature, to reconsider its functions, and to propose a revision of the historiography that unconsciously marginalised one of the mainstream notational systems of the renaissance. More specifically, the paper explores the essence of the graphic systems of tablature and  proposes numerous terminological changes. Tablature is shown as more than a simple notation for "playing by numbers,” instead an alternative way of thinking about music and transmitting it. In a musically bilingual society, tablature was the preferred notation for writing music in score, also the only renaissance notation to incorporate performance-related information that was impossible in conventional notation. The roles of tablature within the notational mainstream included it use as a compositional tool, for conducting scores, and for the transmission of elite repertoires into the urban sphere.

Treatise (1963–1967) by Cornelius Cardew (1936–1981) is perhaps the largest-scale piece of graphic notation ever written. Cardew created Treatise, influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, as a combination of graphic elements that could be read symbolically—as language, a code, or notation. However, Cardew published Treatise with no performance instructions, thereby allowing it to be read as graphic art as well. Treatise has inspired questions on the philosophy and aesthetics of notation, and even to the nature of composition and of performance itself. Solutions for the performance of Treatise have been suggested both before its publication—through excerpts from Cardew's diaries—and after, through post-publication performance accounts.

This thesis examined the Efterpi musical collection being published in Istanbul at 1830. This collection includes 96 Ottoman musical pieces which are transcribed in the New Method of Byzantine musical notation. Thus, I selected five musical pieces and I transcribed them to the western European musical notation. Later on, I compared these pieces with their equivalents in the TRT Musical Archive and I analysed some elements of musical style starting from the end of 18th and the beginning of 19th century. Furthermore, this thesis provides the academia with five totaly new transcriptions that do not exist in any collection, book or academic publication and it contributes to the research of the Ottoman musical style in the aforementioned period since the scholars do not have many sources about this crucial period in the Ottoman musical history.

En 1867 el célebre poeta, músico, profesor e ingeniero Diego Fallon Carrión (1834-1905) inventó un sistema de notación alternativo para la enseñanza musical fundamentado en la métrica y reglas de pronunciación de la lengua castellana. Dirigido a niños, jóvenes, invidentes y músicos aficionados como parte de un ambicioso plan educativo y editorial. El sistema tuvo poca acogida pese a lo llamativo de su propuesta y a pesar de su fracaso es importante para comprender el desarrollo de la educación musical pública y privada en Colombia a mediados del siglo XIX.

The Byzantine musical notation and its right performance have been discussed already during the second half of the 15 th century. Chrysanthos of Madytos refers to the says of Ioannes Trapezountios, who in the mid-18 th century supported that the long musical teaching made it complicated and that it was indispensable to have a notational system easier and simpler. Some years after the death of Petros Peloponesios, at the end of the 18 th century, Agapios Paliermos, after having spent several years in Europe where he was studying the Western music, presented two notational methods, the first one based on the staff notation and the second one alphabetical. However, the reactions against Agapios' staff This text was initially a scientific paper to the International Medieval Congress of the Leeds University (2012).

Throughout his career, Duke Ellington often referred to the process of writing music-meaning, the act of actually committing it to paper, using pencil and eraser. 1 Indeed, he left a large body of written music manuscripts. But the relation between Ellington's autographs and the performances and recordings of his orchestra is not straightforward. Clearly, Ellington's goal was performance. He never sought to publish his original orchestral scores in print, and this disinterest further obscured how performance and notation are connected in his music. This situation has led scholars to gloss over the role of notation in Ellington's music, thereby leading some writers to downplay its importance in his music practice. Moreover, mystifications and comparisons with classical music notation (frequently from a rather limited understanding of the latter practice) have often served to demonstrate Ellington's uniqueness.

The paper provides an account of an innovative collaborative project between composer/violinist Elo Masing, choreographer/dancer Jean Lee, and Toki String Quartet, which employs a fundamentally new way of working across disciplines by establishing a profound and tangible interrelation between movement and sound production. A large part of the collaborative process involved developing a new notation system for string instruments and dancer suitable for recording certain sounds and movements discovered in crossdisciplinary
improvisation sessions. The paper discusses some facets of this unprecedented musician-dancer collaboration that culminated in the creation of a new work for string quartet and dancer titled Planes.

This paper presents a collection of musical scores that can be used for any musical instrument solo or duo (e.g. piano, flute, clarinet, oboe, violin, viola, cello, guitar etc.) written in a non-standard musical notation system, using a periodic musical staff (PMS) edited in MuseScore 3.0 and LeadMuse 1.0.
#DONATIONS. Anyone can donate for dr. Dragoi’s independent research and original music at: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=AQYGGDVDR7KH2

Is all art interpretation? A translation into yet another shape, frame or context? Could editing be a contemporary form of interpretation? How does memory filter our listening? Who is the author? The reader "Interpretations" maps the discursive terrain of composition and improvisation, the potential of material and its limitations, ways of performance, memory strategies, notation and authorship. It aims to unfold new perspecitves on how artists are working with sound and music today.

Gatherings reconstructed as xi and xiii of the San Lorenzo Palimpsest (Firenze, Archivio del Capitolo di San Lorenzo, 2211) contain seventeen ballatas by Francesco Landini. The legibility of some of these works increased considerably following publication of the multispectral images of SL, permitting a new assessment. My particular focus is the manuscript tradition of Francesco Landini’s two-voice ballatas in SL: I provide a synoptic transcription of the ballata De sospirar sovente – which appears in SL in an unpublished redaction – and the first edition of "C[…] (tempo fugge)", a recently discovered two-voice ballata by Landini, also unpublished. The two case studies epitomize SL’s importance in the transmission of works by the most famous composer of the italian Trecento, as well as the manuscript’s contribution to our understanding of fourteenth-century music.

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Contains 264 pages and hundreds of diagrams and eight score transcriptions of varying length and difficulty for the following instrumentations: solo cello, solo guitar, solo piano and saxophone quartet.

The NOTUS HANDBOOK is the NOTUS bible, describing in detail all the innovations and corrections with regard to conventional music notation. The end goal of all these changes has always been to offer a much easier and quicker to learn music notation. In each case, the ‘why’ of the innovation or correction is explained, accompanied by a clarification of the weaknesses of conventional music notation in terms of uniformity, clarity and their negative influence on music pedagogy and didactics.
Then, of course, follow the explanation of which correction/innovation NOTUS has been applied, how it is applied, and how the weaknesses of conventional notation are thus overcome. All these questions and answers are accompanied by clear comparative diagrams and small practical examples of the notations and their new NOTUS solutions.

Scattered throughout the chapters are eight transcriptions of scores for piano, solo cello, saxophone quartet and guitar, ranging from simple to more complex (even contemporary). These examples always include the conventional score as well as the NOTUS score on the adjacent page to facilitate comparison.
Here we would like to note, for the sake of clarity, that the NOTUS HANDBOOK is not a course for learning any kind of instrument or a course in music theory. Although the latter is addressed in five Appendices, these Appendices serve only to demonstrate that NOTUS is 100% embedded in existing general music theory. It is only the approach and practical examples that change when music theory is clarified using NOTUS.

The contents of the handbook are divided into four parts and seven appendices. The first part describes the historical-philosophical context of the need for innovation and the place and importance of contemporary visual communication in music notation. After this important introductory section, all the changes NOTUS makes to conventional notation are described in detail over three major sections.

PART A
Part A describes the new way of constructing the NOTUS stave using the octave anchor and octave segments. Also covered described in this section are some changes with regard to note and rest signs, the NOTUS tie and the simple new way to notate semitones and keys. This section is concluded with an overview of the NOTUS key signature.

PART B
Part B first describes all the new repeat signs in NOTUS, which are divided into two groups: immediate and delayed repeats. This is followed by the notation of tuplets, a new family of fermatas, a new way of notating tremolo and vibrato, and some minor changes with respect to dynamics and articulation marks.

PART C
Part C describes the unified notation of harmonics for all instruments capable of producing harmonics, some new signs for glissando, and new signs for muting, dampening, and stopping instruments. Part C also contains a chapter on using the new NOTUS interval legend for transposing. Part C concludes with the notation of quarter and three-quarter tones.

SEVEN APPENDICES
Finally there are seven appendices: five covering music theory clarified using NOTUS Music Notation, an appendix on the use of typography in NOTUS, and an appendix with instructions and blank staves for handwritten NOTUS notation.

The Handbook ends with a list of all the new signs, the bibliography, and the index.

The paper reports the recent discovery of a 13th-century notated breviary of Esztergom (Strigonium, Ostrogon) in the Metropolitan Library of the Archbishopric of Zagreb (Metropoli¬tanska knjižnica Zagrebačke nadbiskupije). The codex was found in 258 fragments that had been glued to the covers of 129 books printed between the 15th and 17th centuries. These books were bound at the end of the 17th century on the order of Aleksandar Mikulić (1688–1694), the bishop of Zagreb. The fragmented codex is the missing sanctorale part, i.e. the second volume of the Bre¬vi¬a¬ri¬um notatum Strgioniense (BNS), now kept in the Strahov Library of the Premonstra¬ten¬sians in Prague (Strahovská knihovna) under the shelf mark DE I 7. Only these two volumes preserve the 13th-century office of Esztergom Cathedral with musical notation. Both of them are notated by two masters, who used the so-called ‘Esz-ter¬gom notation’, which had been developed in that particular city by the end of the 12th century. The sanctorale consists of the offices of saints celebrated from January to December, the Common of the Saints and the Common of the Dedication of a Church; it lacks, though, the Office of the Dead and the calendarium. (The first volume, on the other hand, contains the temporal feasts from Advent to the Sundays after Pentecost.) The reconstruction of what had been the sanctorale codex from its fragments was a complex task. In the paper I use a new iterative method based upon a careful analysis of the contents of the fragments and a comparison with the breviary of Esztergom as printed in 1484. Using the preliminary liturgical sequence of parchment-pieces that resulted, and taking into consideration the bookbinding process, I was able to identify the original fascicles of the manuscript and to determine the identity of the ambiguous fragments. The end result was more precise than that of the preliminary content-based reconstruction. I also show that four fragments kept in the University Library, Budapest, surprisingly belong to the BNS sanctorale.

En este artículo analizamos los cantos-danzas circulares, uno de los géneros performativos dominantes en los rituales aborígenes del Chaco argentino, focalizando en la comparación entre los Tobas y Mocovíes. Examinaremos las estructuras estéticas y los procesos performativos de estas expresiones, incluyendo el rol de nuestra investigación. A partir de la discusión sobre el potencial icónico e indexical de la música y la danza, mostraremos cómo estas expresiones evocan algunos aspectos de su mundo cosmológico y de su experiencia de communitas, y cómo se han convertido en un signo legitimante de una unificada e idealizada “identidad aborigen,” en el caso Mocoví, y en un controvertido y disputado signo identitario, en el caso Toba

ASIAN MUSIC VOLUME XXV11-1 FALL/WINTER 1996/1997 (Journal of the Society for Asian Music)

This article examines the way in which Tibetan musicologists and performing musicians are developing a vocabulary to describe the features and practice of Tibetan secular music. In an era of increasing globalisation, some scholars draw on historical sources, adapting it for the modern context, while performers sometimes use loan-words from other languages or coin terms as they see fit. Regional dialectical variations and the dispersal of musical authority make standardising a musical lexicon challenging. On the other hand, this article shows that an innovative and determined effort to bring precision to musical definitions is under way. The author uses both oral and written sources and focusses on a selection of important musical concepts such as 'music', 'melody', 'notation', 'instrumental passage', and 'octave'. This leads into a discussion about a possible nomenclature for the details of musical notation and a discussion about terminology to describe Tibetan musical modes. The author concludes that there is a trend driven both by intellectual rigour and a pressing practical need to institute a modern working technical lexicon for secular music. This requires further debate and discussion and in the end will be determined by those who use it. The article includes a glossary of sixty seven musical terms that appear in the article and many others that relate to this discussion.

Link to performance recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNkMCBwO9XQ  ----  "Threnody on the Death of Children" was written shortly after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Florida this past February. Consequently, this work is inspired by recent and ongoing tragedies such as school shootings in the United States of America and the use of child soldiers in conflicts around the world as a by-product of global violence. While I cannot pretend to be able to truly empathize with the children and families directly impacted by gun violence, I feel a responsibility to speak out against these injustices with whatever means I possess.

Octet is intended to be a meditation on life from the perspective of the children living through these situations at the moment of this horrific culmination. In part, this piece also attempts to express the anger and contempt the composer and many others feel towards those in our society who continue to be apathetic towards gun regulation as well as those - like many of our politicians and the NRA - who happily profiteer from gun deregulation and manufacturing, murderously promoting violence in our homes, schools, nation, and world. As a consequence of this attempt at musical protest in a time of tragic loss, this music intertwines the emotion of mournfulness with those of fear, anger, horror, and dread, creating a work that bears the ugliness of our nation's current gun-financed state.

This piece was intended to be disconcerting and even harsh- to use unusual rhythmic structures to evoke anxiety and hysteria.  It pulls musical quotations from modern and historical pieces as well and plays those themes against each other to represent the discourse of history with the present and how our resultant collective actions and inactions have led to these events around the world.  It crescendos and decrescendos until a final culmination to juxtapose moments of narrow escape with the inevitable and terrible finale of a young life cut too short.

Premier: June 27 in Vienna, Austria (The Vienna Summer Music Festival), PHACE Ensemble

Earle Brown’s December 1952 is a score characterised by the use of 31 abstract graphical elements. Brown later reimagined it as a Calderesque orrery in which “elements would actually physically be moving in front of the pianist” . Although there are many more recent examples of graphic, open and animated scores, for the purposes of this practice-led research the simplicity and grace of Brown’s score makes it a pragmatic choice as it is significantly easier to follow the “translations” being applied. This composition involves research into the construction of a software system allowing multiple automatic ‘variations’ of the piece, live and in real-time, using common practice notations.
Each variation is created by mapping a uniquely generated version of Brown’s original score according to a series of settings - the size and shape of the elements, the ‘route’ taken through the score: right to left, top to bottom or vice versa, etc. In its current form there is no interaction between performer and score.
The notation provided, although detailed, is intended to be used as a foundation for performance rather than as precise instructions. In this way the project also helps explore the nature or intuition and improvisation through technology and notation.