Musical notation

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

La création musicale de la seconde moitié du xxe siècle a profondément modifié la notation musicale. Les aspects verbal et graphique ont bénéficié de nombreux développements suscités par l’exploration des nouvelles techniques de jeu des instruments mais aussi par l’utilisation de plus en plus importante d’instruments et d’appareils électroniques. La partition s’est ainsi enrichie de nouveaux symboles de modes de jeu, de graphismes représentant le son ou d’indication destinées au musicien ou au réalisateur en informatique musicale. Parallèlement à cette évolution, de nouvelles technologies sont apparues permettant de repenser la notion même de partition et son rapport à l’instrument. Elle a ainsi intégré une dimension algorithmique offrant des possibilités d’interaction plus avancées et augmentant la notation traditionnelle pour rendre les partitions mobiles, voire animées. L’objectif est ici de présenter quelques-unes des technologies les plus utilisées dans la création de ce début de xxie siècle en allant de la notation des parties électroniques des œuvres mixtes au live coding, en passant par les partitions augmentées ou la notation utilisée pour le suivi de partition dans les œuvres interactives.

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.

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.

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).

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

This paper explores live coding environments in the con- text of notational systems. The improvisational practice of live coding as combining both composition and per- formance is introduced and selected systems are dis- cussed. The author’s Threnoscope system is described, but this is a system that enables the performer to work with both descriptive and prescriptive scores that can be run and altered in an improvisational performance.

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.

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.

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.

In Treatise Handbook, Cornelius Cardew noted that “[musical] notation is a way of making people move”. This paper describes and demonstrates new methods for the dynamic generation and display of augmented musical notation. The Fluxus Tree and Quantum Canticorum are the most recent in a sequence of musical compositions by the author in which dance and music interact using body-tracking technologies and bespoke sensing devices. Movement is converted into data which trigger and modulate expressive algorithms. Uniquely, these generate in real-time audio material as well as detailed common practice music no- tation to be performed live. Other techniques allow for the conversion from (and potentially to) graphic images and text. This paper demonstrates the techniques behind these inventions and explains how such techniques may be used to enhance the musical experience of performers and audiences.
Quantum Canticorum is based on a sequence originally commissioned for 'Quantum2', an Arts Council UK funded project led by Jane Turner of the Turning Worlds dance company.

Im Verlauf des Mittelalters, das als Projektionsraum für die restlose Andersartigkeit der Zahl, für eine Blüte neoplatonisch-symbolischer Sinnstiftung und für die Anfänge moderner Operationalität in der Geschichte steht, tritt eine antike, vormals allgemein verbreitete, so alltägliche wie gelehrte Praxis des Zahlgebrauchs schrittweise zurück. Dabei durchläuft sie den Prozess einer mehrfachen epistemischen Umkonfiguration. Vor dem Hintergrund ihrer anfänglichen prestigelosen Ubiquität wird sie in frühchristlicher Zeit theologisch aufgewertet, weiterentwickelt und breit dokumentiert, während sich ihr Verbreitungsraum sich in geographischer, sozialer und funktionaler und Hinsicht zunehmend verengt. Seit der Spätantike ist sie ausserhalb des monastischen Diskurses nur an den Rändern der Verschriftung greifbar. Seit dem 16. Jahrhundert findet sie noch einmal Eingang in die weltliche mathematische Literatur, um dann im beginnenden 18. Jahrhundert ganz aus der Mode zu kommen und zu verschwinden. Schon einen verbindlichen Namen hat sie nicht.

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.

NEUERSCHEINUNGEN 534 nicht immer ganz nachvollziehbar erscheint: Kochs Lexikon von 1802 etwa steht weit vor Johann Mattheson. Was fehlt, sind Erklärungen zu den Tempobezeichnungen: Was bedeuteten etwa »Allegro con brio« (KV 183 u. a.) oder »Allegro aperto« (KV 219) in jener Zeit? Die zitierten Theoretiker geben dazu nur bedingt Antworten. Man kann Breidenstein hier jedoch kaum einen Vorwurf machen, denn die Musikwissenschaft umgeht dieses Forschungsgebiet leider immer noch erstaunlich weiträumig. Zudem hätte das den ohnehin schon weit gefassten Rahmen mehr als deutlich gesprengt; der Autor bietet auf seiner Homepage www.mozarttempi.de (siehe S. 236) jedoch die Möglichkeit zur Beantwortung offener Fragen.

Resumo: É quase impossível traçar uma reflexão acerca das diversas abordagens composicionais atuantes na segunda metade do Século XX, sem passar, necessariamente, por um comentário sobre a função exercida pelo código musical no processo composicional e os diversos sistemas notacionais emergentes nesse período. O trabalho que segue, objetiva analisar dialeticamente (sob a luz da teoria da linguagem) a função dada a notação musical, de modo a apontar certas contradições e descompassos entre o desenvolvimento formal do código e sua função linguística.
//
Abstract: It is almost impossible to draw a reflection about the different compositional approaches active in the second half of the twentieth century without passing necessarily by a comment on the role of musical code in the compositional process and the various emerging notational systems employed in this period. The work that follows, aims to analyze dialectically (in the light of the theory of language) the function given to the musical notation, to point certain contradictions and dissonances between the formal development of the code and its linguistic function.

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.

This research operates at the intersection of music and spatial design within the context of improvised digital drumming. We outline a creative design research project founded on a series of affordance experiments that explore the ways in which the tools of spatial design can inform understandings of 'referent (Pressing 1987)' improvised patterns and phrases employed by experienced drummers. We outline the stages and process of development of a parametric computational framework using software from the spatial design industry to provide af-fordance (Gibson 1979) to understanding the complexities of drum improvisation. The 'ImprovSpace' Grasshopper script, operating within Rhino3D TM enables the 3D spatialization of digital drum-based improvisations wherein the parameters of drum notes, duration and velocity all can be flexibly manipulated. Drum phrases and patterns can be compared individually and clusters of repeated elements can be found within a larger corpus of improvisations. The framework enables insights into the specific attributes that constitute individual style including micro-timing, rubato and other elements of style. It is proposed that, by bringing these improvisations into visual and spatial domain in plan, elevation and isometric projections, a theo-retic musico-perspectival hinge may be deconstructed that provides insights for visually and spatially dominant musicians within reflective, educational and other contexts .

Quantum 2 Canticorum is the latest in a sequence of musical compositions in which dance and music interact using body-tracking technologies and bespoke sensing devices. Expressive movement is converted into data which trigger and modulate expressive algorithms. These generate in real-time both audio material and music notation which is performed live.

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 paper is a summary of the author's research on the development of software to generate and interpret irregular rhythm. Firstly, it will be described the characteristics of the virtual instrument Max-Rhythmatist, which generates irregular rhythmic patterns with different methods. Secondly, it will be mentioned the limits that this instrument had, which led the author to focus on a way to transcribe this kind of rhythmic patterns. After that, it will be described the different kinds of music notation systems used or developed by composers and  researchers during the twentieth century, then the different philosophical conceptions of rhythm that have been recently discussed. Finally, it will be described the computer technology that has been developed for music transcription by different researchers, the author's hypothesis to design a music transcription system for contemporary music that contains rhythmic irregularity, and the future research the author is planning.

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.

In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Volume 108, livraison 1, 1984. pp. 99-109. Résumé Le fragment d'épinétron 907 du Musée d'Eleusis représente une Amazone sonnant de la trompette et appelant ses compagnes aux armes ; elle est entourée de lettres jusqu'à présent considérées comme dépourvues de sens : TOTOTETO(T)H. Ces syllabes appartiennent en réalité à une notation musicale de type « solfégique » qui ne nous était connue jusqu'ici que par des théoriciens postérieurs au IIe siècle ap. J.-C, qui la faisait cependant remonter à Damon. Cette inscription constitue le plus ancien document musical grec parvenu jusqu'à nous : oeuvre du peintre de Sappho, l'épinétron est daté des débuts du Ve siècle. Elle atteste l'ancienneté de la notation solfégique, la première qu'aient connue les Grecs.

The main concept behind my composition The Film Sextet (2004) is the use of film as an extra-musical art form through which to derive ideas on the temporal and sequential manipulation o  f form and structural perception. The film editing process is thus seen as a sequencing of events in time, and the layering of visual and temporal activity as a technique of creating an evolving density of sensory events.
The research behind the Film Sextet shares a similar approach with that of Louis Malle’s practice, in his film L’ascenseur pour l’echafaux (1957), where he exposed the improviser Miles Davis to an intense ‘constellation’ of moving images, generating a ‘constellation’ of musical material to be redistributed throughout the cinematic structure. Another source of interest was Jean Cocteau’s Le Sang D’un Poéte (1930) in which he bypasses narrative convention by the use of dislocated music/sound and disorientates spatial perception by the geometrical ‘flexure’ of set design, camera angle and editing effects. In The Film Sextet the intention is to transfer this concept of sensory illusion to the sphere of musical performance by devising mechanisms which guide the performers though a synthesis of traditional, mobile and audio notation, reflexive choice-making and external input/direction.   
The Film Sextet expands on the notion of duality by creating three strands of duet interaction. The structure comprises of a combination of events fixed in time and events generated by a chain of information derived by the unfolding of film structures in the form of soundtracks played in the performers’ headphones. The element of indeterminacy is expressed through a complex and unpredictable interfusion of real-time choice-making and extra-musical structures. The element of duality appears in the subjective interpreting process through the rules of choice-making but is also manifest in the composed instrumental parts.

Winner of the Alt Pibroch Club and Altpiborch.com “Modern Pibroch Library” Competition, 2018.

Program Notes and Piece Mechanics:

Shrouded in myth and mystery, a tradition that has been passed from master to pupil for unknown centuries, piobaireachd (Scots Gaelic for “piping” and anglicized as “pibroch”) is the “classical music” of the Great Highland Bagpipe, originating sometime during the Middle Ages. Piobaireachd is the oldest and perhaps most austere of all the Scottish bagpiping genres, focusing on simple tone progressions with slight elaborations over a series of variations. Crucial to this style is tone and timbre, and thus highly refined and particular tunings were constructed around these pieces, generally emphasizing tuning by Pythagorean ratios, particularly focusing on the 7th and 11th partials.

This piece returns the modern Scottish bagpipe to these medieval traditions, however in unconventional ways through building a scale of 15 micro-tonal notes based on octave transpositions of the prime partials of an implied fundamental. Along with the 7th and 11th partials, the scale of this piece incorporates all the prime partials from 2 to 31. This resulting piece is both Medieval in aesthetic and form, but modern in its expansion of Pythagorean tuning and extended techniques on the bagpipe, including unconventional droning, alternative fingerings, and multi-phonics.

The scale is based on octave transpositions of all the prime partials (up to 31) of the fundamental note, which is (approximately) 60 Hz. This fundamental was chosen for convenience, since most Great Highland Bagpipes are tuned to about 480Hz on the lowest “A” of the chanter. The three drones form the second, third, and fifth partials above the non-sounding, implied fundamental of 60Hz. The primary chanter notes (melodic notes), given on the first page of the score instructions, form the other octave-transposed prime partials up to the 31st – 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31 – barring the low-A, which is simply a multiple of the 60Hz fundamental (Note: the tuning of these partials is as close as possible, +/- 5 Hz or so, pretty much indistinguishable to most human ears). The additional microtonal inflections or embellishments are totally for color and are not based on any mathematical proportion. They are simply created through alternative fingerings. The primary melodic content, however, is solely based on these prime partials.

APC and Altpibroch.com:

The Alt Pibroch Club and altpibroch.com are sites dedicated to the pursuit of bringing new approaches to bagpipe performance informed by ancient scores. While we support reconstructions of old playing, they are also interested in bringing new musicality to piobaireachd long since forgotten, much to the detriment of audiences and performers alike. AltPibroch.com is the definitive resource for information on pre-1841 pibroch manuscripts, their interpretation and history. These are the original, unexpurgated primary sources of our art, and the different musical perspective, interpretation and insight they bring is a revelation to those accustomed to the modern pibroch scene. They encourage performers to explore the full musical depth and creativity of the folk music of piobaireachd, from as many sources of instrumentation and inspiration as they can find.

Jordan Alexander Key:

Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990) currently pursues his PhD in composition and musicology at the University of Florida. He earned bachelor’s degrees in music composition, mathematics, and Eastern Asian philosophy from The College of Wooster (2013), as well as a master’s degree in music composition from the University of Arizona (2015). His significant recent projects include his European premier with Vienna’s PHACE Ensemble performing his Octet, “Threnody on the Death of Children;” a performance by Boston String Quartet of his String Quartet No. 1; a concert with Bold City Contemporary Ensemble performing his Quintet, “Discursus Anachronismus;” a collaboration with the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival for his Art Song, "God Ourselves;” and the display of his recent audio-visual projects as part of the Wolfsburg Kunstmuseum’s new exhibit, “Never Ending Stories: The Loop in Art, Film, Architecture, and Music,” in Germany during the Winter and Spring of 2018. Jordan gives regular concerts on his two instruments: the pipe organ and bagpipes. His performance repertoire focuses primary on music from the Middle Ages, Early Renaissance, and Early Baroque. He has been a bagpiper for 15 years as of 2018. For more information on Jordan Alexander Key and for recent recordings of his works, see his website, www.jordanalexanderkey.com, or search for his work on YouTube (channel, “Jordan Alexander Key”)

Mediterranean Periplus – voyages in time and space, around and beyond the sea of civilizations: we follow the movements of peoples, goods, ideas and cultural patterns in our historical space, underlying that exchange was the determining factor in the development of civilizations; therefore, the latter constitute a common heritage of the Mediterranean peoples.

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.