Knowra Graphic notation Graphic notation Graphic notation is a system for representing music through visual forms other than, or alongside, conventional musical symbols. It can specify sounds precisely or leave performers choices in how to interpret it.
Indeterminacy in music : A compositional approach that leaves some musical outcomes undetermined until performance. Graphic scores often assign performers choices that determine how the music unfolds.
December 1952 : John Cage's composition for one or more pianos, whose score consists of transparent sheets bearing lines and shapes. Its layered transparent pages became a landmark example of graphic scoring.
Music score : A written representation of a musical work or performance. Graphic notation remains a kind of score even when it abandons standard symbols.
Open form : A work whose sequence, structure, or realization can vary between performances. Graphic scores can leave performers free to determine the order or arrangement of material.
Staff notation : A system that represents musical pitch and rhythm on a five-line staff using standardized symbols. Graphic notation departs from, supplements, or deliberately disrupts this familiar system.
Aleatoric music : Music in which chance operations influence composition or performance. Some graphic scores use chance to shape the sounds performers produce.
Treatise : Cornelius Cardew's 1963–67 graphic score, comprising 193 pages of abstract lines, shapes, and symbols. It presents a large-scale score without a fixed key to its visual signs.
Musical symbol : A visual sign used to represent a musical sound, action, or instruction. Graphic notation expands what musical symbols can look like and communicate.
Performer : A person who presents music through singing, playing, or another performance action. Graphic notation often gives performers interpretive responsibilities usually fixed by a composer.
Tablature : A notation system that shows instrument-specific fingering or playing positions rather than directly encoding pitch. Like graphic scores, tablature uses visual layouts, but its conventions are instrument-specific and relatively fixed.
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