Developing Graphic Notation: My Methods

The development of one’s individual, compositional voice is the motivation behind being a curious contemporary composer. Modern composers spend many years developing their craft and musical vocabulary to the end that they can claim a small corner of the musical universe as their own, then share that corner with others. However, the influence of technology and use of certain tools also play an important role in a composer developing their techniques, vocabulary, and craft. Today’s compositional focus tends to center around graphic notation and its development in a composer’s works. Though graphic notation isn’t a new phenomenon (there are examples of graphic notation in the development of Western music notation as early as 840 C. E.), it can be used as a viable solution to represent what can be difficult to notate in traditional music. For example, graphical representations of sound were particularly helpful in the incorporation of synthesizers and fixed media into 20th Century music scores, as those sounds cannot be accurately represented exclusively in a pitch-based, rhythmic-based notation system. Therefore, a visual representation for those types of complex sounds and textures had to be developed. In time, entire pieces were developed in graphical notation, pushing this representation of sound in notated form to a new place for future composers to deeply explore.

With so many tools, apps, online resources, and methods available to modern composers, it can become difficult to navigate which methods and tools are right for helping to develop graphical concrete ideas and the cleanness of one’s graphical notation vocabulary. In this post, I’ll lay out some of my own methods that have helped me to develop my graphical notation language in hopes that it will help other composers to think about their own workflow and future needs.

page 2 sketches of M. J. Hood – Octet (2018)

Methods

A methodical approach to graphical composition is essential for me. There are pathways that I enjoy working in and pathways that I choose to avoid. Overall, a composer should find a balance in what they like working with and take stock in what kinds of those methodical materials makes positive differences in their compositional workflow. Ideally, a composer should be comfortable with their natural workflow but always seek ways to improve it. Below are a few general points to consider. Growing within these points have greatly helped my workflow of creating graphic scores:

It’s important you feel that you’re intentionally crafting something. It seems so simple, but I believe this is one of the most essential parts of being a composer that’s curious about how to improve their graphical notation. Always use materials that will give graphical scores a quality look and feel but are also a joy to work with in the score-making process. Some use watercolor, others use pens… others use rocks. Ultimately, the process and your final product should make you proud. On top of that, it’s important that composers make each marking with careful intentionality. When I sketch or write, I only use pens and markers. Though pencils can be helpful for planning out certain stages, dependence on the pencil at all stages of composition makes me rely too much upon markings being erasable. This practice will also help you to physically get used to the medium that your final product will be etched in.

It’s important that you have the proper materials and workspace to work as efficiently and creatively as you can. I have found that much of the reason composers have trouble producing quality graphical scores is because they aren’t working with materials or working within spaces that they’re comfortable with. From what I’ve learned in studying the workspaces of historical composers, authors, and visual artists, a thoughtfully-designed workspace certainly helped them to produce their works in an intentionally personal fashion. In an Artists Magazine article highlighting the special workspace of Henri Matisse, we see that he surrounded himself with meaningful artifacts from all over the world:

Throughout his career, Matisse acquired a variety of objects that would serve as creative inspiration, as reminders of past experiences and as guides to the pictorial languages and formal devices of other cultures. They range from humble household items, like a tobacco jar, to more exotic objects such as Oceanic masks and Tahitian textiles.
Many of these artifacts appear multiple times in his paintings. They take on a variety of roles, almost as a repertory actor might take center stage for one performance and appear as a minor character in the next.
Like actors, the objects mutate in his work, their proportions and color transformed by the new relationships and settings in which they find themselves. When they weren’t being used as subject matter, they took their places as part of the ever-shifting domestic environment Matisse needed to sustain his imaginative world.

Artists Magazine

Matisse found the inspiration that he needed by being surrounded by objects from all over the world. This is what he needed to intentionally cultivate a certain kind of curiosity that’s saturated in his work. We aren’t all a Matisse, but we can take some advice from how he designed his workspace. It’s important to designate or design an area of the house, studio, apartment, etc. specially to do compositional work in. This should be a place you enjoy working in, with materials that compel you to get straight to work – however minimal or colorful that space may be. This space could be anything from place that displays artifacts, paintings, books, a drafting table, etc. to a place that’s as minimal as it gets. Carefully and thoughtfully explore your own personality and preferences, and don’t settle for a workspace that you constantly avoid. My own workspace contains a couch, coffee table, bookshelves, art, musical instruments from around the world, and a drafting table as its central focus. At first, you might feel as if you’re logging in practice hours, but – if you keep at it – you’ll find that time passes by without notice. You might also find that your decorative influences help you in your notation process and etching your graphical vocabulary.

my dedicated work area

It’s important that you spend time composing and sketching every day. Build the skills that you need to succeed, and put those skills to the test every day. Not every sketch you come up with will become a profound piece of music. In fact, many of my sketches are used to study a certain musical gesture and nothing more. With that said, play the long game; think of your sketching time as a stepping stone to or part of a future piece. Many composers kept a notebook with them that catalogued themes and forms for later use. It’s a great, quick way to jot ideas down with the intention that you can tease them out later. Keep the notebook on you and start cataloguing as soon as you get an idea. Don’t wait to put it into a notation etching program. Sketch when you go on walks or if you have a spare moment before a meeting. Carry your sketchbook with you and capture the inspiration found in every day situations by sketching gestures and musical devices. Soon, you’ll build a vocabulary that you can use however you want, and your skills will improve.

M. J. Hood – four stanzas (2019)

It’s important to study and listen to the graphic scores of other composers – historical and contemporary. One of the best parts about studying and crafting graphic scores is discovering the variety of personalities each work can have. Every composer has a different approach to graphic scores and how to represent certain musical phenomena. I’ve found that learning the graphic musical language is a lot like jazz improvisation: you can teach yourself drills, riffs, and patterns all day, but – in the end – jazz musicians need to supplement that practice with listening to and imitating the masters of the craft. They carry the tradition of the masters and incorporate it into their own playing, all while doing something new and innovative with that knowledge. Learn that vocabulary and assimilate it into your own works. If a gesture from their score is effective, use it. Then, sketch upon it further to give it new life in the body of works that you create. It also helps to join a social online forum of composers and musicians that like sharing their ideas about graphic notation. You can also subscribe to a variety of Youtube channels that regularly post scores with audio. These are just a few ways that you can get started seeing what composers have done or are doing to further the graphical vocabulary of music.

Search for What Personally Inspires You. There is so much to discover in this world, much less the musical world. With all this inspiration and all the works that have been done in the light of that inspiration, there is still only one of you in the world. Each modern composer strikes a unique balance of ideas and views from life experiences and shows that balance in their own, unique works. Your graphical ideas reflect the personal balance that you have; the ideas and views that make you unique to the world. It could be your knowledge of a certain instrument and how specific techniques can be graphically notated. It could be your love of nature and how you want to best represent the physical shapes that you see and translate them into musical information. The main idea is: be honest with yourself about your passion, and follow the musical path that you want to explore most. That path may not be as paved as some of the other composers’ paths, but working on that proverbial pavement is what the art of composition is all about. Accept constructive criticism as helpful with the mindset that your art is constantly to be improved upon, and that only you can diligently practice to improve it.

M. J. Hood – seraph (2018)

Variation: Modularity and Asemics

As I’m finding out: many things change, while other things stay the same. My compositional output of art music scores has changed quite a bit in the past few years, yet, I still see similarities between the newer and older. 2018 was a particularly busy year, chiseling away at new discoveries and synthesizing new ideas into my compositional outlook. The results have been amazing and interesting.

M. J. Hood – harmonic integration (2018) and anxiety (2018)

However, I have been approached with many questions regarding some of my newer works: “what is the intention, here?” or “how are these figures and passages to be played?”. So, I thought I’d take the time to give a little, basic primer post into my view of marrying modularity and asemics into my latest performative art scores.

What is Modularity?

A good primer on modularity in musical composition is James Saunders’ article “Modular Music” in Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 46 No. 1. The article’s language is easily accessible, and he makes connections to many other modular applications that we use everyday (such as modular IKEA furniture and the popular Danish toy, Legos). To summarize the subject: modular musical compositions are pieces of music that contain independent sections that are made performatively interdependent either via instructions (or ‘interface’, as Saunders’ puts it) or through performers’ intuition. This means the performances of each piece will be different to the audiences ear, while the raw pieces of musical information penned by the composer stays the same on the score. The overall goal of most modular (or mobile) compositions is to build a musical architecture by putting these malleable puzzle pieces (modules) together in interesting ways.

While studying modularity in the works of Manuel Enriquez (Móvil II for solo piano, 4×4 for solo piano, and others) in late 2016, I became fascinated with the overall process of performative exploration and collaboration (with self or others), and how that process might affect the overall result of the musical architecture.

M. J. Hood – untitled contraption no. 1 (2018)

I started writing several pieces with, both, closed (the interface creates limited numbers of combinations) and open (the lack of interface creates virtually unlimited combinations) modularity: Shelter for solo piano (2016),  ink constellations (2016), reflection now: I (2017), untitled contraption no. 1 and no. 2 (2018), thought/nexus (2018), 10.3 for orchestra (2018), and many others.

Asemics

The path that the modular composition process has taken me has been an interesting one. Each new work seems to progress in some areas, then – on the other hand – reuses similar vocabulary and shapes from other works in other areas. Even the musical and symbolic gestures within the aforementioned works became much more open and interpretive over the course of their completion; geometric shapes, lines, noteheads – all becoming broken and resequenced into larger forms for performing musicians to study and put back together. Before I knew it, I was writing music that contained many musical (and unmusical) symbolic gestures that were highly interpretive. Once that line was crossed, my output became more asemically based by using the visual forms that are found in traditional musical notation in a very different way. According to Minneapolis-based visual artist/writer Michael Jacobsen:

The forms that asemic writing may take are many, but its main trait is its resemblance to ‘traditional’ writing—with the distinction of its abandonment of specific semantics, syntax, and communication.  Asemic writing offers meaning by way of aesthetic intuition, and not by verbal expression. It often appears as abstract calligraphy, or as a drawing which resembles writing but avoids words, or if it does have words, the words are generally damaged beyond the point of legibility.

History has recorded many people purposefully creating unreadable works that are considered beautiful works of art, particularly as it pertains to cursive and calligraphy. However, my interest in marrying asemic writing to musical scores is to take the shapes of the written language of the musical score (durations, the staff, clefs, etc.), break that musical notation into parts, and then re-sequence them into different forms that still appear to be musical, but just foreign enough to traditional musical notation to make it highly interpretive.

M. J. Hood – the reason for thursday for violin, piano and percussion (2018)

In a way, these types of musical scores become performative visual poetry through this type of re-sequencing of the musical vocabulary. The modular interface or instruction in my asemic work is the amalgamation of musical and unmusical gestures that come together in one framework or form. That form then has to be interpreted by a performer based on prior experiences with that shape or gesture in nature or otherwise. Some of these gestures are easier to interpret than others because of the similarities to traditional notation. However, there are vague gestures that have to be worked through a bit more. So far, I’ve categorized these asemic gestures into two types:

Hard – when a visual gesture can be more-easily interpreted into musical phenomena based on how closely related it is to a shape in traditional musical notation. Usually these gestures can be interpreted only a couple of different ways.

Soft – when a visual gesture is much more ambiguous and can be interpreted in more than one musical way. These types of gestures tend to hold more of an important role of the overarching shape of a piece, and could play roles of changing dynamics, tempo, energy and intensity, extended techniques, etc.

The first, successful large-scale piece I produced using this combinatory approach of modularity and asemics is on life, death, and light (2018) for one vocalist and two instrumentalists. In the score, I included some basic instructions on how to approach the work so that musicians new to the experience weren’t too daunted by its openness.

M. J. Hood – on life, death, and light (2018)

instructions to on life, death, and light

Since the premiere of on life…, many other large-scale pieces and sketches have been produced using this combinatory method, and it’s been a joy to develop the vocabulary for future pieces.