Talk:Graphic notation (music)

Written instructions
What do you call that notation where it says things like "repeat for 10 seconds" or "keep going until conductor's signal"? Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 19:29, 1 August 2005 (UTC) I've always seen it as written instructions. There are performance notes throughout the history of european art music. It's just increasingly more common in experimental music, due to its removal from established traditions. 129.81.180.142 (talk) 18:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Examples
Could someone please provide examples? Vivacissamamente 02:52, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Fluxus
Fluxus artists such as George Brecht and Ono Yoko produced 'event' scores as an instruction for performance. Miss.modular 13:14, 9 October 2006 (UTC)Miss.Modular

Does anyone know what the two things Graphic notation shows about the music, i could be pitch and duration im not sure??

Graphical symbols vs. graphic notation
I wouldn't exactly call the symbols that have been posted on the page "graphic notation," per se. These are for the most part semi-standard avant-garde notational symbols that most contemporary composers use to some extent. I think that there's a difference between this concept and the intentionally ambiguous graphic scores of Brown, Haubenstock-Ramati, Bussotti, etc. I would really like to see those symbols in an article on Contemporary Music Notation. At the very least, the symbols certainly need a more complete explanation if they're to be part of this article.--Wolf m corcoran (talk) 02:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I tend to agree with this. These symbols have been fairly standard in the last fifty years, to the point that a composer could use most of them without needing to include an explanation of what they mean. Granted, it's a bit arbitrary, but I think the threshold for what constitutes "graphic notation" is a bit higher than this.  I'd put something from Penderecki or Berio at the lowest threshold. Torc2 (talk) 08:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

A lot to do!
There is a lot to do here. So much more could be said, but I'm glad someone has made a beginning! And so nice there are examples to LOOK at. It could be a job to make the copyright clearing (but well, publishing houses are generally not against so with just a little patience...) Some important points I think of right now:

1) is all non-standard notation really "graphic"? Could it not be relevant to single out more kinds and sub-species... "prose scores" / verbal notation is one (with predecessors in classical music, Italian characterizations...), tablature generally is another, in which piano rolls could be a sub-species.

2) I agree that a lot of devices have become semi-standard (cf. the books of Risatti, Karkoschka and Gieseler from the sixties and seventies...). We should make the distinction more clear between compositions who depend a lot on non-standard means and those that have the standard notation as their firm basis.

3) There is a lot of literature that could be added. (You may look into my bibliography here: http://www20.brinkster.com/improarchive/legno1uk.htm especially the section E with subdivisions - on new notations...)

Well, coming back to this some day...

Carl Bergstroem-Nielsen (talk) 19:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Musical Notation Resulting in Line Drawings of common pictures
I have seen musical scores where the resultant score was a graphical effect of a Heart. Is there a name for this? What is it. I am told it dates from the 12th and 13th Centuries but I can not find a name for such compositions. 76.115.79.158 (talk) 15:34, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * See the entry Eye music --Shlishke (talk) 15:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Wholesale edits: Examples, Forms, Oxford definition & text
This article is a bit of a mess. It veers all over the place and doesn't do much to shed light on the subject. The major changes I made:

1. 'Prose scores' or text scores are not graphic notation. They are text scores.

2. 'Piano roll notation' is a curious example to use. It's of no use to anyone except the composer, really. I suppose that some composers might use it as a visual representation of their work, but in an article as stubby as this, which is meant to introduce the basic idea of graphic notation, this is a rather arcane instance to cite.

3. The 'staples of contemporary scores' are correctly cited, but they are not apropos to an article on graphic notation. The feathered beams and long fermatas are indeed staples in contemporary music and they appear as unassumingly as quarter notes and articulation marks. As images for this article, they don't shed much light on the subject.

4. I changed the lead to reflect the Oxford Companion's definition. Trumpetrep (talk) 04:57, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Guitar Hero/Rock Band
Are the simple lines of pitches in Guitar Hero and Rock Band's vocal notation worth a mention? 209.173.75.182 (talk) 02:46, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably. Trumpetrep (talk) 17:09, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Emanuel Pimenta
Re: this removal, of content concerning Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta - I've tried to find some reliable sources, but haven't had any luck in 20 mins on google. There is a book, Virtual Notations (amazon's lookinside provides a lot of text, and a few images), but it's self-published which hampers the citability.

I tried searching various artgallery/museum sites, which are listed in his autobio as having his works within their collections, but haven't had any luck there either.

The link to "music scores as artworks" in the asa-art.com site includes some examples of his very nicely done graphic notation artworks, but I'm not sure if asa-art will be considered an RS, unless/until we have more info on them (ASA Art and Technology).

Much of the difficulty is probably due to his being a Brazilian artist/academic, and not having many English-language references available. I'm leaving these notes here for future reference. HTH. —Quiddity (talk) 22:07, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Useless lists
I have reversed the edit made by User:Drmies, which deleted all of the names in the list of "composers who have used graphic notation", not because I disagree with the intention, but because I disagree with the methodology. The stated purpose was to leave only the notable names, but what in fact was left were the two composers who happened to have links to external sites. Although I do not mean to disparage the notability of Mark Applebaum or R. Murray Schafer, I cannot serious entertain the notion that György Ligeti or Iannis Xenakis, for example, are less notable. Assuming the utility of such a list (and I am inclined to agree with Drmies that such "also-ran" lists are pointless) I would like to propose, first, that composers already named in the body of the article should not be included in this list as well. Second, I think the list ought to be re-named something like "Other notable composers who have used graphic notation", in order to emphasize this distinction. Third, I would suggest an editorial note in hidden text be added at the head of the list, encouraging editors to incorporate truly notable practitioners in the main discussion, and to discourage addition of any further names. This has been done on some other, similarly afflicted articles.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:21, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: diff in question.
 * I agree with that explanation, and the 3 suggestions. I've tagged it with the relevant cleanup template. —Quiddity (talk) 23:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Great! I had forgotten about that template, which is certainly better than a hidden-text editorial note. Many thanks.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:16, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm yes, sure. The problem will always be (and hidden text won't solve this) to distinguish between notable and non-notable (not as persons, but as people on the list). If you find a way to turn the entire list into prose you probably have a winner, but that may be too much too ask. BTW, the rationale behind my edits was of course very simple: no verification, no entry. In an edit summary it was remarked that I left relative lightweights--well, that's what you guys are here for, you're the experts. Now, if it turns out that the composers on the list have contributed to developing this notation, then you may have an easier time separating the wheat from the chaff. I dabble a bit in guitar articles, and "List of XXXX players" is usually useless; the more meaningful the criterion, the more easier it will be to manage. Happy days to both of you, Drmies (talk) 02:08, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, one thing: fact remains (and that revert restored it) that almost the entire list is unreferenced. There is, as you both know, broad agreement that such lists need to be sourced. I won't mess with it anymore, but it does not look good. Drmies (talk) 02:10, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Let me reassure you first that I am on your side in this: these lists are worse than useless—they are confusing and misleading, not to mention contentious. However, I have to say that adding a reference to each and every entry only compounds the confusion. In the present case, for example, neither of the two "references" actually establishes the degree to which the respective composers contributed to the development of graphic notation. Their presence merely gives a false sense of reliability. All of this, it seems to me, reinforces the need for incorporating names into the prose of the main text, where their place in the development can at least be briefly indicated.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:48, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Definitely, to you both. Prose would be great, and illustrated prose would be ideal. One other solution would be a gallery of images, with each "notable" artist getting an example and a caption-link. I'm not at all familiar with image work though. (If anyone here is, maybe you could also rescue the graphic notation image that was here (the backcover of the album Ambient 1: Music for Airports, which looks like this). —Quiddity (talk) 06:06, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
 * One problem with images has to do with copyright. For example, it would be fantastic to display a page from Stockhausen's Studie II (1954) or Earle Brown's December 1952, often-cited examples of graphic notation, pages from which have been exhibited in art galleries on more than one occasion. However, they are both still under copyright, and invoking Fair Use is problematic on Wikipedia, though not impossible. The irony is that the more notable an example is, the less likely it that it will be available as a free-use image.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:24, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

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