I see your point re Tudor, though - it may seem as if his interpretations have become influential perhaps as a result of the very ways in which he eschewed the more spontaneous/improvisatory aspects of performing them (by writing them out, so simply turning them into co-composed pieces)? Can't go with this rejection of graphic notation, though; Evan's model of a score delineating a field of activity is a worthwhile one for most types of scores, graphic or otherwise (including text scores). All that really changes is the nature of the delineation, the ways in which the limits are set. It would be a shame to make either 'full' notation (which is itself just a way of setting limits) or free improvisation (in which case simply the improvisors provide the 'score', whether written down or not (or permanent or not), by defining their own boundaries (which include as basic things as how long the piece will be roughly, how many players, etc.)) as the only valid options. As Evan said, the presence of a score, of whatever type, does change things: above all it lends some degree of permanence to the work which does not exist in the same way for free improvisation (unless there is some type of 'score' written down then which is employed on repeated occasions).

I think I'll leave that to Aaron. Never been one for it myself.

Of course, that was my point; but the other part of my point is that the extent of his involvement in the whole birth of that movement makes me wonder to what extent people like Cage or Bussotti were complicit. I suppose it's possible that Tudor was doing all this behind their backs, but if not, I think that raises some problems with the project - in that historical manifestation - itself.

While this Member will try to contain his enthusiasm, a thousand thanks for posting this Sydney.

Well, why would you think (if you do) that the results are more likely to be of that nature with graphic (or text?) scores than with free improvisation?


That's interesting - do you not find that in the very act of writing it down, it already takes on a different form? Not least because of filtering it through a notational language which has a history of its own?

Just a request to all participating in this thread - would any of you be in favour of asking John W to transfer the later posts into a separate thread on indeterminate notation (or even on notation in general)? It's such a fascinating debate, would be good to preserve it in that sort of form, maybe?

I agree with t_i_n - this is all still on-topic, I'd say.

CD comes in with a late Friday entry for the t_i_n Metaphor of the Week Award

More seriously ...

Erm, well, all sorts of possible (though admittedly perhaps not 'logical') barriers, surely. Including the simple '"matter of degree" defence'?

Isn't that the point? I can accept your historical reading of the reasons why indeterminacy of various kinds arose in the 50s and 60s, but that doesn't really help at all in answering the question I took q-t, Evan and co to be grappling with in their various ways, viz. how does a composer choose today what is a viable option for him.

I really like Aaron's points about Dec52 too... I think there's a problem in usual discussions of this piece (and until very recently I thought this way too) to imply (as I think Chafing Dish does a couple of posts above, unless I misread) that the score is completely open. It's not - for one thing, there is a score. And although you can turn it around any way you like, there is a strong implication that once you have determined a beginning (ie, the left hand edge of the page) there is an end (the right), and you have to play (in a manner you see fit) all the notation that lies between. So on the level of form, it actually seems very determinate to me: there are four orientations of the page, but after that the form, in the sense that there are a beginning and end which correspond in the conventional manner of reading a score, is fixed. You shouldn't go back and repeat things, or play things out of sequence, or what have you.

Another thought on the failure of Dec52: don't some of its problems stem from the fact that as a performer you're presented with quite a responsible situation - to play this notorious classic of the repertoire - and yet on even the most basic level Brown gives you no indication of how to interact with your instrument. I use this construction deliberately instead of 'to play', which I think of as a more complicated set of operations. But at least with something like an RHR score you have some notes, some sort of instruction on the sounds required that you can then work outwards from when coming to actually play the piece. And in the RHR pieces I've heard, this has some success - they simply work as music. (The only version of the Brown I've got much from was a silent version in which the marks were taken as choreographic indications, but that was still small reward.)

At the risk of sounding presumptious (with neglible student careers as both perfomer and composer behind me) I think on the question of what should a composer do today, that's where I would start: that the composer-score-performer relationship is extremely difficult without some basic information on what the performer should be doing. 4'33", or those LaMonte Young piano pieces for David Tudor have much more information in them that a performer can engage with than a wholly graphic score, whilst at the same time - in the absence of detail - granting a great deal of openness in the end result.