Making People Move: Dynamic musical notations

In Treatise Handbook, Cornelius Cardew noted that “[musical] notation is a way of making people move” [1]. 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 notation 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

December Variations (on a Theme by Earle Brown)

Earle Brown’s December 1952 is a score characterised by the use of 31 abstract graphical elements. Brown later re-imagined it as a Calderesque orrery in which “elements would actually physically be moving in front of the pianist” [1]. 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