I’m not a stranger to graphic scores (I have previously made a blog here about them). I usually use them to create sketches for arraignment, specifically in the case of dynamics. For all the projects I have done so far I have used notation, though, this is to visually collect pre concocted ideas as opposed to coming up with something on the spot.
The session we had on graphic notation was interesting due to the open interpretation of many of them which resulted in more improvisation than explicitly reading. My notation was not performed, however, I did take part in performing Uinseans notation, which gave me a good grasp on what mine might have sounded like due to conceptual similarities such as polyrhythm and counterpoint.
Though I cannot read classical sheet music, I don’t feel Im missing out due to the prevalence of recordings in the modern age. In centuries past, the only way you would hear music (in the strict sense) would be from hearing someone play it, thus written notation was extremely important in preserving a piece of music (written vs oral.)
I have recently been trying to teach myself how to play the guitar (and bass guitar) and find that guitar tabs are a very intuitive system that can be understood very easily, though it is limited (much like staff notation) to the conventions of western instruments and scales.
This got me thinking about something I read a while ago about signs that have been designed for a nuclear waste disposal site. The signs were designed with the intent that they could be interpreted by language (even going so far as a future where humans might not be around)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages
After the session, I experimented with uploading pre-existing scores to an Ai that created new versions based on the image.
In my first project, I used an image and converted it into a raw format (TIFF) and imported it into audacity, converting it to audio, to use as an element in my piece. The process of creating music in modern DAWs is in many ways notation. The graphical process of midi on a piano roll is drawn before the sound it emitted.
Below are some designs I created for the same process as above.
The sound above is the 1st image (grid) in Raw data.
I find it conceptually interesting to use images as scores that were created with different initial intentions such as the topographical map below (what made me think of For Airports), the tube map, and also made for think of the Situationist International