Decontextualized Notation

This research project critically and creatively investigates musical notation both as an extension of music aimed at performers and as a medium which reaches beyond or enlarges music‘s context, seeking to define new ways of thinking what music can become through innovative approaches to notation.

This will be accomplished by developing a critique of the conventional score-logic that outlines a platform for transformative approaches to notation and composition: moving away from end results (i.e. sonic results) and towards productive forces (physical actions). Moreover, the project aims to explore a deterritorialization of notation, either within music performance or between notation and music itself. This will allow notation to ‘flow’ out of the usual boundaries of music and encounter new relations with the aim of confronting unexpected results – or forcing the composer into unknown areas – as an essential element of experimentation.  The works to be constructed will

1. build upon prescriptive notation where physical action is prioritized and physical actions of non-musical instruments examined,
2. explore nonlinear relationships and multidirectional notation in tandem with schizoanalysis (complexification), and
3. engage in a theoretical experimentation about thinking notation in a non-musical context through poststructuralist philosophies.

The outcome will comprise of compositions for pencils, erasers, and computer keyboard, and an article contextualizing and examining these works and their conceptual aspects.