musical notes

what I mean when I talk about music notation

Notation is a phenomenon so frequently referenced in music discourse that it is rarely defined. In place of explicit definition, the word ‘notation’ is often preceded by a term of categorisation — ‘written’, ‘oral’, ‘graphic’, and so on. However, these categories can mislead us to assume their exclusivity: for example, is not graphic notation also sometimes written; and is not staff notation inherently graphic?

So, as a starting point for this blog, which will primarily focus on topics surrounding contemporary Western classical music notation, I’m going to consider my understanding of the term over a series of posts titled ‘notation is —’. In these, I will try to unpack what I mean when I talk about music notation.

Firstly, I propose that notation can be broadly understood as any visual prompt that guides a musical practice. Most believe that notation necessarily functions as a communication tool and mnemonic,¹ an opinion I have come to share. It seems very difficult to prove otherwise, because every notation communicates something of the music to its interpreter; and any physical representation of music solidifies an aspect of a temporal form.

A more useful approach to this discussion is arguably the semiotic one which acknowledges that one signifier surely sparks numerous and varied interpretations across different audiences, cultures, and time periods (Eco)². This recognises that specific notations will respectively serve multiple functions depending on the interpreter, because a reading is certainly influenced by the reader’s own set of cultural understandings.

The term signifier refers to a sign’s physical form as distinct from its meaning. For example: a drawing of a lamp has certain abstract physical properties (signifiers), such as colour and shape, that only represent (signify) an actual lamp (the signified) by process of interpretation.³

With this semiotic argument in mind, I find the most useful categorisation of notation its physicality.

graphic notation

By understanding notation to be inherently physical, it becomes inimical to use the term ‘graphic’ to refer to a subset of musical notation: from the Greek graphikos, meaning ‘writing, drawing’, surely every notation can be defined as graphic.

It should be noted that the phrase ‘graphic notation’ might still be relevant in historical studies. For example, it can usefully differentiate the work of the New York School of composers from their musical contemporaries who were using staff notation: the NY School were rebelling against the ‘score as Work’ concept then embedded in staff notation use, doing so by experimenting with alternative — ‘graphic’ — notations.

In the case of contemporary classical music, however, where the Werktreue concept has been sufficiently critiqued and debunked, the term no longer seems relevant.⁴

neutralising notational hierarchy

Such an encompassing definition of ‘graphic notation’ works in parallel to Leo Treitler’s understanding of improvisation and composition in With Voice and Pen (2003). I believe this parallel is particularly important, because by taking Treitler’s argument seriously when discussing notation, we come to challenge assumed notational hierarchies still present in musical discourse.

Treitler describes that the only difference between ‘improvised’ and ‘composed’ music is their separation by the historical work-concept’s social and racial class divisions (39). The negative treatment that Treitler sees of ‘improvised’ music blueprints my understanding of ‘graphic notation’: both are often viewed as variable and unstable in wider discourse. In contrast, ‘composed’ (and Western staff notated) music is often understood to be more ‘fixed’ and ‘considered’ (Treitler 39).

So, with Treitler’s message in mind, such categorisation of ‘graphic notation’ easily becomes a method of Othering: there is composed notation, which uses the Staff; and there is the Other, which does not. Therefore, traditionally-understood notational hierarchy is neutralised with an understanding that all notation is graphic. Glover/Curwen hand signal notation and text scores, for example, become as equally graphic and systematic as written staff notation.⁵

in conclusion (for now)

Acknowledging that all notation serves to signify, we can conclude that all notation is graphic. This understanding forces us to find other descriptors to describe notation, that work outside the notational hierarchies still evident in musical discourse today. The need for such a re-evaluation of notational terms is the natural next step after the debunking of the traditional work-concept, which occurred around the turn of the twenty-first century.

So, what descriptors might we use instead? Stay tuned for future posts exploring this.

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footnotes

1. For example, see Bent et al. “Notation” in Grove Music Online, the contributing authors of which are Ian D. Bent, David W. Hughes, Robert C. Provine, Richard Rastall, Anne Kilmer, David Hiley, Janka Szendrei, Thomas B. Payne, Margaret Bent, and Geoffrey Chew. ↩︎
2. See, for example, Umberto Eco’s The Open Work. ↩︎
3. This semiotic theory is referred to as signifier theory, and is often initially attributed to Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. For more information, see Writings in General Linguistics, for example. ↩︎
4. For more information on the Werktreue concept and its fall, I recommend Lydia Goehr’s The Imaginary Museum. ↩︎
5. See Whitney Mayo’s article, “Student Perceptions of Glover/Curwen Hand Signs”, for more information regarding Sarah Glover’s hand-signal system (which was later adapted by John Curwen and then Zoltán Kodály). ↩︎

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list of references

Bent, Ian D., et al. “Notation.” Grove Music Online, 20 Jan 2001, doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.20114. Accessed 24 May 2024.

Clarke, Eric F. and Mark Doffman, editors. Distributed Creativity: Collaboration and Improvisation in Contemporary Music. Oxford University Press, 2017.

de Saussure, Ferdinand. Writings in General Linguistics. Oxford University Press, 2006.

Eco, Umberto. The Open Work. Translated by Anna Cancogni, Harvard University Press, 1989.

Goehr, Lydia. The Imaginary Museum of Music Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music. Rev. ed., Oxford University Press, 2007.

Schoenberg, Arnold. The Musical Idea and the Logic, Technique, and Art of Its Presentation. Translated and edited by Patricia Carpenter and Severine Neff, Columbia University Press, 1995.

Treitler, Leo. With Voice and Pen: Coming to Know Medieval Song and How it Was Made. Oxford University Press, 2003.

Mayo, Whitney. “Student Perceptions of Glover/Curwen Hand Signs in the Elementary Music Classroom.” Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, vol. 0, no. 0, Jun 2023 (Ahead of Print). doi.org/10.1177/87551233231176218. Accessed 26 May 2024.