Panel Statement

Panel:  Chasing Ghosts: Reactive Notation and Extreme Sight Reading

Since the 1950’s com­posers like John Cage, Cor­nelius Cardew, Mor­ton Feld­man and many since, have been putting ideas of no­ta­tional re­form into prac­tice. These ideas chal­lenge not only the de­ter­min­is­tic na­ture of tra­di­tional no­ta­tion but re­flect an al­ter­na­tive phi­los­o­phy be­hind the cre­ation of music. The use of graphic no­ta­tion re­quires a change in the com­poser per­former re­la­tion­ship and ques­tions the tra­di­tional con­cept of mu­si­cal­ity, cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for more ac­ces­si­ble music mak­ing for am­a­teur mu­si­cians. This essay dis­cusses the au­thors’ use of an­i­mated graphic no­ta­tion to en­cour­age col­lab­o­ra­tive music mak­ing for a wide range of per­form­ers with dif­fer­ent mu­si­cal back­grounds and lev­els of ex­pe­ri­ence. This in­cludes an ex­am­i­na­tion of re­search car­ried out by the au­thor through an in­ter­ac­tive in­stal­la­tion that gives an in­sight into im­me­di­ate vocal in­ter­pre­ta­tions of mov­ing shapes and sym­bols by a range of pro­fes­sional and am­a­teur mu­si­cians. Un­der­stand­ing the com­mon human as­so­ci­a­tions be­tween vi­sual pa­ra­me­ters and mu­si­cal sounds is an im­por­tant fac­tor in cre­at­ing an­i­mated graphic no­ta­tion that is both ac­ces­si­ble and en­gag­ing. This use of mov­ing shapes, col­ors, vi­sual rhythms and tex­tures to en­cour­age in­di­vid­u­als and groups in cre­ative mu­si­cal col­lab­o­ra­tions will be dis­cussed with ref­er­ence to large en­sem­ble per­for­mances and in­stal­la­tion works by the au­thor.

• Shane Mc Kenna is a music teacher mu­si­cian based in Dublin. He has com­pleted both a Bach­e­lor of Music Ed­u­ca­tion, spe­cial­is­ing in per­for­mance and a Mas­ters in Music and Media Tech­nol­ogy in Trin­ity Col­lege, Dublin. His work seeks to en­cour­age col­lab­o­ra­tive music mak­ing for pro­fes­sional and am­a­teur mu­si­cians through graphic no­ta­tion.

Full text (PDF) p. 1685-1690