Sunday, January 12, 2020

How to perform graphic music


How to perform graphic music

“Graphic notation (or graphic score) is the representation of music  through the use of visual symbols outside the realm of traditional music notation. ... Composers often rely on graphic notation in
experimental music, where standard musical notation can be ineffective.”

Rather than making general comments on graphic music I would like to explain how my graphic music ‘Anatolia’ may be performed.

AS any music score Anatolia’s score is symbolic.  We have keys, stave, notes etc. in classic music notation.  Anatolia uses the classic music notation mostly.  But staves are no longer only horizontal.  Also the distance between the lines of the staves may change.

Let’s take the first movement ‘OKU(read)’:  This piece is based on the Turkish word ‘OKU(read)’ and its phonemes.  It has a religious allusion in Turkish belief. It points that if you decide to read you will read even if you do not know how to.


The elements that has to be decided by the performer are:
1)      The direction of staves.
2)      The size of the phonetic chars
3)      The relative positions of elements on the sheet.
I choose to perform the direction of staves as: the steepness up indicates that tempo gets faster.
The size of phonetics indicates relative loudness.  The big ‘o’ sounds maybe chosen to be performed variously.  As they intersect with many staves, they may indicate the ‘o’ sound is interleaved with these other staved sounds as a unifying element.

The relative positions of different elements may indicate sequence in terms of being closest in a pragmatic approach but a more meaningful approach could be:  The performer should read the lyrics and arrange the material as needed to emphasize the general meaning of the piece, which you can find at the last movement clearly.

 These are my personal choices and they may be interpreted totally different and may sound better then mine.  The performer is kindly invited to make this exploration and create his piece from mine.



II. QUAL

The second movement QUAL:  It explores the word ‘galleon’ and its Turkish version ‘kalyon’.  It searches the relation of [gal] and ‘qual’ also.



Addition to the choices I made before there is a strascinare on the word [gol] its destination is free but lower than e4.  Similar to movement 1 the ‘kalyon’ stave which comprises the whole piece shall be performed interleaved with other elements.  The height of the stave changes, this indicates minute frequency changes in pitch, so this stave is not linear.  The tempo of pieces of this element first decreases then increases substantially.



III. TOLIA

Movement 3 TOLIA explores the word ‘TOLIA’ and its interaction with various other words in Turkish and many languages including 13 cty B.C. Anatolian Hittite.  As the pronounciation of Hittite is unknown it is completely  performers choice to read [???????].  Hittite is a dead language, it exists only on stones. 





IV. ANA(ANNA)


The Movement 4 ‘ANA(anna)’ explores the Turkish, Hittite and other tongues’ word ‘ANA(anna)’ meaning mother.  The words that stand for the names of mother goddesses and related words are explored.

 

The circular staves indicate perpetum mobile, endless repetition as an abstraction rebirth.  The steepnes of the staves indicate tempo increase or slow down.



V. MAR

The fifth movement ‘MAR’ explores the relation of Hittite word ‘Maryannu’ , it extends to Mary, Marin, Marseilles, merhaba  etc.  There is also an element of ‘REMEMBER’ and its exploration with ‘rappeler’, ‘erinnern’ and even some Egyptische phonemes.  It is a caos of interconnections between different languages that exist now and in the past.  It leads comfortably to the Turkish ‘Meryem Ana(Meriam the Mother)’.






VI. SANAT

The 6.th movement ‘SANAT’ explores the meaning of the Turkish word ‘SANAT(ART)’.  There is an allusion to ‘Medicum curat natura sanat’.  It is also distantly an allusion of curing diseases with music in old times.







VII.  SÖZÜN ŞARKISI(Das Lied des Wort - The Song of Word)

Seventh movement is  ‘SÖZÜN ŞARKISI(Das Lied des Wort- The Song of Word)’.  This is a spoken piece.  The tempo increases according to the steepness of the word base alignment.  It points at the intersections of languages and claims as the whole work, the borders between different nations now and the past are being exaggerated, the common reality of the human being is much bigger than it is displayed by politicians.



Aelius Rhesus


PERFORMANCE NOTES and REFERENCES