Session 12: New Music
Nancy Perloff · 2000
Abstract During the 1950s a group of American composers introduced a new conception of the musical score. Departing from standard notation, they invented graphic symbols which acted as visual guidelines for the performer. This paper argued that in such indeterminate compositions the score becomes an artistic expression in its own right. The grid notation of Feldman, the dashes in space of Brown, the graphs of Cage, and the shorthand symbols of Wolff are visual notations conveying spatialized sound and a lack of hierarchy between parts. Intriguing paradoxes emerge which alter current thinking: how do we reconcile the contrast between the personal, hand-drawn graphic symbols and the composers’ desire to remove intention? Does the preeminence given to David Tudor’s systematic realizations contradict the premiss of indeterminacy? Or is indeterminate music more determinate than we might think? Using music manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Santa Monica, California, I demonstrated the critical interplay of sound and visual expression in indeterminate music.