Multisensory Graphic Scores

Funded by an Arts Council Music Bursary 2024

Based on 15 years working with deaf participants, I was awarded an Arts Council Music Bursary in 2024 to investigate the use of graphic scores for multisensory compositions. This allowed me to develop a series of multisensory studies which adopt new approaches to graphic notation.

For the record: what exactly is a musical score?

A musical score is essentially a set of instructions for the performance a piece of music. These instructions most often involve specialised language, or notation. European musical notation - consisting of the familiar note heads, bar lines, clefs and so forth - is by no means the only form of notation, nor the oldest. Nonetheless, it’s the most widely recognised and arguably the most developed system we know of. It’s been around for at least a millennium and is very much still evolving. Like any language, there are numerous variations that can be confusing even for those who are able to read music. No single person created this language, and no single authority is in a position to maintain or regulate it. Instead, music notation has continuously developed to address the needs of different instruments, different styles and different contexts. Finally, like any language, European notation has its limitations, and there have been repeated attempts by composers to improve this system, or even reinvent it. Graphic notation is one of those many attempts.

What is graphic notation?

While all music notation is in fact ‘graphic’ (i.e., a visual code for making music), the term ‘graphic notation’ refers to nonconventional visual elements being used as musical instructions. For example, instead of note heads and bar lines, a composer of graphic scores might use wild squiggles, smiley faces or blobs of paint . Why? Perhaps some composers feel that conventional notation isn’t able to convey the message they’re trying to give a performer. Or possibly they just want to be different.

Whatever the reason and whatever the graphic symbols might be, composers will sometimes provide a set of instructions to aid performers in interpreting the symbols. In other cases, the composer might leave it up to the performers to interpret the symbols however they wish.

Graphic scores were used extensively in the mid 20th century by composers like John Cage, Cornelius Cardew and Morton Feldman, but you can find marvellous examples of unusual graphic scores as far back as the 15th century.

My Multisensory Graphic Scores

Initially, I was drawn to graphic notation because I needed to devise notation that could represent non-auditory musical experience. I had been working with vibrotactile experience (vibrotactile speakers, sending vibrations through floors/furniture) and visual experience (Irish Sign Language, smoke ring cannons, choreographed gesture) for years with deaf participants, but lacked a notation system to represent these extra-auditory elements.

I have to also explain that my research into 1000 years of music notation gave me additional reason. Surveying all the beautiful scores and notation approaches, it struck me as almost criminal that these monumental visual creations are almost never appreciated by audiences. Music scores are generally meant only for a performer to use in order to create a piece of music. While non-musicians can and often do admire the visual beauty of a musical score, unless they’re musically trained, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to appreciate the connection between what they see and what they will hear when the score is performed. In fact, it can be quite intimidating to look at a score if you don’t understand it.

I decided to try to create scores that an audience could enjoy as much as a performer. In fact, as much as possible, I have attempted to make my graphic scores part of the musical experience itself, rather than just a set of instructions to generate a musical experience.

Workshops, Scores and Performances

Like a recipe, a score only proves its worth when you try it out. The proof is in the pudding. Thus, I have had to workshop all my ideas with real musicians, as much as I could. Some of this I did myself, and some of it I did in collaboration with other musicians.

I’ve been working in Boff’s Hut (my home studio), the Contemporary Music Centre, Dundalk Gaol and the Westgate Arts Space in Wexford to workshop these approaches, both on my own own on guitar, trumpet & trombone, as well as with saxophonist Robert Finegan.

I am currently posting footage of these workshops as well as publishing the full scores for Multisensory Studies no. 1 - 5 through the Contemporary Music Centre.