Research Point: The Development of instrument techniques and notation

It stands to reason, with the twentieth century being such a melting pot of musical innovation, that composers would want to also experiment with how these are instruments are played, in order to create new interesting sounds.  Bruno Bartolizzi’s New Sounds for Woodwinds (1969) provides an extensive insight into the technicalities of creating these ‘extended sounds’.   Different vocal techniques such as whistling, whispering or growling were also adopted to add different textures and feelings. 

Of course, creating a new sound meant creating a whole new set of notations to enable techniques to be communicated to musicians.  Bartolizzi’s texts have large portions and diagrams explaining exact fingering techniques and glossaries of musical symbols began to emerge with the sheet music. 

Exercise: Exploring a Graphic Score

Graphic scores began to appear in the 1950’s, with avant-garde composers such as Kagel & Stockhausen, as a means to create visual representations of parts with a score.  This may have been to allow more ‘freedom’ for musicians to improvise within given parameters, or perhaps as a means for those who do not read music.  The graphic score has been used by numerous composers and includes the use of lines, shapes and colours to represent the ‘flow’ of the music. 

Cathy Berberian’s Stripsody (1966), makes full use of a graphic score in this comically themed composition.  Whilst looking at the score itself, it is clear to see that Berberian has combined elements of the 5-line stave, with drawings to represent the tones.  As this piece is based around various phrases and onomatopoeias, each drawing contains words, e.g. ‘chomp, chomp’ written somewhere on the 3-line stave to represent the pitch of tone.  Below is a picture of a page of Berberian’s Stripsody, which I came across on the Internet.  

Xenakis’ Pithoprakta (1956) demonstrates the composer's interest in the statistics of music and was written using a number of mathematical and philosophical features.

 Zamarin (1966)

After listening to this piece and studying its score, I found that the fun use of the graphic element perfectly complemented the comical nature of the composition.  The use of seemingly random strings of sounds engages the listener in something very unlike traditional compositions – blending music with comedy. 

Whilst I can appreciate the use of graphic scores in more experimental styles, I must say I feel as though Berberian’s score was perhaps designed more as a fun ‘keepsake’ for the audience as opposed to a useable score.