Konservatoryum (Dec 2024)
Graphic Notation in New Music: Rebirth of the Work and the Performer?
Abstract
Modernism presents a closed work of art, representing a fixed and final product. However, arts influenced by the deconstructivist approach, which posits that meaning is subjective and ar-bitrary, reject the idea of the author/artist as the creator of the work and its meaning. Con-sequently, the concept of the work is replaced by the notion of the text, aiming to explore meaning in a multi-layered and interactive dimension. In the realm of New Music, this impact is manifested through the concept and aesthetics of chance/indeterminacy, with works using graphic notation becoming instruments of accidental determination. From the perspective of traditional notation and the understanding of musical works, there is an assertion of a ’definite’ form and style intended by the composer, and a situation where the performer is ’passive and receptive’. In contrast, graphic notation and an open [indeterminate] work highlight the transition to a relatively ’active’ and collective creative performer potential. This allows the performer to become almost a collective creator and transforms music from certainty into an ’open work’. The uncertainty brought about by abstract symbols and verbal instructions offered to the performer, as opposed to predetermined definite musical elements and their layers of meaning, serves the function of making the musical narrative palette flexible and re-creatable. This study considers the applications under the umbrella concept of New Music, alongside Umberto Eco’s idea of ‘open work’, and examines the possibility of defining a kind of ’rebirth’ in terms of the performer and the musical work from a postmoder-nist thought perspective. From this perspective, the focus is on the process of subjecting mu-sic to the decentralizing and deconstructive ideological tools of postmodernism, thus remo-ving its meaning from a distinct structure.
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