The Musical Score: The System and the Interpreter
Symposium:
- ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art
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More presentations from ISEA2011:
Session Title:
- Live Coding and Locative Sound Projects
Presentation Title:
- The Musical Score: The System and the Interpreter
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
This paper introduces live coding as a new path in the evolution of the musical score. Live coding practice accentuates the score, and whilst being the perfect vehicle for the performance of algorithmic music, it also transforms the compositional process itself into a live event. A continuation of 20th century artistic developments of the musical score, live coding systems often embrace graphical elements and language syntaxes foreign to standard programming languages. The paper presents live coding as a highly technologized artistic practice, shedding light on how non-linearity, play and generativity will become prominent in future creative media productions.
A careful investigation into the history of the score will illustrate that the score is not a simple object whose nature can be easily defined. It has had multiple functions in the various traditions at different time periods. But the score is more than encoded music. It is also a compositional tool, where composers are able to externalize their thoughts onto a medium that visually represents the sonic data. The score in its various forms is a mnemonic device that enables more complex compositional thinking patterns than those we find in purely oral traditions. This paper will consider live coding as a new evolution of the musical score. It will investigate the background of diverse scoring practices as applied in live coding, where the score is written in the form of an algorithm, either graphically or textually, yet always encoded in the functionality of a programming language.
