I’ve been researching John Cage for my PGPD essay and have been delighted by his outrageously experimental scores of the late 1950s. Winter Music (1957) and Concert for Piano and Orchestra (1957-8) have very abstract scores with unconventional musical notations. These clusters or lines have specific instructions or rules attached to them but can be interpreted by the performer quite openly. This use of notation to inspire various readings is in direct contrast to traditional Western music notation, which represents a direct representation of sound.
This relates to my project where I’m highlighting the options of different readings of gesture using music. Music can be ‘read’ by the listener in many ways, it is subjective and open, however Western musical notation is a strict language with little space for vagueries and interpretation, except for in the ‘feeling’ or ‘mood’ or tempo. Gestures can also be ‘read’ in many ways.