Lesson 73: Contemporary Work, Part 1 — Reading Modern Notation
- Recognise the four common modern-notation conventions: proportional time, time brackets, graphic notation, extended-technique symbols.
- Distinguish what is fixed in the score from what the performer chooses.
A modern score is half instruction, half invitation. Tell them apart before you play.
Every composer's score uses a slightly different notational vocabulary; your first job with a new contemporary work is to learn its dialect.
Convention 1 — proportional notation
- Horizontal distance = duration; no pulse, no time signature. You read space instead of beats.
- Examples: Berio's Sequenza series; Linde's solo pieces.
- Practice: read with a stopwatch first — time silences and long notes — then play without it.
Convention 2 — time-bracket / aleatoric notation
- A duration range (“between 8 and 12 seconds”); pitches usually fixed, rhythm not.
- Examples: Cage's number pieces; Oliveros's Deep Listening-related scores.
- Plan the timing in rehearsal — the bracket is not an invitation to randomness.
Convention 3 — graphic notation
- Shapes, curves, and pictograms replace pitch and rhythm: a rising curve = upward glissando; a black box = dense activity; a thin line = sustained tone.
- Examples: Cardew's Treatise; Logothetis.
- Read the score for its visual logic, not for pitches that are not there.
Convention 4 — extended-technique symbols
- Flutter tongue: three slashes through the stem, or flz.
- Glissando: a wavy or straight line between notes, sometimes gliss.
- Multiphonic: stacked noteheads with a fingering diagram above the staff.
- Whisper tone: small noteheads, sometimes labelled w.t.
- Harmonic: a small circle above the note.
Read every legend on every new score — some composers invent their own symbols.
What is fixed; what you choose
Ask of any modern score before performing it:
- Are the pitches fixed?
- Are the durations fixed?
- Are the dynamics fixed?
- Are the techniques fixed?
- Is the order fixed?
Until you know which boxes are ticked, you cannot rehearse the piece.
Drill — read three scores
Find any three of the following published scores and spend fifteen minutes reading each, naming the conventions used and the fixed boxes, before playing:
- Linde, Music for a Bird — conventional notation with extended-technique symbols.
- Berio, Gesti — proportional, dense extended techniques.
- Hirose, Meditation — mixed proportional and conventional.
- Cage, any number piece for recorder — time-bracket.
- Van Hauwe, studies from The Modern Recorder Player — multiphonic fingering charts.
Now play these
No library piece on this site uses contemporary notation; the recommended works above are the application pieces.
When you can read three contemporary scores aloud in time and tell another player which boxes each fixes, move on to Lesson 74.