Word Events Perspectives on Verbal Notation [Paperback]

Verbal notation has emerged since the 1950s as a prominent medium in the field of experimental music, as well as in related areas of arts practice involving performance and object making. Works created with this type of notation are often referred to by their authors as event scores, prose scores, text scores or instruction scores.

Word Events features over 170 scores, many printed here for the first time, representing the works of more than 50 practitioners including George Brecht, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Pauline Oliveros, Yoko Ono, Michael Pisaro, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Jennifer Walshe and La Monte Young.

The commentaries in the book explore the compositional strategies and performance practice of particular works, contextualised by key essays, including previously hard-to-find texts by Lawrence Halprin and Kenneth Maue, together with many new statements and interviews from composers, artists and performers. This unique and wide-ranging collection of scores and writings will be indispensable to musicians, artists, those involved with community arts, and anyone with an interest in exploring the rich potential of the written word.

John Lely is a composer and performer.
James Saunders is a composer, and is Head of the Centre for Musical Research at Bath Spa University, UK. He is the editor of The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental Music.

List of illustrationsIntroductionAcknowledgements Part 1: GrammarOn the use of grammar in verbal notationIntroductionGrammarsContextRegisterProcessesTenseModalityMoodVoiceCircumstancesPostscript Part 2: Scores, Writings and CommentariesEric Andersen Opus 18 (1961) In Mezzo a Quattro TempiRobert AshleyThe Entrance (1965-6) Some notes on a performance of The EntranceCommentary: The EntranceG. Douglas BarrettA Few Silence (location, date, time of performance) (2008)A Text Score ManifestoCommentaryAntoine Beugerone tone. rather short. very quiet (1998)CommentaryGeorge BrechtTime-Table Music (1959) l��