Graphic Score︎︎︎
Learning
to read and write music is like taking on an entirely new language, wherein you
must decode shapes and patterns in order to effectively communicate with
others. Let’s pretend, for a moment, that traditional staff notation does not
exist. How would you go about representing a sonic idea? If you had to make up
your own musical language, what would it look like?
1. Grab a few sheets of plain white paper and a pencil or black pen.
2. Choose a short section of music or song, anything from Beethoven to Beyonce.
3. While the music plays, allow your hand to interpret the sounds in real time as it moves across the paper, using lines, shapes, symbols, or whatever you see fit.
Tips:
The music you select can be an old favorite or something you’ve never heard before.
Give it an initial try without much forethought or fretting.
Your score doesn’t have to be linear.
You can add colors to your score.
This can be a solo enterprise or conducted with collaborators. Listen to the same piece of music but work separately and see how different your results turn out to be.
1. Grab a few sheets of plain white paper and a pencil or black pen.
2. Choose a short section of music or song, anything from Beethoven to Beyonce.
3. While the music plays, allow your hand to interpret the sounds in real time as it moves across the paper, using lines, shapes, symbols, or whatever you see fit.
Tips:
The music you select can be an old favorite or something you’ve never heard before.
Give it an initial try without much forethought or fretting.
Your score doesn’t have to be linear.
You can add colors to your score.
This can be a solo enterprise or conducted with collaborators. Listen to the same piece of music but work separately and see how different your results turn out to be.
Welcome to mapping collaboration, a toolbox for workshopping and creating across disciplines...
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
The inspiration for this project came from faculty and students at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts where BFA, MFA and PhD programs in Dance, Theatre Production and Design, Visual Art, Film, and Music and Sound all work together in studio settings and playfully experiment with processes of art-making.
We wanted to create a database of projects, assignments and theory that we collect inside the studio and from research happening in other places. We are curious about how we collaborate and how structures reoccur, translate and deviate from one discipline to another.
Composition is central to these processes and offers a base for our approaches and experiments. We are excited about what our students are doing and inspired by the new languages in contemporary art and performance we continue to see develop.
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
