This is an outstanding collection of text scores from key composers and artists, as well as original essays and interviews offering guidance and lucid analysis. "Word Events" focuses on an approach to notation that uses the written word, as opposed to symbols, to convey information to whoever chooses to interpret the notation. Verbal notation is commonly used in experimental music, as well as related areas of arts practice involving performance or object making. Practitioners point to a number of reasons for using it: notation with written words is accessible to a wide range of people, including those who cannot read traditional Western stave notation; it can express temporal relationships between elements of a composition in a flexible way; it makes association with other writing contexts, such as poetry, prose, instructions, recipes, koans and aphorisms; it can express ideas with great precision; it can express generalities; it can determine many different types of relationships between the scorer and reader; and, it can express ideas and concepts as well as providing prescriptions for action.
The aim of this book is to present a broad range of perspectives on how and why scorers use verbal notation.
Part I: On the Role of Grammar in Verbal Notation; Context; Register; Processes; Tense; Modality; Mood; Voice; Circumstances; Part II: Scores, Writings and Commentaries; Robert Ashley; G. Douglas Barrett; Antoine Beuger; George Brecht; Gavin Bryars; John Cage; Cornelius Cardew; Philip Corner; Bill Drummond; Ken Friedman; Malcolm Goldstein; Daniel Goode; Lawrence Halprin; Tom Johnson; Seth Kim-Cohen; Bengt af Klintberg; Alison Knowles; Takehisa Kosugi; Joseph Kudirka; Sol LeWitt; Annea Lockwood; Alvin Lucier; George Maciunas; Benedict Mason; Kenneth Maue; Pauline Oliveros; Michael Parsons; Ben Patterson; Michael Pisaro; Frederic Rzewski; Erik Satie; Craig Shepard; Kunsu Shim; Mieko (Chieko) Shiomi; Hugh Shrapnel; Howard Skempton; Mark So; Karlheinz Stockhausen; Jennifer Walshe; Manfred Werder; John White; Michael Winter; Christian Wolff; Daniel Wolf; Amnon Wolman; Sources; Bibliography.