Disseminative Notation and the Impurities of Performance.

Disseminative Notation and the Impurities of Performance.
This paper will explore the cross fertilisation of my work as a performer (violinist, conductor, improviser) and composer, which is informed by the relationships obtaining between notation, interpretation and improvisation seen as form building elements and aspects of material.

By exploring the boundaries of notation my compositional research seeks to unite extended approaches to instrumental techniques, such as those developed through improvisation, with aspects of notational potential. This is not to suggest that improvised music can be notated; it emanates from a very different performative space. Rather it reflects the concept that notation has inherent properties beyond the direct signification of a musical idea, which articulate emergent material, realised through performance. It is this agency in performance which creates a dialogue between composer and performer, through the mediation of a score, seen here as an invitation to collaborate. This symbiotic relationship seeks to redefine the concept of material: what can or can’t be notated; how does material informed by improvisation change when fixed in notation? How might the concept of material be informed by its own possibility in notation? Alternatively, what might be considered a meaningful degree of latitude in the performance of a complex score, with a view to meaningfully unlocking such areas of signification? My work as an improviser and performer has had a specific impact on this dialogue both from the perspective of interpretative reaction to the comparative freedom of improvisational contexts.