2.2 European Development

On the one hand, the development of graphic notation can be understood as an indication of changes in music,^[8] whereby above all continuous sound processes increasingly take on more importance in the contemporary practice of composition. With the aid of graphic notation symbols, these continuous sound movements can now be fixed, whereas conventional staff notation merely symbolizes discrete pitch and tone duration.^[9] On the other hand, the dissolution of discrete notation was accompanied by the abandonment of the concept of the work of art, because the frequently ambiguous and open forms no longer comply with the criteria for consolidation.

Despite the distinct pictorial nature of his graphic notation (from 1958), Anestis Logothetis (1921–1994) distinguishes it from musical graphics, which he considers a means of improvisation.^[10] The symbols, associative signs, and action notations that he uses in his graphic notations cancel out any conventional reading order.^[11] In contrast, Sylvano Bussotti (born in 1931) seems to be concerned with the transition between symbols (conventional notation) and graphics (musical graphics) when at the end of a system he splits up the staves or twists them. The ways to graphically record music realize a scale from the known staff notation to the unknown symbol.^[12]

The term musikalische Grafik, or musical graphics was coined by Roman Haubenstock-Ramati,^[13] who in 1959 initiated an exhibition of musical graphics in Donaueschingen through the music publisher Universal Edition. One example of his musical graphics is Pour Piano (1971).

Often, musical graphics are also meant to open up elements of expression to the viewer or the performer that cannot be accomplished by standard symbolic notation.^[14] In musical graphics, the expressive qualities that in cases of music written in traditional staff notation can be experienced only during the performance can emanate directly from the visual effect. Thus, it is conceivable to have music that is only read: Dieter Schnebel’s Mo-No. Musik zum Lesen (Mo-No: Music to Be Read, 1969) is a book with musical graphics whose sole aim is imagined sound. Schnebel blends sound memories in the form of excerpts (i.e., quotations of musical scores), creative sound presentation in musical graphics (in order to imagine unheard sounds), and quietly read text fragments.

As early as the 1950s, Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001) assumed the translatability of spatial into tonal structures. He developed the UPIC,^[15] a computer with graphic interface by means of a pen that transforms graphics directly into sound.