Strangest Music Scores, Part 2

"QUANTUM SHOT" #548
Link - by Avi Abrams

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Music

In our popular Part 1 we saw music notation from beyond, written by aliens to be played by aliens (who have a few extra limbs to spare). Turns out that this subject was not exhausted by any means, as new examples of this highly-ordered madness (which could be a secret vice of all composers) keep popping up.

It seems that no amount of automated computer scoring can replace a personal, wicked human touch - and some musicians are ambitious enough to perform these impossible pieces, for the enjoyment of increasingly dumbfounded listeners.

Pavane of the Reconstituted Visigoths

Andy Fielding sent us his new creation (he says "I do this kind of thing each time I change notation apps"):

Starting with a "Plagiarismo" tempo, the notes are increasingly bizarre: you are advised to play it -
- "fast enough to impress other musicians..."
- "condensendingly"
- slow down to "nauseoso" tempo...
- "keep wallet away from trombonists"
- emitting blood-curdling screams from time to time.
- keep repeating some sections to relieve the painful itch
- and even include a special "Pop Music Section", details of which are mercifully withheld.

Gotta love his copyright / disclaimer note:

(score credit: Andy Fielding, Musician, Composer, Music Editor, Richmond, BC)

Be careful, while performing this piece you may find that your audience starts slowly climbing up the walls, so aim your instrument gradually toward the ceiling to improve acoustics.

Simplicity itself

Sometimes less is more, and the absence of notation is even better to accompany a moonlit night:

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Tribute to Serge Gainsbourg

Remember the highly sensual and almost subliminal song by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin Je t'aime... moi non plus? This is how it translates in appropriate notation (which takes a little longer to play) -

(image credit: Scary Ideas)

Yoko Ono's "Voice Piece for Soprano":

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Music notation makes up a map of the world in an unusual design by World Beat Music - I wonder what kind of melody would emerge, if it was played? - click to enlarge:

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James Tenney invents a note for percussion (left), while there is a very strange note structure on the right - from Sylvano Bussotti's "Pour Clavier", 1961:

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Christmas time is here!
(Stockhausen, "Die zehn wichtigsten Wörter", 1991)

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Nikos Skalkottas "Four Etudes [No.2](1941)" - (check these chords!.. powerful)

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Speaking about even more cryptic notation, here is "Play II" for harpsichord and synthesizer, from John Stead (with just a hint of spermatozoids in there, dancing) -

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OK, how would you play the "Syncopated Texture" on the left? No wonder it is called "Imaginary Music" (but I may even like it, might sound somewhat like spring) - and even worse, Takehisa Kosugi "+ -" (1987) on the right:

Tom Johnson "Imaginary Music", No. 65. "Syncopated Texture" ; Takehisa Kosugi "+ -" (1987)

The next piece performance may amount to something like a "musical train crash" -

Dieter Schnebel: MO-NO. Musik z.Lesen (1969)

Not notation, but certainly creative use of favorite media of Jimi Hendrix fans: good old tape - art by iRI5, Erika Iris Simmons:

"Ghost in the Machine" - art by Erika Iris Simmons)

In the meantime, good old Johann Sebastian Bach sends his regards across centuries and musical styles: