Graphic notation first appeared in the 1950s as an evolution of movement of Indeterminacy as pioneered by John Cage. The technique was originally used by avant-garde musicians and manifested itself as the use of symbols to convey information that could not be rendered with traditional notation such as extended techniques. Graphic scores have, since their conception, evolved into two broadly defined categories, one being the invention of new notation systems used to convey specific musical techniques and the other the use conceptual notation such as shapes, drawings and other artistic techniques that are meant to evoke improvisation from the performer. Examples of the former include Feldman'sProjection and Stockhausen'sProzession. Examples of the latter include Earle Brown'sDecember 1952 and Cardew'sTreatise, which was written in response to Cage's 4'33" and which he wrote after having worked as Stockhausen's assistant. The score consists of 193 pages of lines and shapes on a white background where. Here the lines represented elements in space and the score was merely a representation of that space at a given instant. In Europe, one of the most notable users was Sylvano Bussotti, whose scores have often been displayed as pieces of visual art by enthusiasts. In 1969, in an effort to promote the movement of abstract notation, John Cage and Allison Knowles published an archive of excerpts of scores by 269 composers with the intention of showing "the many directions in which notation is now going". Other notable pioneers of graphic notation include composers such as Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Mauricio Kagel, György Ligeti, Krzysztof Penderecki, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis, Morton Feldman, and Christian Wolff. In 2008, Theresa Sauer edited a compendium featuring graphic scores by composers from over fifty countries, demonstrating how widespread the practice has become.
Examples
As a notational system
Time-based pictographic scores such as Waterwalk by John Cage, uses a combination of time marking a pictographic notation as instruction on how and when to perform certain actions.
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Line staves showing approximate pitch, with the actual pitches being decided upon performance.
Altered notation can be seen in George Crumb's work, where he uses traditional notation but presents the music on the page in a graphic or nontraditional manner such as spirals or circles. This device, however, was not an innovation of the twentieth century. It is found, for example, in some pieces composed by Baude Cordier in the late 14th century, and in a piece by Joseph Haydn in the late eighteenth century.
New specific notation system, that is, a new of specifically and graphically notate musical actions like that of Xenakis' Psappha.
As abstract visual reference
Time-based abstract representation, can be seen in Hans-Christoph Steiner's score for Solitude in which the music is represented using symbols and illustrations. Note that here, time is still represented horizontally from left to right like in a pitch graph system, and thus implies that the piece has a specific form.Image:solitude.png|thumb|800x800px|center|Hans-Christoph Steiner's score for , created using Pure Data's data structures.
Time-based abstract notation, such as Rudolf Komorous's Chanson utilises abstract notation with time indication, or least a direction in which the piece is read and therefore implies a form.
Free Abstract Representations, such as Brown's December 1952, where the form, pitch material and instrumentation are left up to the performer.
Free Abstract Notation, such as Mark Applebaum's "The Metaphysics of Notation" and where elements of traditional music notation are melded with abstract designs.
Notable users
Other notable practitioners of graphic notation include:
