Music Notation and Distributed Creativity: The Textility of Score Annotation

Abstract

This chapter explores the positive function of music notation within the creative process in order to move beyond a paradigm that opposes notated permanence to performed and/or improvised transience. We compare two different case studies in the areas of contemporary composed music and improvised music. Concentrating on the practice of annotation, we propose an ontological shift from the work to the score. Annotation is an intimate practice, a way of negotiating one’s agency and ownership of the music, distributing creativity over a network of human and non-human actants. We draw on the work of Tim Ingold to examine the active role of the score as a fluid quasi-object collaborating in music’s creative process, and thus to reconsider notation in its textility rather than its textuality.