Graphème - a publication for experimental musical scores - Vol 6

Graphème 6 brings together 12 experimental composers in an annual publication offering them a chance to be seen and heard. Ellie Ballantine’s Descending with Sycamore times a meditative fall to the seed of a sycamore tree. Majella Clarke’s Transmission draws its score from a satellite image of the Beni River in Bolivia. Carla Zaccagnini, Amilcar Packer and Søren Kjærgaard’s Non-Local Walks connects people across geographies. For the first time, QR codes are embedded in the scores, in Doyoon Yoon’s HiBarbie and Louise Devenish and Aaron Wyatt’s Preservation Reference Area.

Some five years ago a small group of us gathered in a Berlin flat and found ourselves discussing composition and music publishing, the dominance of the western classical notation system and the gate-keeping by extremely conservative and out of touch voices. What does it mean to compose and notate music today?

This kind of notation is more accessible to audiences and performers alike, not because it is simpler, it is not, but because it opens the practice to people from diverse backgrounds and without formal music education, without losing complexity. One of our guiding principles: make it playable. It is music to be performed.

Some pieces require very specific circumstances and instrumentation while others are extremely open and user-friendly. All are presented to be played, explored and heard.

“Music is not just technical; it is the context, the musician, the composer and the sum total of human experience.” Hassan Khan

Published by smallest functional unit.