Making Graphic Scores Is Easier Than Ever!

This fall, ODDMUSIC was invited to a University of Illinois Saturday Art School class as guest artist.  We taught a workshop called “The Sound Visual Connection”, which brought together several ways of doing music and visual art non-separately.

We played the students music they hadn’t heard before, and they drew sketches they hadn’t drawn before.  We listened to the marching band warming up outside the window, and performed Andrew’s Miniatures for Two Otonalists in a bout of oddmusical evangelism.  Then, a visit to the computer lab for making graphic computer-music scores with HighC.  Finally, udderbot making!  And circle games.

I want to put in a plug for HighC.  It’s a beautifully designed, light-weight, elegant program which enables one to make graphic scores.  Time is on the horizontal axis, and pitch on the vertical axis.  Different timbres appear as different colors; amplitudes are represented by line thickness.  Pitch is by default on a continuum (microtonal in the broadest sense).  The whole thing costs 30 Euros (we used the demo for our class, but if you’re looking for an Xmas present for Oddmusic…)

Following a brief introduction to the program, students were given only 10 minutes to make a score lasting between 12 and 30 seconds.  I arranged the results into this slideshow, which gives a peek into the variety attainable with this program, as well as the variety of each student.

…and imagine what could be done with more time!  My dream is to make a public kiosk art installation, in which visitors can play through a growing library of graphic scores, and create their own.