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Re: [silence] Question about Feldman's graph notation and song lyrics


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  • From: David Bellows <>
  • To: "Goldstein, Louis" <>
  • Cc: silence <>
  • Subject: Re: [silence] Question about Feldman's graph notation and song lyrics
  • Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2019 17:44:25 -0700
  • Authentication-results: eifmailuw2p1.az.virginia.edu; spf=pass (virginia.edu: domain of designates 209.85.128.66 as permitted sender)

Louis Goldstein,

> Wouldn't this be easier to write out by hand?

My software generates music in a variety of styles and then allows you
to generate standard sheet music or various graphical styles for the
music. It's all handled automatically by the software. Eventually it
will be online with an interface and must be able to produce perfect,
or nearly so, scores.

On Thu, Aug 1, 2019 at 5:35 PM Goldstein, Louis <> wrote:
>
> Just a comment. Poor programming skills shouldn't be a concern. Wouldn't
> this be easier to write out by hand?
>
> Louie
>
> On Thu, Aug 1, 2019 at 6:03 PM David Bellows <> wrote:
>>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> I know this isn't the Morton Feldman mail list but I was hoping
>> someone here might be able to help anyway.
>>
>> I'm doing a project where I generate some music using something that
>> is based on Feldman's graph notation where the location of a box
>> (high, medium or low) indicates the pitch range and the width
>> indicates duration.
>>
>> What I'm wondering is if he ever used this notation for vocal works
>> and what it looked like? My piece is for a vocalist using this
>> notation. I've come up with a solution but it doesn't feel ideal so I
>> was hoping Feldman might have done something better.
>>
>> Alternatively, if anyone has suggestions for how to include the lyrics
>> into the score I'm all ears. I'm attaching my current approach. The
>> lyrics are in the boxes (often they extend past them). The height of
>> the text within the box does not mean anything and is done solely for
>> readability when the durations end up being really short. So the
>> lyrics cycle through from top to middle to bottom (starting over at
>> each new line) which hopefully helps the vocalist figure out what
>> comes next.
>>
>> And I know my version of Feldman's notation doesn't look exactly like
>> his but I am limited by my poor programming skills and this was the
>> best I could do that I could handle being generated automatically
>> using a wide variety of parameters.
>>
>> The lyrics are from a Gertrude Stein poetry generator I created. And
>> Connor Gibbs is the person who is going to sing this.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Dave Bellows
>> www.platonicmusicengine.com



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