Graphic Notation vs Labanotation
図形楽譜 / ラバノーテーション
Both sit in Notation Systems, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Graphic Notation
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The scores Cage and Cardew drew when they abandoned the staff: shapes, lines, map-like pages. Opening performance to interpretation rather than instruction, the score itself became visual art.
Labanotation
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A notation that turns bodily movement into one vertical staff read from the bottom upward. The shape of a symbol carries direction, its shading carries level, its length carries duration, and its position across the staff says which part of the body moves.
| Graphic Notation | Labanotation | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1950s– | 1928– |
| Family | Notation Systems | Notation Systems |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | The staff abandoned / Instruction by shape and line / Pages open to interpretation / The score as artwork | Symbols stacked without gaps on a vertical staff read from the bottom upward / Symbol shapes giving nine directions, with the centre line separating right from left / Shading inside each symbol standing for low, middle or high level / Symbol length equal to duration, with tick marks for beats and bar lines crossing the staff |
| Best used for | Handing improvisers a map instead of a list of instructions · Making the page of a piece into a figure worth hanging on a wall | Recording choreography so it can be revived without the original cast · Analyzing movement in comparable symbols rather than on video |
| Type | Few kinds of sign, with the range where one shape holds one meaning | Direction in symbol shape, level in shading, sizes held constant |
| Composition | Show which direction on the page carries time before anyone plays | Time climbs from the bottom, one column for each body part |
| Material | Line weight mapped to loudness, kept dark enough to print clean | Symbol length equals duration, so run a beat scale down the edge |
| Caution | Freedom claimed without a key or any agreed convention scatters interpretation across players, and the score gets treated as a doodle. | Bending symbol length to capture how a move feels makes duration unreadable, and the revival comes out as a different dance. |