Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Graphic Notation: Show which direction on the page carries time before anyone plays
- Type
- Set in Graphic Notation's manner (Few kinds of sign, with the range where one shape holds one meaning), and let Labanotation's lettering (Direction in symbol shape, level in shading, sizes held constant) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Graphic Notation's material (Line weight mapped to loudness, kept dark enough to print clean); bring in exactly one thing from Labanotation (Symbol length equals duration, so run a beat scale down the edge).
- Colour
- Build on #ffffff, #fb6546, #343636 and admit one accent from #fdf3c2, #ab956f, #5f4b34.
Where they fight
- Graphic Notation and Labanotation both belong to Notation Systems, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Graphic Notation Freedom claimed without a key or any agreed convention scatters interpretation across players, and the score gets treated as a doodle.
- Labanotation Bending symbol length to capture how a move feels makes duration unreadable, and the revival comes out as a different dance.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Graphic Notation (style, 1950s–) and their accent from Labanotation (style, 1928–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Graphic Notation exists for: handing improvisers a map instead of a list of instructions, or making the page of a piece into a figure worth hanging on a wall. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Graphic Notation - The staff abandoned - Instruction by shape and line - Pages open to interpretation - The score as artwork Composition: Show which direction on the page carries time before anyone plays. Type and lettering: Few kinds of sign, with the range where one shape holds one meaning. ## Accent comes from Labanotation, used sparingly - 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 Let one material quality come from it: Symbol length equals duration, so run a beat scale down the edge. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #ffffff, carry the structure in #fb6546 and #343636, and let a single accent come from #ab956f. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: rebellion, play, calm, technique. ## Where they fight - Graphic Notation and Labanotation both belong to Notation Systems, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - Graphic Notation: Freedom claimed without a key or any agreed convention scatters interpretation across players, and the score gets treated as a doodle. - Labanotation: Bending symbol length to capture how a move feels makes duration unreadable, and the revival comes out as a different dance. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Graphic Notation 1950s– / Style / Notation Systems
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 1928– / Style / Notation Systems
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.
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