Timbral Notation from Spectrograms: Notating the Un-Notatable?

This paper outlines the background to a research project currently underway in Malaysia that, through spectography seeks to find models that might assist in the future development of a timbral notation. Located within the music creation and performance practices of the researchers, the project has elements of interculturality which both enrich and inform the research. The authors consider the nature of a music score, the explicit and implicit information it carries, and how this impacts on the models being developed. The understandings elicited to date are not only located in music practice, but are underpinned and supported by the theoretical works of a number of recent philosophers and theorists. The overall research project is broken down into smaller discrete sub-projects which are discussed, and the findings of each sub-project are then contextualized in the wider project. These findings include a discussion of the score as artifact and the potential contained within it. The finding in two sub-projects of a possible model of gestural notation, albeit with different purposes, suggests this as a further avenue of research. The paper concludes with some suggestions of future research areas that will follow on from the models of timbral notation being explored in this project.