Making People Move: Dynamic musical notations

In Treatise Handbook, Cornelius Cardew noted that “[musical] notation is a way of making people move” [1]. This paper describes and demonstrates new methods for the dynamic generation and display of augmented musical notation. The Fluxus Tree and Quantum Canticorum are the most recent in a sequence of musical compositions by the author in which dance and music interact using body-tracking technologies and bespoke sensing devices. Movement is converted into data which trigger and modulate expressive algorithms. Uniquely, these generate in real-time audio material as well as detailed common practice music notation to be performed live. Other techniques allow for the conversion from (and potentially to) graphic images and text. This paper demonstrates the techniques behind these inventions and explains how such techniques may be used to enhance the musical experience of performers and audiences. Quantum Canticorum is based on a sequence originally commissioned for 'Quantum2', an Arts Council UK funded project led by Jane Turner of the Turning Worlds dance company.