Graphic Scores
As metaphor for the timing of attention to the painting Joan Key has used the proposition that the memory of painting could be of something heard rather than seen, and that painting could have use as a form of score.
The drawing of scores forms part of the developmental activity of Key’s paintings. David Ryan writes about the relationship to sound and painting “Key’s use of colour is akin to timbre-or the particular sound qualities of an instrument”. This emphasises the importance of material qualities of sound to the paintings, but there are also works which use word and letter shapes to suggest the timbre of the voice. These ideas have been explored in performances by Anton Lukoszevieze; Rhodri Davies; Lore Lixenberg; Tania Chen.
Graphic notation is derived from a view of the pictorial rectangle as a space of incident which is always already gridded. Tracked through numerical co-ordinates, interpretations of time, pitch and amplitude can be registered. The sequential forms of musical composition play against the grain of visual composition: the timing of the gaze on the pictorial surface has a difference in dynamic to the timing of the eye scanning notation.
Left Hand Right Hand for Michael Parsons, piano
Abstract Words for ensemble, ten instruments
OB/BO songs for Lore Lixenberg
C/O songs for Anton Lukoszevieze
Rorschachs for 12 instruments
Composition for Two Bass Clarinets, for David Ryan and Ian Mitchell
Cloud Sounds for improvisation
Linear Structures: Yellow
Mirror-Keyboard piano and performance for Tanya Chen
Words for Harp, for Rhodri Davies
On Instructions from Marcel Duchamp, for violin, cello, piano, percussion and wind
Still/s composition for cello, developed in collaboration with Richard Emsley
BOI-DOG twelve variations for flute and clarinet
Deep-Wide number sequences for chamber group, piano and percussion
In-Out Spirals 1 for improvisation, string quartet
In-Out Spirals 2 for Electronics and cello
From-To Trios for violin, viola, cello
Computer Words for voice and Electronic sound-track