Graphic Notation

I am including a recent example of graphic notation by a good friend of mine, composer Matt Aelmore, who is a Manhattan School of Music M.M. alum and current doctoral candidate in composition at the University of Pittsburgh.  His piece around 6:30 uses an actual floor plan as the score for the piece.  (This is coming from the same guy who composed the piece Quartet for the Time Being for Violin, Bass Clarinet, Piano, and Vibes for Terrance and me back in 2009 at Wichita State University).  Here is the link to Matt's website: http://mattaelmore.bandcamp.com/releases.  The piece is for electronics, oboe, and voice.  He attributes the design of the score to Patrick Waldo.

For my own graphic notation project, I stewed and fretted for weeks.  Nothing clever, even plausible, came to mind until the middle of last night (of course!)  This was a positive thing; I had expected to have no creative inspiration until I got in the shower before class this morning, since all of my best thinking takes place in the shower.

I am writing a performance piece called Ronald that is more about the recycling process than just using recycled materials.  The instruments are mostly derived from items contained in a McDonald's Happy Meal.  The performers will use some obvious instruments, such as drinking straws cut into oboe reeds, and some more odd mediums such as throwing chicken nuggets into a large piece of cardboard covered entirely with aluminum foil.  The soprano will play the central role in the piece as she simultaneously eats a hamburger while performing slogans with many histrionic melismas (all with her mouth full, of course).  Other key performers will slurp and gargle soft drinks, and may also choose to crush chunks of ice between their teeth.  They can, however, alternatively opt to throw and hurl chunks of ice into resonant objects.  Other auxiliary instruments may include crinkling, crumpling, rustling, shaking, and flattening sandwich wrappers and blowing up the paper bag and popping it.

In order to represent Ronald McDonald (for whom this piece is named), I would like remaining performers to provide clown props of their choice.  These sounds should be used to signify the clown, Ronald McDonald, being tickled by a walrus and then slowly starving to death at the bottom of a pit.

The last performer will serve as an allegory for the digestive system.  Much belching is encouraged, no, applauded.