Gardener

Dev: Apparently I am so open-minded that my brain has fallen out. (In fact, it makes a cool lava lamp in a jar on my desk.)

Yes, "play whatever you want" can be a score. In fact, in contrast to this piece here, or any music notated traditionally, it's even an extremely clear instruction. Whether the result is musically pleasing is an entirely different question.

Now I do agree that for my taste too, this score here is too open. I would find it more musically effective to give somewhat clearer instructions along with this to go for a more structured and "composed" result. That means that I'm not entirely happy with the openness of the musical result this will produce.

This however doesn't mean the score is bad at expressing the intent of the composer, as long as the intent was to be very open. In the end, the composer is the only one who can really determine whether the chosen notation fitted the musical intent.

See, all notation is unclear. I have never in my life seen a form of music notation that defined all aspects of sound in all details (even a sonogram is restricted to its resolution). The performance of music has, through all time and cultures, always been a mixture between predetermined stuff (either notated or passed orally) and "improvisation" of certain musical aspects. The only difference between different sorts of music notation is the weighting of these elements.

To me it seems rather clear what this notation "means":
1. Decide on a method to translate a picture into sound.
2. Apply this method to this score.

Of course these instructions weren't in the score, which might have been a good idea. However, if you know that it's meant as a musical score and know nothing else about this piece, this approach seems fairly logical and self-evident, not even to mention that it has been preceded by music of other composers functioning in a similar way.

If you perform a music after a notation you don't understand, and the notation isn't standartised or explained, use your "common sense" (even though I hate that expression). It's quite possible that you interpret it differently than the composer intended, in which case the composer probably has made the mistake of either choosing the wrong notation, or not explaining it enough. If however the composer gets what she or he wanted, everything's fine with the notation, right?

So, unless you perform this piece with the best intentions (that should be expected from a performer) in a way that goes against what the author is willing to accept, I don't see a reason to criticise the notation, just perhaps the composition.

I'd be a bit annoyed if a composer gave me shit in a napkin and ask me to perform me, as I don't really like shit on my note stands. Besides, it stinks. But in theory there's nothing that inherently disqualifies it as a form of "music notation", in my opinion. Luckily this score here doesn't stink. (If treated normally.)

Yes, it is entirely possible that a rendition of this piece will turn out as a random improvisation. Well, in that case the notation won't have had any effect, but at least we heard some music, maybe even good one. But it's also quite possible that the musicians (if there's more than one playing) put some serious effort in playing this score (and I would expect them to) interprete this in many different ways, but maybe come together on a similar interpretation on some aspects, which will create a somewhat directed musical result that has something to do with the score. And maybe, the musicians even decide on a finding a way they can all apply to the interpretation of this, which will result in an even more stringent result. In fact, if the performers are "musically clever", they will be able to pull truly amazing and well-structured music out of a score like this. But god forbid performers actually made their own musical decisions and are more then mere note-reading machines...

I have often "improvised after pictures". But in the end it's merely a question of terminology whether you call it "improvising after pictures" or "interpreting an open, graphical score". Personally, I'd say the only difference is the original intention behind the creation of said pictures. And in this case here, the intention is clearly to be a musical score.

It has nothing to do with me fearing to be called "not open minded enough to get it". Probably more with my musical education starting out with lots of free improvisation, experimentation, and John Cage actually being one of the first composers I got in contact with during my piano lessons. I guess my brain fell out as soon as I started to play the piano, so please bear with me.