The meeting of sonic and visual dimensions that graphic scores explore can create powerful geographical connections. Artists can use them to map and document the sounds of a specific location.

Once performed, these scores can become site-specific meditations, or give rise to fresh musical responses that encourage people to reappraise the landscape around them.

Mapping Yorkshire

[[{"fid":"13808","view_mode":"default","type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{}},"link_text":null,"fields":{},"attributes":{"height":413,"width":620,"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"1"}}]]

[Caption: Fresh Yorkshire Aires celebrates the creative breadth of ‘God’s own county’. Photograph (c) 2016 by Matthew Moorhouse.]

In 2016, I commissioned a series of new graphic scores from artists based in Yorkshire, as part of a project called Fresh Yorkshire Aires. The scores were exhibited and published as a book compilation.

The brief was to create a score that drew inspiration from the landscape of the region.

Fresh Yorkshire Aires also includes an online showcase of graphic score work and sound visualising media by Yorkshire-based artists: freshyorkshireaires.wordpress.com

Hills and Mills

Katie English

Katie English (a.k.a. Isnaj Dui) was one of the artists commissioned. Her score reimagines the skyline around Halifax, tracing the landscape to create a sequence of graphic notation.

[[{"fid":"13809","view_mode":"default","type":"media","field_deltas":{"2":{}},"link_text":null,"fields":{},"attributes":{"height":467,"width":620,"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"2"}}]]

[Caption: Katie English explaining her initial sketches to pianist Matthew Bourne.]

[[{"fid":"13810","view_mode":"default","type":"media","field_deltas":{"3":{}},"link_text":null,"fields":{},"attributes":{"height":464,"width":620,"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"3"}}]]

[Caption: Halifax, England. Katie English used her score to map features like these to create a sequence of graphic notation.]

[[{"fid":"13811","view_mode":"default","type":"media","field_deltas":{"4":{}},"link_text":null,"fields":{},"attributes":{"height":439,"width":620,"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"4"}}]]

[Caption: Hills and Mills by Katie English, pages 1 and 2]

[[{"fid":"13812","view_mode":"default","type":"media","field_deltas":{"5":{}},"link_text":null,"fields":{},"attributes":{"height":439,"width":620,"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"5"}}]]

[Caption: Hills and Mills by Katie English, pages 3 and 4]

Katie says: "I decided to make my piece about my surroundings in Halifax. The town has a rich industrial history but is also surrounded by rolling hillsides and moorland and I felt that this visually dramatic landscape lent itself perfectly to a musical score.

I have included abstracted versions of a few local landmarks alongside the gentle slopes of the hills and criss-cross shapes of the moorland grasses, which reminded me of musical staves.”

[[{"fid":"13813","view_mode":"default","type":"media","field_deltas":{"6":{}},"link_text":null,"fields":{},"attributes":{"height":413,"width":620,"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"6"}}]]

[Caption: Philip Thomas giving the premiere performance with Matthew Bourne, at The Gallery at Munro House, Leeds, June 2016. (Photo by Matthew Moorhouse, 2016)]

IMAGIRO

Jobina Tinnemans

[[{"fid":"13814","view_mode":"default","type":"media","field_deltas":{"7":{}},"link_text":null,"fields":{},"attributes":{"height":388,"width":620,"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"7"}}]]

[Caption: Jobina Tinnemans painting her panoramic score, IMAGIRO]

Jobina Tinnemans’ scores titled IMAGIRO transpose her own “reading” of the Icelandic landscape into a vast panoramic score.

In IMAGIRO Landmannalaugar, the undulating horizon translates into sweeping lines of brushed ink.

Here, Tinnemans paints sweeping black lines to create the 24 metre x 1.5 metre score.

[[{"fid":"13815","view_mode":"default","type":"media","field_deltas":{"8":{}},"link_text":null,"fields":{},"attributes":{"height":80,"width":620,"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"8"}}]]

The score requires the performers to progress across the length of the canvas…

[[{"fid":"13816","view_mode":"default","type":"media","field_deltas":{"9":{}},"link_text":null,"fields":{},"attributes":{"height":80,"width":620,"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"9"}}]]

...to musically interpret the textures and dynamics of her mark making...

[[{"fid":"13817","view_mode":"default","type":"media","field_deltas":{"10":{}},"link_text":null,"fields":{},"attributes":{"height":80,"width":620,"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"10"}}]]

..opening up a single gesture into full harmonics from whichever angle the musicians are moving through the panorama.

[[{"fid":"13818","view_mode":"default","type":"media","field_deltas":{"11":{}},"link_text":null,"fields":{},"attributes":{"height":80,"width":620,"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"11"}}]]

Jobina Tinnemans says: “Rugged wild landscapes with their hills and mountains read like music to me. The Icelandic use the work fjallasyn to describe a distant view, especially in clear weather and from a point where you can see a big part of a highland area – a panorama with many peaks.”

Video of IMAGIRO:

[[{"fid":"13819","view_mode":"default","type":"media","field_deltas":{"12":{}},"link_text":null,"fields":{},"attributes":{"height":360,"width":480,"class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"12"}}]]

[Read the rest of the series HERE.]