Making and using graphic scores: blog 1

A rewarding part of my BA Postdoctoral Fellowship is to investigate inclusive and flexible strategies in creative music workshops for children and young people with additional support needs (ASN). Graphic scores have been part of my repertoire of activities for delivering creative music workshops over 15 years. I have found them to be very effective across different age groups and for children with and without ASN.

A recent book chapter, Frames for Improvising (MacGlone, 2022) goes into detail about workshop activities I’ve developed and used over the years including warm-ups, conduction, working with pictures and symbols and free improvisation. What I’m working on now is to extend my thoughts about graphic scores both in the choice of materials I’m using and pedagogical approaches.

Graphic scores can use images, text, different forms of notation and combinations of these elements with varying levels of choice possible for participants depending on the composers’ intent and instruction. Individuals can have ‘their own visual, emotional, musical, sensory and aesthetic perception(s) of a score’ (MacGlone 2021). Although I wrote this about the process of creating a score for a group of professional musicians, this aligns with my experiences of making scores with people of all ages.

As a field of practice and an artistic process, graphic scores have had periods of focused interest and development for example in the 1950s and 60s (Wimbish, 2020). Using them in music education offers potential for developing children’s creativity and agency (Reybrouck et al., 2009). However, in common with other improvisation strategies, they can be used with different educational purposes (MacGlone & Johansen, 2024).

Musical dots

I have used graphic scores with different age groups. For very young children, GIObabies is a series of workshops for children from 0-5 years and their carers. Workshop content is a mixture of known songs, made up songs, free improvisations, graphic scores and conduction. Every workshop is different as a key aspect for the facilitators is to respond to the people in the room and base activities on the best option for the group at the time.

The following graphic score was created in 2015, with a group of 4 children ranging from 8 months – 36 months. Each child was invited to pick a coloured sticky dot and to place it on the page. We then asked the children for sounds to represent the dots. We, (myself and flute player Emma Roche) played the dots which were babbling, singing and clapping and squeaky sounds, improvising between dots. We played this score a few times, pointing to the different dots when it was time for children to make the new sound with us. The oldest child pointed to her dot when she wanted to hear her particular sound.

A walk in nature

The next score comes from a project in 2019 in a Glasgow Nursery with children aged 4 and 5. We had three musicians, myself on bass, Emma on flute again and Stu Brown on drums. To tie in with their topic, we invited children to create a narrative for a ‘walk in nature’ which we would play music for with the children on small percussion instruments, body percussion and voice. We (practitioners and children) made symbols for leaves, sun, stars, clouds, rain and chose different types of music material to represent them. The children created their own ways to direct the music as well as choosing the order of the symbols. In the next picture J held up two cloud symbols. He didn’t tell us what he wanted us to play, it was a spontaneous action. In response to this, we instinctively played louder and more intensely which he said was ‘cool’. Later, he showed us the leaf symbol and experimented with movement, first holding it up high and moving it gently. He increased the number and intensity of movements until we were playing loudly and rhythmically  - still trying to preserve the musical features of our original leaf music

In this project, children could personalise their contribution, by decorating symbols, by telling the musicians what they wanted the symbols to sound like - ‘that’s not starry enough’ - for star music and by moving to give the musicians further directions for dynamics, pitch and pulse with their bodily gestures

Affordances and next steps

It is interesting to reflect on what happened – both of the examples were remembered from successful workshops. The children enjoyed themselves and were very engaged with the activity which was commented on positively by the adults who were with them. In particular, a nursery teacher commented on how the activity held J’s attention in a way that most other nursery activities didn’t. Thinking about the affordances – the possibilities for action that children have provides a useful starting point -  however - this can become complicated in a workshop where practitioner decision making is based on ‘in-the-moment’ choices. I’ve worked with both musicians for over 20 years, when we are delivering workshops there are many decisions happening very quickly and they are often negotiated non-verbally – through eye contact, gesture and through our improvised music.  

I will be looking at communicative processes in workshops – but first I thought it best to investigate the nature of materials that can be used for making graphic scores. These materials in themselves invite ways for children to participate and engage their imaginations. In early 2022, I was awarded a small internal grant from Edinburgh College of Art which made it possible to work with a community artist (Jean McEwan) who used collage as a participatory and artistic method in her work. I had used her ‘instant graphic score packs’ (written about here) in workshops for a few years with adults with success and wondered how they may work for children and young people with ASN.

The next blog will examine the role of my partners, Limelight Music and important processes in their approach to delivering music.

References

MacGlone, U. M.  (2021) ‘Visual strategies for sound: the key to graphic scores’ The Wire [online] Available at: [Accessed 18.08.22] https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/essays/visual-strategies-for-sound-the-key-to-graphic-scores

MacGlone, U.M. (2022) ‘Frameworks for Improvising’. In General Music: Dimensions of Practice Abril, C. R. & Gault, B. M. (eds), New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

MacGlone, U. M., & Gravem Johansen, G. (2024). Teaching free improvisation: European higher music education teachers’ conceptual tools. International Journal of Music Education.

Reybrouck, M., Verschaffel, L., Lauwerier, S. (2009). Children’s graphical notations as representational tools for musical sense-making in a music-listening task. British Journal of Music Education, 26(2), 189–211.

Wimbish, R. (2020). ‘Is this your composition, or is this some sort of collaboration?’ Examining a professional musician’s attitude towards graphic composition. Music & Practice, 6. https://www.musicandpractice.org/volume-6/examining-a-professional-musicians-attitude-towards-graphic-composition/