smallest functional unit was founded in 2020 by Ute Wassermann, Tony Buck, Mazen Kerbaj, Magda Mayas and Racha Gharbieh with the aim of performing and publishing unconventional, hybrid notational formats and graphic scores by international composers. The publication will appear as Graphème, a series with a thematic focus on experimental notation.
Graphème is a new publishing project featuring unconventional, hybrid notational formats and
graphic scores by international composers, performers and artists.
Musicians have always been working out ways to write down the music they make, to best
express the sounds they hear and the ideas they have, and to communicate to others those
aspects most important to them. Throughout history there have been many and varied solutions
to this quest, yet what we know and see as ‘traditional western notation’ has come to dominate
across much of the world, despite becoming more and more inappropriate for the purposes of
many contemporary composers.
As artists working in the areas of improvisation, composition, performance art and sound art, we
often find ourselves dealing with notational systems that are not always fit for purpose.
The development of idiosyncratic vocabularies and techniques based on in-depth research of
materiality and experimental set-ups is often central to the work of composer-performers and
requires relevant modes of representation. Notions of personal interpretation and spontaneous
decision making, gesture and flow, energy and momentum, transparency, memory, language,
alternate tunings, orientation in space are all aspects of music making that are inadequately
represented by traditional scores.
Both acknowledging and resisting the limitations and specificity of traditional systems of notation,
for decades the contemporary composer has sought ways of incorporating and making space
for the influence of other senses, of responding to unimagined circumstances – for exploiting
variation in spatial resonance, for unanticipated psychoacoustic phenomena, for spontaneous
inspiration, a re-ordering of material – yet still these works are rarely published and often remain
ignored in the general music publishing community.
For a long time performers have not been given the opportunity to acquire new work to perform
and present. Groundbreaking collections of alternative notational formats such as John Cage’s
Notations (1968) and Theresa Sauer’s Notations 21 (2009) are among the notable exceptions in
the publishing landscape.
Graphème aims to bridge areas between improvisation, composition, interpretation and
performance. We wish to address this imbalance by making available hybrid forms of notation
by a variety of contemporary composers representing a cross section of ideas and approaches,
as diverse as they are dynamic. In this first of what we intend to be a series of editions, artists
represented here work with photography, drawing, graphics, mixed media and object scores,
finding ways to notate and share idiosyncratic techniques and sonic elements.
Graphème will not only publish this exciting area of artistic expression, but will give composers
the opportunity to reflect upon and discuss their pieces, the work process and background that
contribute to their creation.
Challenging methods of composition, modes of representation and perceptions of ownership and
copyright are often at the very heart of this work.
We intend to offer a much needed alternative to most current modes of publishing in a practical,
accessible and approachable way.
In the words of Annea Lockwood, editor of Womens Work, her groundbreaking and similarly
focused magazine from the mid-70’s: “These scores are ready for you to do‘’.
smallest functional unit