Contemporary Music Review :: Volume 29, Issue 1 :: Special Issue: Virtual Scores and Real-Time Playing :: Arthur Clay and Jason Freeman, editors ::

Abstract:
Over the last decade, a growing number of composers have begun to use what is known as real-time notation in their work, and many have developed systems to facilitate its use in all types of performative situations. Although a community of practice around real-time notation is slowly emerging, there are few readily available tools for its creation, and little has been previously published about the technical, musical and design issues associated with its use.

We consider real-time music notation to be any notation, either traditional or graphic, which is created or transformed during an actual musical performance. However, the term has not been standardized, and various articles in this issue refer to real-time music notation using other terms, such as dynamic music notation, live scoring, virtual scoring, and reactive notation.

This issue seeks to convey current real-time notation practice through contributions from prominent musicians and researchers, exploring key questions from technical, musical and design perspectives in order to provide a survey of various approaches, their realizations, and the styles of music that have emerged. How does real-time notation relate to earlier experimental methods in open-form and malleable musical scores and in computer-assisted composition, and how does it further facilitate the exploration of the connections and boundaries between composers, performers and listeners? What software and hardware tools are available to create real-time notation systems, and what design challenges do composers face in creating real-time music notation that performers can sight-read in concert? Finally, how can real-time notation dissolve the divide between performers and audiences, and what possibilities exist to use real-time notation to create more engaging environments for audience participation?

The editors and authors hope that the articles in this issue will spark interest in these topics and that discussion of the questions raised here will further the development of a community of practice around them. We also hope that this issue helps raise awareness of this relatively new area within contemporary music circles and that it helps attract new people to this exciting field.

Preface
Preface: Virtual Scores and Real-Time Playing — Arthur Clay; Jason Freeman
Real-time Score Generation for Extensible Open Forms — David Kim-Boyle
Pedro Rebelo

Extending the KLANGPILOT Score Language for Real-Time Notation — Johannes Kretz
Notation in the Context of Quintet.net Projects — Georg Hajdu; Kai Niggemann; Ádám Siska; Andrea
Szigetvári
LiveScore: Real-Time Notation in the Music of Harris Wulfson — G. Douglas Barrett; Michael Winter
You Can Play It Too: The Virtuoso Audience — Arthur Clay
Density Trajectory Studies: Organizing Improvised Sound — Nick Didkovsky
Live Random Concepts and Sight-Reading Players: The Role of the Computer in the Era of Digested
Digitalism — Harald Muenz
The Real-Time-Score: Nucleus and Fluid Opus –Gerhard E. Winkler
Tools for Real-Time Music Notation — Jason Freeman; Andrew Colella