Chosen Symbols

I picked which symbols I'm going to use. (I have to link to them rather than post them on this page because they use a bundled font, and some web browsers want that font to come from the same server as the text. I can't upload the font to blogspot, as far as I know.)

A couple of iPad users let me know they can see the upside-down treble clef, so I know that this font thing works on that device, so this is excellent news.

The symbols are sort-of grouped into noteheads, rests, lines, clefs, fermatas, circles, triangles, diamonds, and groovy percussion symbols. There are some cases in which different unicode chars seem to map to identical symbols. Some of the symbols, like the bars, don't makse sense by themselves, but need to have several grouped together. There's going to need to be some logic in how symbols are chosen by the program and used. Strings might be pre-defined, so regexes might indicate repetitions of a glyph.

While going through some papers, I found my first notes from when I first thought of this piece.

First Notes, originally uploaded by celesteh.

This piece started as a pen and paper idea. The ideas were:

Lines

1. staff lines that go funny, like intersecting lines, steps, etc.
2. wavy lines using a line drawing tool.

Notes

1. pitch sets definied before the lines go off --> indeterminate clefs
2. Ink blots that fall from an ink pen
3. granular clouds w/ pitch areas defined in margins

Changes

1. Transparencies, ala Cage
2. Apps written in processing or Open GL, use monitors or projector.
3. phone app?

The staff lines that go off is a good idea. They could start straight and then curve or just always be intersecting. This can't use the staff notation in the font, but will need to be a set of rules on how to draw lines.

Using indeterminate clefs is not as good an idea - it just means there are two possible versions of every note, which just builds chords.

By the end of making that outline, it was no longer a pen and paper piece!

Granular clouds are not well suited to vocal ensembles, but this idea did become another piece.

Cloud Drawings from Charles Céleste Hutchins on Vimeo.