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Abstract

This paper investigates a range of approaches to using text scores in online and networked music performance, focusing on their alignment with strategies proposed by Wilson (2020) for aesthetic and technical approaches to networked music performance. Text scores, emerging from the experimental music movement of the 1960s, communicate musical ideas through words rather than traditional notation, taking instructional, allusive, and hybrid forms. Although there are many aesthetic and pragmatic approaches to text score composition, the temporal openness of many such works makes the medium well-suited to the latency-challenged practice of telematic performance. The study evaluates four text scores—Craig Pedersen’s July 22, 2019 (2019) and September 26, 2023 (2023); Lindsay Vickery’s Salmon Hats (2024); and Stuart James’ Transformation in the Present (2025)—performed by a geographically distributed networked ensemble across Perth, Western Australia, and Stanthorpe, Queensland, Australia. Analyses of recordings demonstrate that scores with open interpretive frameworks can accommodate network latency and telepresence challenges, while allusive scores are more sensitive to network instability but support collective interpretive interaction. The results suggest that text scores, whether instructional, allusive, or hybrid, can effectively support creative outcomes in networked contexts, particularly when they exploit openness, multiple interpretations, and digital mediation. These findings highlight the potential of text-based notation to enhance telematic collaboration and expand compositional strategies in contemporary experimental music.

License Information

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

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