There arose in the 1950s, for a variety of social, artistic, and philosophical reasons, the interest in creating musical situations for which 'traditional' Western music notation was not suited. The new musical concerns were various. There was the desire to use a greater range of sounds and sound relationships, and to establish different degrees of collaboration between composer and performer. While some of these innovations were notated within 'traditional' notation or modifications of it, others required a complete break with notations of the past.

The sixty-five notational examples in SCRIBING SOUND should be thought of as a collection and not a category. A category, by its very nature, is perceived as a single kind or type of which there are numerous examples. Categorization distorts reality by emphasizing the similarities among its examples and masking the differences. Unfortunately, terms like 'graphic notation' have been applied loosely to any music notation out of the ordinary. What creates the illusion of a category of 'graphic notation' is their common departure from 'traditional' notation. But here the similarity ends. One of the purposes of SCRIBING SOUND is to demonstrate just how dissimilar from each other most new notations are. Even scores that may appear similar may actually be extremely different in their notative function as different notative systems can use the same symbols in much the same way that different languages can use some of the same letters in their alphabets.

Musicians and audience members often ask why traditional notation cannot be used for any musical situation. They seem unaware that what is commonly called 'traditional' notation is a collective abstraction (or category) involving many different notational concepts that have evolved over the centuries as new musical and technical ideas demanded their invention.

Notation is a functional matter, but has always had social and political implications as well. Uncomfortable with the coexistence of a multitude of notations, many scholars, musicians, and composers are calling for notational standardization. They see our present state of notational diversity as a reflection of mere confusion. Why not codify (further categorize) notational symbols and techniques for the sake of convenience, communication, and accessibility. But at the same time codification allows convenience and communication, it also limits the primary function of art--the exploration and expansion of our consciousness. To standardize notation is to standardize patterns of thought and the parameters of creativity. Our present abundance of notations is as it should be. It makes our differences more clear.