I've decided im going to write a piece, or series of pieces that relate to the paraline drawing technique. Im not exactly sure how to go about this, my main idea is to write music that will itself be in paraline form- i've also toyed with the idea of writing music that will create an architectural image, rather than just some abstract space-drawing. I think the second of these is a better idea, maybe both though, who knows. its a project i have for the summer.

Now i have no problem with this, but i thought of possible objections that musicians might have- that its music thats relies so heavily on the visual aspect of notation and isnt that a preoccupation with creating images rather than creating music? isnt it non-musical?

my response:

Well, no more non-musical than serialism. A drawing is just giving you the perimeters for the notes to go, just as a tone row does- they both rely on some sort of notational structure first and then musical (aural) attributes secondly- not to say serialism doesn’t deal with musical attributes, of course it does, but it is just as pre-occupied with the visual as i would be if i drew, say, the spire of the Chrysler building in musical notes.

so why didnt a school of visual-musical artists who draw in notes not develop along side serialism? The value structure is the same for both- fulfilling the notational criteria is primary, everything else is secondary- so im really not sure why composers didnt adopt this idea. Probably because the extra-musical value here is too explicit, it could seem banal or trivializing to music (as if it doesnt with the serialist meathod!)ah well.