understood it, we need to examine these scores in close detail by patrolling the

border of possibility and impossibility that lies within them.

I cannot present a complete method for analysing text and graphic notation
here, but I will present three initial analytical approaches. The first approach
involves the physical properties of a score. What type of score is it? Is it writ-
ten in graphic, text, or common-practice (normal) notation, or a combination?
How is it read? Is it read like a language (syntactically), like visual art (pictori-
ally), or as literature (metaphorically)? The second approach involves how the
musical idea is transmitted from composer to performer and listener through
the score: what is the duty of each, what does each actor make up, and what
do they take in? I shall show how John Cage’s 4’33” has been defined by indi-
vidual performance interpretations, rather than fixed compositional elements.
Interpretation is important to understanding an indeterminate piece, but it
must be considered differently, using the third approach, indeterminacy.
What are the limits of realisation in a given piece? What is possible, and what is
impossible? We come, quite literally, to Santayana’s beginning of happiness, as
I apply J. L. Austin’s idea—that performative utterances are relatively “happy”
or “unhappy” according to the possibility of their implementation—to exper-
imental performances as being relatively “happy” or “unhappy” according to
their relationship to the score (Austin 1975, 6∏.). I conclude with brief case
studies, mostly from the Scratch Orchestra collection of Improvisation Rites,
Nature Study Notes, showing their structure, transmission, and the implications
for happy and unhappy outcomes that lie in the score.

the first approach: physical properties

Scores in alternative notation are classified by their physical types. Graphic
scores, the first type, are usually “drawn” in some manner and may be symbolic or
pictorial. Symbolic graphic scores connect elements to sounds syntactically, to
be read like written language or common-practice (so-called “normal”) Western
notation. Earle Brown’s Four Systems (1954) is highly symbolic, consisting of the
titular four systems. Each system is bounded by two continuous parallel horizon-
tal lines running from the left to the right on the page, representing the extreme
borders of the keyboard. A number of thick and thin lines appear within and par-
allel to these borders; these lines are the “notes” to be played. Four Systems is read
“in any sequence, either side up, at any tempo” (Brown 1952–4). This direction
promises greater performance freedom than it actually allows, as the textures
of the systems are quite similar throughout. No matter which way this score is
read, it is a score in proportional notation (also known as “time-space” nota-
tion), in which the height of internal marks indicates relative pitch and thick-
ness may indicate dynamics or clusters. Proportional notation is neither barred
nor metered like common-practice notation, but it is read similarly. The per-
former reads Four Systems in time from left to right, low to high, between the two
border lines, in the same way as she reads common-practice notation from left
to right, low to high. Similarly, listeners can follow an observant performance in

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