The Beginning of Happiness

Western canon, or other arts. The “inwardly, outwardly, spatially” instruc-

tions could refer to tube trains running below and above ground; but it could
also be interpreted metaphorically.
Howard Skempton’s Drum No. 1, HSDNO1 (Cardew, ed. 1969, 3), also appears
in the Scratch Anthology of Compositions (Cardew 1971, 13) and reads, “Any num-
ber of drums. Introduction of the pulse. Continuation of the pulse. Deviation
through emphasis, decoration, contradiction.” Unlike CH27, however, Drum
No. 1 is a composition, not a Rite, as the score describes orchestration, the pro-
gress of the music in time, and what will be heard. There are compositional
limits, however: Drum No. 1 does not specify drum types, and their number is
indeterminate, as is the tempo. Performers usually set a moderate pulse, antic-
ipating the decoration in the third part. Most happy performances will exhibit
some sort of familial resemblance, no matter what the instrumentation, length
of play, or type of decoration. There are no supplementary notes for this piece.
Forms in Improvisation Rites can be cyclic—as CH27—but also closed, end-
less, contingent on the actions of other players, formes trouvée, and so on. Drum
No. 1 is tripartite: a pulse that is extended and then varied.

conclusions
This chapter provides only an introduction to this approach to experimental
graphic and text notation. By necessity, I have focused on types and genres of
scores, presenting only a taste of the possibilities for happy performances in
only a small selection of pieces. Since performance is so “hands-on,” the expe-
rience of playing these scores is personal, even intimate. I have mentioned the
semantic and syntactic joy that my students found in Brecht’s very minimal Tea
Event and their variant performances of Four Systems for the video-game gener-
ation. Performance is not necessarily musical; it can be taken into “real” life.
At the Orpheus Institute Sound and Score conference, I performed Tube Train
Rite, marked and made inward, outward, and spatially, simultaneously in a num-
ber of ways. First, I mapped and made my journey from my home in Leicester,
England, to the Orpheus Institute. Second, my journey was programmed into
my satellite navigation device—a realisation that Mitchell could never imagine
in 1969. This chapter is a stage in a metaphorical journey that I have been mak-
ing on the subject of notation. In one sense my journey on this chapter started
with the call for papers for the conference and concludes with this chapter. In
another sense, my journey began with my first essay on the aesthetics of nota-
tion in 1974. I can imagine that this journey will only end when I do.

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