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Eye music
Eye music (often referred to in English by its exact German translation Augenmusik) describes graphical features of scores which when performed are unnoticeable by the listener.
By simple definition eye music is when the graphic notation of music is altered in some meaningful way visible to the performers. Often the changed "meaning" of the altered notation is enhanced by the music having compositional elements of melody and form such as word painting and canon. Moreover, the concept is demonstrated by sometimes differing perceptions of composer, performer, and listener.
The difficulty in definition is also apparent with border-line cryptographic contrapuntal works such as puzzle canons, which appear in the score entirely as a bare line of notes with clefs, rests, time signatures, key signatures or brief cryptic clues in Latin to reveal multiple lines of music in canons of diminution, augmentation, etc. (Closer to true cryptographic works would be those with soggetto cavato, where letters are embedded in the work using their solfège names.) As an example, a puzzle canon might be notated as one line of music with two key signatures and clefs, where the worked-out result will be a two-voice canon with one voice the retrograde (reverse) of the other. In itself the score with the clues alone is not eye music. But represent the same work "graphically spelled out," however, say with a drawing of the clued score facing a mirror, and the score/drawing becomes eye music.
The type of puzzle canon is also a factor. A four-voiced circular canon, when notated as a puzzle canon, may remain an un-worked-out single line of notes, and be inadmissible as eye music. When that single line of notes is inscribed in a graphical shape it becomes eye music, even if the contrapuntal puzzle remains unsolved.
An even finer use of graphical conceit is when the canon does not have any musical way to end, and are in a sense "infinite"—classically referred to as canon perpetuus, more commonly as "circular canons," and even more commonly as "rounds." When an infinite (circular) canon is inscribed in a circle, and the circle itself is a clue that means "play me as a round," a different type of eye music entails.
Another class of eye music is when the score is purposely made difficult for the performer. For example, in Benedetto Marcello's cantata Stravaganze d’amore, the continuo part is written entirely in enharmonic chords, that is, "puns" of chord indications spelled with no regard to the key of the rest of the ensemble, but (in equal temperament) indistinguishable audibly from those spelled in the appropriate way. Here, the perverse spelling (whether humorous or annoying to the trained continuo player) is not unusual graphically, but represents a score writing unmotivated except as an inside joke between composer and performer, and is unhearable by the listener.
The Gulliver Suite by Telemann discussed below, shows a combination of three eye music features. The score is made difficult "unnecessarily," is eye-catching for its graphics, and has a clever external reference, all unnoticeable by the listener.
Two examples of eye music from the early Renaissance are from Baude Cordier (ca. 1380-ca.1440). Cordier's chanson about love Belle, bonne, sage is in a heart shape, with red notes (coloration) indicating rhythmic alterations. Eye-music-within-eye music is in the small group of notes hanging like a locket in the upper left, also all in red and in the shape of a heart. Another work of Cordier, this time inscribed in circles, Tout par compas suy composés ("With a compass was I composed"), goes out of its way to identify itself as eye music.
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Eye music AI simulator
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Eye music
Eye music (often referred to in English by its exact German translation Augenmusik) describes graphical features of scores which when performed are unnoticeable by the listener.
By simple definition eye music is when the graphic notation of music is altered in some meaningful way visible to the performers. Often the changed "meaning" of the altered notation is enhanced by the music having compositional elements of melody and form such as word painting and canon. Moreover, the concept is demonstrated by sometimes differing perceptions of composer, performer, and listener.
The difficulty in definition is also apparent with border-line cryptographic contrapuntal works such as puzzle canons, which appear in the score entirely as a bare line of notes with clefs, rests, time signatures, key signatures or brief cryptic clues in Latin to reveal multiple lines of music in canons of diminution, augmentation, etc. (Closer to true cryptographic works would be those with soggetto cavato, where letters are embedded in the work using their solfège names.) As an example, a puzzle canon might be notated as one line of music with two key signatures and clefs, where the worked-out result will be a two-voice canon with one voice the retrograde (reverse) of the other. In itself the score with the clues alone is not eye music. But represent the same work "graphically spelled out," however, say with a drawing of the clued score facing a mirror, and the score/drawing becomes eye music.
The type of puzzle canon is also a factor. A four-voiced circular canon, when notated as a puzzle canon, may remain an un-worked-out single line of notes, and be inadmissible as eye music. When that single line of notes is inscribed in a graphical shape it becomes eye music, even if the contrapuntal puzzle remains unsolved.
An even finer use of graphical conceit is when the canon does not have any musical way to end, and are in a sense "infinite"—classically referred to as canon perpetuus, more commonly as "circular canons," and even more commonly as "rounds." When an infinite (circular) canon is inscribed in a circle, and the circle itself is a clue that means "play me as a round," a different type of eye music entails.
Another class of eye music is when the score is purposely made difficult for the performer. For example, in Benedetto Marcello's cantata Stravaganze d’amore, the continuo part is written entirely in enharmonic chords, that is, "puns" of chord indications spelled with no regard to the key of the rest of the ensemble, but (in equal temperament) indistinguishable audibly from those spelled in the appropriate way. Here, the perverse spelling (whether humorous or annoying to the trained continuo player) is not unusual graphically, but represents a score writing unmotivated except as an inside joke between composer and performer, and is unhearable by the listener.
The Gulliver Suite by Telemann discussed below, shows a combination of three eye music features. The score is made difficult "unnecessarily," is eye-catching for its graphics, and has a clever external reference, all unnoticeable by the listener.
Two examples of eye music from the early Renaissance are from Baude Cordier (ca. 1380-ca.1440). Cordier's chanson about love Belle, bonne, sage is in a heart shape, with red notes (coloration) indicating rhythmic alterations. Eye-music-within-eye music is in the small group of notes hanging like a locket in the upper left, also all in red and in the shape of a heart. Another work of Cordier, this time inscribed in circles, Tout par compas suy composés ("With a compass was I composed"), goes out of its way to identify itself as eye music.