Since the mid-20th century, approaches to musical notation have multiplied, giving rise to a multitude of terminologies and classifications. While there exists an extremely rich literature on new approaches to musical notation, it is easy to be confused by a nomenclature that is still under construction and has yet to be formalised. Based on a narrative review of the scientific literature comprising over 250 documents on new forms of notations, this article aims to present the main terminologies used to describe the different approaches to notation. This article proposes a framework illustrating what we observed as the most prominent notation approaches (action-based scores, animated scores, graphic scores, etc.) according to the types of indications (prescriptive and/or descriptive), the notation encoding (semantic and temporal encoding), and the mediums used for transmission (screen, printed, etc.). The contemporary notation framework aims to provide tools for the further analysis and classification of musical notation used in contemporary instrumental, electronic, and electroacoustic music.

This paper investigates the emergence, development and creative potential of three-dimensional musical scores, examining their transformation from physical layered media to contemporary mixed reality implementations. Through analysis of key historical works and recent technological innovations, it explores how depth and spatial materiality in musical notation create new possibilities for compositional organisation, performance practice and aesthetic expression. The study examines pioneering works utilising transparent overlays and physical depth by composers such as Cage and Takemitsu, before analysing contemporary applications in augmented and virtual reality environments that enable dynamic, interactive score generation and networked performance possibilities. Drawing on phenomenological perspectives and spatial theory, the research demonstrates how three-dimensional scores challenge traditional temporal-spatial relationships in musical notation while suggesting new frameworks for understanding musical structure and interpretation. Technical affordances and limitations of current mixed reality platforms are evaluated, alongside consideration of their implications for future developments in notation and composition. The paper argues that while three-dimensional scores offer compelling new creative possibilities, their successful implementation requires both technological expertise and collaborative approaches that may reshape traditional models of compositional practice.

This article explores phenomenological open graphic notation as an effective scoring method for instrumentalists engaging with chaotic systems in interactive electroacoustic music. Open graphic notation has long provided composers with a means of fostering interpretative freedom in musical performance. The subjective nature of open graphic scores establishes a dynamic relationship between the score and the performer that parallels the interactions between musicians and chaotic systems in interactive electroacoustic music. Chaotic systems, characterised by their non-linear and unpredictable behaviour, often necessitate improvisatory approaches rather than reliance on fixed notation. However, notation can serve as a structural framework, affording composers greater formal control while supporting performers who may be less accustomed to improvisation. How, then, might notation be used with chaotic systems in interactive electroacoustic music? Drawing on phenomenological concepts such as the lived body, embodied action and Gestalt perception, this notational approach can provide a structured yet flexible means of guiding performer–system interactions. The author presents three recent compositions as case studies, demonstrating how phenomenological open graphic notation can shape and mediate the performer’s engagement with chaotic systems in interactive electroacoustic music.

Polychrony is a virtual or artificial tempor[e]ality that is constructed by the fine augmentation or tempering of a natural set of latencies that articulate a complex networked acoustic. The art is to optimise the alignment of these disjunct temporalities as they merge in a new chronotopic fusion. This fooling with Mother Nature, however, does not come without consequences: due to the significant latency effects intrinsic to a planetary-scale network, a phenomenon called topo-rhythmia emerges. Toporhythms are derived simply as a feature of communication over distance; they are the multiple versions of a rhythm that occur at each node of a networked piece due to the temporal offsets caused by delay. To work with this feature more intentionally, rather than as an accident of relativity, we must tune or temper the network latency. Tempering is a general tactic for ontological negotiation, bringing observers and complex systems into some kind of coherency. The purpose of this article is to explore the tempering of musical time-space on networks and how that underlies the notational practices (and the alien compositional assumptions) built upon this novel orientation.

This article explores new approaches for notating the morphology of sound using the framework of CS Peirce’s concept of indexical signs. While pictographic and symbolic notation struggle to notate the lived dynamic experience of music, indexical notation offers new possibilities for attending to the material, temporal and spectral flux of sound. Drawing from theories outlined by Floris Schuiling, this article presents a case study of an interactive score titled Undersong1 for solo performer that eschews symbolic or pictographic notation in favour of establishing indexical causal relationships between performer and visual responses. The case study suggests that indexical signs may offer an accessible way to engage performers with spectral and morphological elements of sound, opening new pathways for notation to engage experiential phenomena.

Drawing on Umberto Eco’s epistemological metaphor of the open work, this paper explores the intersection of two open forms of notation, inherent scores and text scores, with generative AI. Building on the notion of inherent scores, in which the interface merges with the notation, we introduce embodied sketching, a notational approach that streamlines composition and performance with real-time neural audio synthesis (NAS). We then examine text scores in text-to-audio NAS, presenting Mouja+, a work combining real-time NAS with embodied sketches and AI-generated audio from Fluxus scores. Based on the experience of composing and performing Mouja+, we show how AI’s statistical processing of language introduces interpretative gaps between the human understanding of the scores and the model’s output and propose prompting strategies to streamline the use of text scores with text-to-audio generative AI. We continue by discussing how NAS adds to the open work through algorithmic processes that coalesce into an elusive and deferring sense of presence. Through Derrida’s notion of hauntology, we thus extend the open work into what we term the ‘haunted work’, an epistemological metaphor encompassing a growing corpus of works engaging with the tension between presence and absence as a source of openness.

This paper examines how the design and realisation of a concert presentation entitled Drawing Sound in Space led to the concept of digital spatial notation. Seven Australian composers were commissioned to create digital scores for an electroacoustic chamber music ensemble, and scores were shared with the audience. The author argues that contemporary digital notation practices enhance live performances of new music by expanding concepts of the audiovisual to include alternative notational approaches engaging with space, creating a ‘spatial notation’. Further, Drawing Sound in Space aimed to transform musicianship and audience experience by offering a more immersive encounter with music notation as a multimodal, social practice where audience engagement and musical understanding are enhanced. A theoretical framework is provided to facilitate the analysis of each work, where semiotic expansion, temporal engagement, distributed agency and spatial reconfiguration are discussed. Through different approaches to presenting music notation in Drawing Sound in Space, the project sought to provide audiences with a novel concert experience whilst simultaneously challenging composers to design notation intended for audiences as well as performers.

This text explores how electronic musical instruments and electronic music ensembles can relate to composition and music notation by discussing the instruments in terms of existing practice in traditional instrumentation and in relation to symbolic electroacoustic music analysis. Starting from orchestration theory, the text considers how electronic musical instruments behave and are used, both with support from the author’s own practice and from a case study with students within the framework of a live-electronic ensemble course. The case study reflected the participants’ practice as creative composers/musicians, and how their exploratory and experimental approaches to their instruments proved important, creating challenges for notation. Traditionally, music notation relies on continuous changes of simple parameters, while performances with complex electronic instruments may have just as important information to document regarding their initial connectivity and parameter settings.

Music notation has evolved to accommodate music and musical instruments as they have changed over time. However, the rapid advancement of musical technology has not been accompanied by a corresponding development and consensus in notation. This paper examines the challenges faced by notation in representing music written for augmented instruments. We contend that a novel understanding of musical works is necessary and propose a work-concept that recognises the significance of the technology – medium – that composers develop alongside their creations. We emphasise the role of the score within this work-concept model and present an instrumental augmentation system as a case study. Finally, we propose notation guidelines for augmented instruments and argue that standardising notation could facilitate the discovery of common ground that guides the development of augmented instruments and music written for them.

Étude n°1 is a solo for feedback and effects pedals by David Caulet. Originally designed to enrich the electric guitar’s timbre, effects pedals have been widely repurposed by experimental and improvising musicians. Although their use is now common, notation practices associated with these devices remain underdeveloped. This work explores the development of a graphic system dedicated to representing instrumental gestures and opens perspectives for a notation framework adapted to contemporary musical practices incorporating electronic technologies.

This article revisits the concept of the instrument’s inherent score, exploring how musical instruments can embody a form of notation that both shapes and inspires performance. Building on earlier research (Tomás 2016; Tomás and Kaltenbrunner 2014), the study examines the historical and theoretical foundations of this idea, tracing its roots to experimental music practices of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly within the Sonic Arts Union collective. Composers such as Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma and Nicolas Collins have described how electronic instruments embody compositional elements, effectively functioning as scores. The paper argues that the instrument’s score emerges from the material and symbolic affordances of the instrument, mediating the performer’s engagement with its sonic and physical properties. This concept has influenced contemporary digital instrument design, where the boundary between composition and instrument becomes blurred. The study also engages with theoretical frameworks from Vilém Flusser and Friedrich Kittler, situating the instrument’s score within broader discourses on technology and embodiment. Finally, the paper explores the challenges of notating such scores, drawing parallels with choreographic practices, and concludes by emphasising the body’s central role in interpreting and enacting these inscriptions during performance.

Notating electroacoustic music can be challenging due to the uniqueness of the instruments employed. Electronic instruments can include generative components that can manipulate sound at different time levels, in which parameter variations can correlate non-linearly to changes in the instrument’s timbre. The way compositions for electronic instruments are notated depends on their interfaces and the parameter controls available to performers, which determine the state of their sound-generating system. In this article, we propose a notation system for generative synthesis based on a projection from its parameter space to a timbre space, allowing to organise synthesiser states based on their timbral characteristics. To investigate this approach, we introduce the Meta-Benjolin, a state-based notation system for chaotic sound synthesis employing a three-dimensional, navigable timbre space and a composition timeline. The Meta-Benjolin was developed as a control structure for the Benjolin, a chaotic synthesiser. Framing chaotic synthesis as a specific instance of generative synthesis, we discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the state- and timbre-based representation we designed based on the thematic analysis of an interview study with 19 musicians, who composed a piece using the Meta-Benjolin notational interface.

This article proposes queernotation as a lens to understanding existing works and as a way forward for composers and musicians who find themselves limited by traditional forms of music notation. Applying queer ways of knowing and creating, I investigate the inherent boundaries in notation and how queer theory can guide us to break out of them. Queernotation connects score types to three key areas of queer theory: queer erotics, queer temporalities and queer futurity. Extending these theoretical approaches to their musical possibilities, I identify three modes of queering notation. These approaches are demonstrated in this article through existing historical and recent works and practically applied in a chamber opera that tests concepts of queernotation in directing improvisers to perform conceptual ideas on the stage. Notation for electronic instruments and with digital mediums demonstrates how technology facilitates new approaches that can queer music notation.

Generative soundscapes in exhibition spaces offer new possibilities for integrating artistic practice, technological innovation and perceptual experience. Contemporary tools – including stochastic algorithms, random oscillators and diverse methods of sound synthesis – enable the construction of environments that respond dynamically to external conditions. With the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning, such systems acquire additional flexibility: they are able to register the presence and movement of visitors, evaluate changes in audience density and adjust to the acoustic properties of the space in real time. As a result, sound layers can emerge when a participant approaches, the balance of elements may shift with fluctuations in the crowd, and potential peaks in volume can be anticipated and mitigated. In this way, a fixed soundtrack is transformed into an adaptive system, where the exhibition environment functions as an active, responsive organism. Sound ceases to serve merely as a background and becomes a structural component that directly influences how the artistic work is perceived.