on silence must be…

| gesture has become such a critical part of both my playing and my research i felt the need to study the cornerstone pieces in the repertoire that deal with gestue - i feel like no other composer really encapsulates this concept better than thierry de mey and his work for percussion - his experience and work in dance absolutely translates to his composed works and that can be seen through the content of the music as well as the notation with which it is communicated - percussionists are particularly used to interpreting unconventional scores, some of our first solo pieces are written in non-western notation - this score has an interesting approach in which it creates a composite of many different approaches of notation including western rhythmic notation, written instructions, and simple pictures and diagrams to transmit the composers intent to the performer |

| in some ways, this notation style reminds of rudolf laban’s notation for choreographers and dancers - laban’s notation includes much more information including stage direction, body parts, and much more, de mey’s composition looks rather simple by those standards - this is, however, at the benefit of the performer because if it had been notated any differently, i struggle to imagine a world where this piece would become a cornerstone of the percussion repertoire as it has - i look forward to studying more from thierry de mey and finalizing my thoughts on his notation style, as it will surely affect my one compositional process of notation for gesture performer |

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