Abstract:

This paper introduces StringScore, a productive text-based Music Representation for Composition that provides a visual arrangement of motivic elements in a compact and meaningful layout of characters. Time dimension is represented horizontally, taking the text character as the time unit, thus considering character strings as time-lines where musical elements are sequenced. While being compact, Stringscore provides a high degree of independent control of the fundamentals of traditional composition, such as musical form, harmony, melodic contour, texture and counterpoint. The description of the proposed representation has been illustrated with musical examples of applied composition. As an additional validation, StringScore has been successfully applied in the analysis and re-composition of the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Finally, the paper presents "StringScore in the Cloud", a Web-based implementation that probes the representation in the environment of the Computer Music Cloud.