Digital Scores – investigating the technological transformation of the music score

Digital scores utilising computational technology and digital media are emerging worldwide as the next evolutionary stage in the concept of the music score (Vear 2019). Yet there has been no scientific study of digital scores; nor their effect upon creativity and musicianship.

This is remarkable for two reasons: First, because digital scores are generating new music experiences, innovative compositional approaches, novel performance opportunities, and broader accessibility for a vast number of musicians and music cultures around the world.

Second, because many topics immediately adjacent or informing digital scores have been theorised thereby liberating these subjects and innovating creative practices, e.g. digital media art, digital performance, electro-acoustic music.

This project will launch the first scientific investigation into the transformation of the music score through computational technologies.

The core aims of the project are to: (1) determine scientific knowledge of how digital scores stimulate new creative opportunities and experiences within a range of music practices, (2) develop a theoretical framework for digital scores as an important transdisciplinary area of research, (3) build a scientific study of inclusive digital musicianship through the transformative potential of the digital score.

This project will investigate these questions through an innovative combination of artistic and scientific research methods, undertaken by a transdisciplinary and international team of scientists and artists, led by a world expert of digital scores: Prof. Dr. Craig Vear.

This is real “frontier research”, the benefits of which extend beyond music studies into computer science, new media research, digital humanities, performance studies and creative practice.