Elaborate audio scores: concepts, affordances and tools

Over the past 18 years, I have repeatedly worked with auditive tools and audio scores that completely replaced any written score. The paper examines characteristics of the type of elaborate, autonomous audio score that I developed during this time, as well as attempts a preliminary classification of the compositional affordances that differentiate audio scores from visual scores. It describes the conveyance modes unique to audio scores; it touches on questions of control and context in elaborate audio scores, including on the question of whether such audio scores must necessarily be comprovisation scores; it details how, in the context of elaborate audio scores, the terms “practicing” and “rehearsal” describe other kinds of activities than they do in the context of visual scores; and it discusses unique problems of timing in the performance and composition of elaborate audio scores.