Name
Exploring the Pitch Clef as a Strategy for Vocal Creation
Date & Time
Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 4:05 PM - 5:05 PM
Description
The pitch clef is an alternative notation used by some erudite music composers from Brazil that worked with a broader conception of music than the traditional tonal and metric patterns. In their creations, they encompassed noise and new sound sources, as well as the inaccuracy of composition that incorporate the creative action of the performer. Both the increase of the material considered musical and the new ways of sound organization demand changes on how to graphically register music, since the traditional pentagram does not manage the new alternatives of composition. An example of the pitch clef used by composer Lindemberg Cardoso (1929-1989) for four voices (and instruments) can be found in Nogueira (2012, p. 17). We take this amplified conception of musical creation to the classroom, adopting the pitch clef as a strategy to explore several possibilities of sound movement. With the pitch clef indicating the high / middle / low regions, we can teach a rather simple notation of analogical base to represent the sound ideas, in which the lines refer to the durations and changes of sound according to the pitch parameter. Therefore, students can graphically represent glissandos, oscillations, intonations, sustained or repeated sounds, sequences of ascending or descending sounds, shorter or longer, attaching vowels or syllables to these sounds. Thus, musical sentences in one or two voices can be created. The workshop proposes exercises of sound/musical creation with the use of the pitch clef associated with the exploration of the vocal tract’s possibilities. After its introduction by the teacher, students will graph and perform their sentences with the other participants. Since there is no indication of pulse or tempo, the movement of the conductor’s hand over this alternative score is what shows the speed of the execution. We can also do it backwards: the retrograde, principle used in dodecaphonic composition. In the second moment of the workshop, a sound creation using the sea as a theme is going to be elaborated with the students’ participation. This elaboration has a more developed planning of sound resources aiming the musical and expressive result - so, it has a compositional character. The sound accomplishments produced in the workshop will be recorded (by the teacher’s digital recorder) and soon after listened to and discussed by the group. Finally, we will discuss the possibilities of the pitch clef as a teaching strategy for vocal creative activities.Keywords: vocal creation, alternative notation, teaching strategy.
Location Name
515B
Full Address
Palais des Congres - Montréal Convention Centre
1001, Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle
Montreal QC H2Z 1H2
Canada
1001, Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle
Montreal QC H2Z 1H2
Canada
Session Type
Workshop
Presenting Author(s)
Maura Penna