The standardized five-line staff defines how most of us read and record music. The Smithsonian Magazine describes standardized musical notation the way we might describe writing — as a structure that “set [music] free from the delicate bonds of oral and aural traditions.” But, just as the written word is only one (sometimes restrictive and markedly Western) way of representing and preserving information, music can be visualized in myriad ways that depart from the inflexibility of the staff. Progressive post-WWII composers — most notably John Cage — experimented with different graphic forms of musical notation, as seen below.
See more examples here.
