Are scores maps? A cartographic response to Goodman

Nelson Goodman's theory of notation attempts to provide an ambitious, unified account of how systems of symbolic representation preserve and transmit information and how they differ from pictorial depiction. However, Goodman's account of music and dance notation has proven unpopular, with some critics objecting to the rigor with which scores and musical symbols are assumed to designate musical works and their constituent elements. This paper reconsiders a Goodmanian account of a music notation system in the light of recent philosophical work on maps and map-like cognition. Specifically, I propose that scores do not act as compound symbols that uniquely designate musical works. Instead notational components of scores are better understood as contingent surface-level features leveraged by an underlying map-like representational structure. On this account, scores are seen to be highly conventionalized maps, and the notational symbols of scores constitute just one of multiple modes of representation and depiction harnessed by this framework. Finally, I consider several contemporary examples of music notation and discuss how a cartographic theory of notation may provide novel insights into the graphic design considerations of these scores, particularly those that rely on new notation platforms such as graphic design software or animation, where depictive and symbolic strategies are frequently hybridized