So, the whole thing with 'WET' scores (which, if you’re keeping track, stands for Words, Events, Text) is that they upend the entire traditional structure of musical notation, which is usually as rigid and predefined as a Monopoly game...one rule, one symbol, one interpretation.
But what happens when we treat the score less like a set of instructions and more like, say, a kind of linguistic collage? Enter Augusto de Campos and the entire verbivocovisual paradigm of concrete poetry, which takes language and breaks it apart, frees it, so that words aren’t just units of meaning but also visual and sonic objects. In Campos’s hands, the page becomes a space for the interplay between text, sound, and image, something that a traditional poem or sentence can never fully do. WET scores, I’d argue, are basically that same idea, but for music. They blow up the whole idea of notation as this series of prescriptive symbols and instead invite the performer into a space where words do things...where they’re active, dynamic agents in the music, not just placeholders for sound.
If you’re familiar with de Campos, you’ll know his work leans on this whole idea of verbivocovisual creation. It's a fancy term that just means he’s fusing words, sound, and visual elements into one, single, intertwined act of communication. It’s not that the words represent sound or image; it’s that they are sound and image, simultaneously. This is where the influence on WET scores becomes crystal clear. We’re not just looking at words on a page; we’re engaging with them as performative objects, as active participants in the creation of sound. It’s like the score is saying: What if language itself (written, spoken, visual) was the music? What if the symbols we use to “notate” sound were actually part of the sound, not just stand-ins for it?
Here’s the kicker, though: In WET scores, language doesn’t just accompany or describe music. It becomes the music. The words, whether written, spoken, or interpreted as events, aren’t there to “help” the performer get from point A to point B, like traditional notation does. They are point A and point B, and everything in between. In the same way that de Campos’s poetry plays with the physicality of language (letters stretching, shrinking, flipping, repeating), WET scores transform language into something performative, something that transcends the flat, linear boundaries of traditional notation.
And it’s here, I think, where the real meat of the argument lies: WET scores break down the hierarchy of composer, performer, and audience in a way that’s uniquely 21st century. Much like de Campos’s work, which makes the reader complicit in the creation of meaning by forcing them to engage with language as a multi-sensory experience, WET scores do the same with the performer. The performer can’t just read the score like they would a conventional piece of music; they have to engage with it, manipulate it, interpret it through the lens of language itself. It’s an act of co-creation. The score, the performer, and the audience all become intertwined in this act of verbivocovisual creation, where sound, word, and action are fused into one fluid, living process.
Which brings us back to de Campos and his concrete poetry: there’s no “right” way to read a concrete poem. The experience is fragmented, layered, and open-ended. WET scores mirror this experience, pushing against the idea that musical meaning is fixed or absolute. The performer isn’t just playing music; they’re navigating a linguistic landscape that’s constantly shifting, much like how a reader of de Campos’s poetry has to negotiate multiple layers of meaning, sound, and image all at once. And this, I’d argue, is what makes WET scores so radical. They treat the score as a living, breathing thing, one that resists the neatness of traditional musical forms and instead embraces the messy, overlapping, multi-sensory reality of language as a performative act.
