Turning Personal Musical Notation Into Art

Traditional musical notation

Music has been an important part of Edreys Wajed's personal and artistic lives. For example, in 1999, under the stage name Billy Drease Williams, he won Best Hip Hop Artist at the Buffalo Music Awards.  In the local art community, he is well known locally for his contributions to The Freedom Wall. This exhibit in the Argus Gallery demonstrates how music and graphic art can be intertwined to create a new form of expression - Wajed expresses sounds and rhythms as shapes and colors.

Eschewing traditional musical notation, the art work in this exhibit demonstrates Wajed's personal form of musical notation for songs that are among his favorites since childhood.  One influence on Wajed's notation system is multitrack recording whereby separate sound sources recorded at different times can be synchronized to create a cohesive whole.

Some of the shapes that Wajed uses are sometimes identified by writing on the art work, e.g., "kicks" refer to bass drums and "hi hat" to small cymbals.