Karl Young explores the all the possibilities of writing in his essay "Notation and the Art of Reading" by looking back at different culture's use of different forms of media in writing. He examines the ancient Chinese art of Calligraphy, the poems sung after dinners in Old English Mead Halls, and many, many others. He attempts to show through numerous examples that writing is best when it is expressed in more than just the boring eye roving over the boring, plain typeface that is boringly passing information to the brain. My three favorite examples of this 'multimedia' writing are: Chinese calligraphy, the intentional misspelling of words, and the use of music to song lyrics (or poetry).
I believe that the Chinese calligraphy is one of the best examples of multimedia notation in Young's essay, for it is getting at the most basic points of writing--the printing. All writing has to (even if it's eventually meant to be read aloud) be written down at some point, and Chinese Calligraphy takes great care into how it transcribes its writing, making each pen stroke a work of art in itself, even employing a special cursive version of calligraphy; a type of writing that is totally unique to the person writing, as he adapts each letter to suit his artistic purpose. This form of writing is so markedly different from normal, printed Chinese (an intricate language in itself) that in most cases it is almost impossible to translate precisely what the writer was attempting to convey with his words, for what the words say is no longer the most important part of his work.
The second notation that I was particularly impressed with was the North American practice of intentional misspelling in poetry. One of the most ridgedly defined constructs in writing is that of spelling; we see punctuation violated, we have Faulkner running one sentence into two pages, but many of the most experimental Modern authors mostly follow the conventional rules of spelling. To break these rules is not just for shock value, it is to bring attention to the value of not just what a word means, but how it sounds. If a word is misspelled wrong, a reader will have to go back and mull over how to say the word, and will most likely end up saying the word out loud if it sounds like he expects. This emphasis on sound is an important form of notation because many readers may miss the phonetic value of their reading if the reader constantly adheres to the conventional methods of spelling.
The final notation I'm going to discuss is the relationship between words and music that some writers exploit to bring further emphasis on certain aspects of their writing. This is my favorite because of my personal love to sing out loud (heedless of my non-talented voice, much to the dismay of my neighbors), but this desire to sing out loud highlights why using music with poetry is so effective. If you can inspire people to sing your words out loud, you've gotten them to successfully focus on how your words sound when said together, and not just the way they ring in your head while speeding through the nightly assigned poem. It also affords the writer (musician?) the opportunity to play with the beat and rhythm of the music, perhaps further emphasizing certain words or sounds in their writing.
Karl Young introduces many affective forms of notation in his essay, far more than can be examined in this short entry, but the most important message from the essay is that writing CAN use notation, and can experiment in multimedia ways that only make the art or writing that much more engrossing and provocative.
