The Index of New Musical Notation was a research project formed in 1971 in New York City by music editor and writer Kurt Stone to bring unity and standards to modern music notation. The Index developed out of a committee at the Music Library Association and was housed and administered by the Music Division at the Library of Performing Arts, New York Public Library. The project was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, later supplemented by a grant from the Ford Foundation.
The Index was a three year project. In addition to Stone, who was the project's director, Gerald Warfield, a composer and notation specialist, was hired as associate director. The project intended to analyze and index musical scores to determine the frequency of use of specific notation devices for musical effects beyond traditional notation. This project would analyze scores within the Library, as well as solicit additional obscure or unpublished material not held the Library, and compile the frequency of notation use on worksheets and cross reference on index cards. These cards were initially intended to be duplicated and published. As the project developed, it became clear that publishing the results in a book would result in greater dissemination of the project's findings.
The project's scope broadened to co-sponsor a conference with the University of Ghent in 1974, called the International Conference on New Musical Notation, where eighty professional musicians, composers, music editors, and musicologists from seventeen countries analyzed, discussed, and voted on over four hundred selected notation signs. In addition to the conference, the project sent out a "Questionnaire on New Musical Notation" and received over two hundred responses. Proceedings from the conference and questionnaire were initially published in Interface and Perspectives of New Music and the final results were compiled into the book Music notation in the twentieth century: A practical guidebook, that was published in 1980. The project officially disbanded in 1975.
From the guide to the Index of New Musical Notation records, 1965-1975, (The New York Public Library. Music Division.)
