----- Original Message ----- From: John Howell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> jef: I am enjoying the discussion and learning from it, and by no means > arguing for the sake of argument. You and I obviously have very different > musical backgrounds. > > > > >how important is notation to pop and rock music? to the musicians cutting > >discs on sony, it isn't at all. to the majority of bands mimicking such > >artists [via covers or similar or new sounds], not at all: how many > >pop/rock/country bands learn or create music with sheet music? > > But that is such a limited view of the world of commercial music! I > suspect that you've never toured with a different backup band in every city > and your "sound" in the folders of notated music you carry with you from > one stop to the next. Or been in a recording studio where time is > definitely money, and the string section doesn't have the luxury of working > out their parts by ear--nor of course the ability! Or been in the pit for > a Broadway show where the notes on the page are the only way Richard > Rodgers or Robert Russell Bennett can communicate with you. Certainly what > you describe happens, but that's just a small part of the totality of > commercial music. I would like to offer a radically different view of music notation: Ever since we have had something to write on, we have always had two parallel forms of propogating our music tradition: (1) There is the "aristocratic" way of getting a given piece of music played in several locations, by different people, and at different times by means of music notation. (2) Then there is the "popular", the "layman's" method of getting a given piece of music played in several locations, by different people, and at different times by means of the ear and memory. These two methods were both placed into a totally new context by the possibility of recording and playing back the music artificially. Here, the effectiveness of the information storage and transportational accuracy is much greater. In (1) and (2) there occur many human errors (some are nice errors) due to a large amount of room for interpretation. In recording there are no such errors. I speak of these three media, that is (1)notation, (2)ear-memory (or tradition), and (3)recording, as information-carrying devices. However, when the classical artist gives a concert by first memorizing the music, he or she then bravely steps out of propagation by (1) into the realm of propagation by (2). This is done deliberately and is strived for. The opposite (reading from the sheet music during the concert) would be considered the mark of a second-hand performance. This would make us view the following statements in a different light: > >in "concert" music, the notation is an important means to the > >interpretation and presentation of the music at all stages, > >composer-performer, conductor-performer, musician-public, > >musician-recording producer... > > Absolutely true. And completely inclusive of any and all concert music in > any and all styles, if you will accept the definition that "concert" music > is music that is NOT improvised by musically illiterate singers or players. So it would seem that, in the order of perfection of informational transfer, we would have to say that the least perfect is notation, then memory, and then recording. Liudas _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
