At 11:57 AM +0100 11/17/02, Mr. Liudas Motekaitis wrote:
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.
If by "aristocratic" you mean communication by and for specialists in the field, I am with you.
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)
In my studies of folk music, I discovered that this effect actually makes better music (by folk standards) as the tune is passed down. The rough edges are worn off it by repeated transfer to other singers, until after a while we have a tune that much more easily retained and reproduced than the orginal was, and being more singable, is more listenable. This effect varies from region to region as well, according to the group that is using the tune, so a (for instance) 15th century Scottish tune gets transformed differently when it makes its way to the Appalachian mountains than to the Canadian maritimes.
due to a large amount of room for interpretation. In recording there are no such errors.
Except for performer's errors, which are considerable, you must admit. We are not JUST talking about the pitches and rhythms; we must include performance practices common to the period, the region, and the instrument(s).
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.
Assuming, it would seem, that perfection is the goal, rather than an interesting and distinctive rendition. I think there you lost my support, at least in general terms for all music.
I imagine that in most Western classical music, it's the composer's wishes and criteria that matter most. In jazz and improvised music, more power is moved into the performer's hands. And in popular music, it's almost entirely in the hands of the audience. Summed up in the musician's mind, it's a comparison between "what does the creator of this work want to happen?", "what do I as a performer want to happen?", and "what does the audience want to happen?"
Christopher
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