Liudas wrote (enjoying your comments very much!) > >And in general it has >been argued that all music only exists to be played/listened to. The notes >on the page are only a carrier, a time machine of sorts.
Or perhaps more simply, a blueprint from which the real music must be constructed or reconstructed. >In a recording, the carrier is precise: there are no other >factors other than the waveform of the composition. This waveform can be >transported losslessly to x numbers of players, radio stations, etc. But there is danger in this. And it's a danger that every improvizational musician has to live with. Once committed to a recording medium in a single version, that version becomes definitive (which is exactly what you said!). But music, like dance and theater, is a recreative art. It is their nature to be constantly recreated, and therefore dancers and actors and musicians must be trained to do so with skill and artistry. Painting, sculpture, architecture, and prose are creative arts; once finished they are finished. Poetry stands somewhere in between, since in some cases it can also be newly realized in performance. Given a definitive recorded performance, the music has now become non-recreative, just a finished product, and to me (given my prejudices as a musican) that is a terrible shame. As an arranger, part of my job is to be able to envision a piece of music in different contexts. But most people hear a recording and assume that the arrangement is the song, and even resent a different arrangement of it. Didn't this List used to be about notation software? Oh yeah, it was a discussion about notation that started this thread. Never mind! John John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
