----- Original Message ----- From: shirling & neueweise <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> From: "Mr. Liudas Motekaitis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >... the effectiveness of the information storage and transportational > >accuracy [of recording] is much greater... > >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. > > although i don't entirely disagree with your claim, it fails completely in the case of a recorded performance which doesn't respect or understand the composition/composer. I understand your comment completely, but it expands over and above the concerete realm of what I have in mind. I mean merely the informational transfer between the various carriers mentioned and auditioning the musical results of that specific information (regardless of artistic musicality or interpretational intent). (1) storage as ink on paper ---> musician plays the music (2) storage as father's memory ---> son plays the music (3) storage as waveform ---> machine plays the music in (1) there is much deviation, many opinions and discussion. in (2) there is less deviation, less opinion and discussion. in (3) there is no deviation, no opinion and discussion (excluding audiophile discussion, but this is a different type of discussion). It is, however, very interesting that you mention the case of the poorly interpreted recording. This is interesting in light of practice in the pop music industry to allow for only one version, that of the recorded and released version, of a song. This is the ultimate form of control on the part of the pop song composer(*). It is many orders of magnitude(*) more exact than any sheet music can ever be, since the composition(*) and the very waveform of the resulting music are turned into equals. This includes every minute detail about the piece including the melody, the harmony, the rhythm, the strings that were on the guitar, the type of microphones used, the acoustics at the studio, the type of drumsticks, the electronics used, even the singer's mood (!) etc. I might even go so far as to say that the real music notation of pop music is the recording itself. The "Fake Book" version that appears in magazines afterwards is a far cry from the real thing. I think that for this reason many people feel that pop music is more real, more tangible than classical music. There is no room for interpretation. Perfection is given and you can buy it for money. I suspect the Nigel Kennedy recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons was an attempt to experiment with this idea in classical music. But it turned into "yet another interpretation." I see great irony in all of this: in a democratic society in which individual interpretation is valued above all, the very form of music which dictates all of the possible variants is the one which is mass consumed, dwarfing the others. (*) Sorry, I just couldn't resist using these great terms :-) Liudas _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
