At 04:59 PM 10/5/03 -0500, John Howell wrote: >Dennis, you are indeed arguing for "strict adherence to the printed >socre." The problem is that musical notation never has, does not >today, and never will give the performer absolutely all the >information needed for a performance. There are always assumptions, >often never even thought about. That's called "style."
I did not suggest notation provides everything. But the information it *does* provide (such as 8va, which is the genesis of this discussion) needs to be used. These instructions individually have nothing do with style, unless they are specifically stylistic ... ah, I think I recall an exchange about 'swing' recently, as opposed to rhythmic notation. :) >Music always >has been and always will be a collaboration between composer and >performer (often with an arranger standing between the two, and with >a large ensemble always with a conductor standing between them). That is not true, and your examples from the past are really not helpful. That time is over, not to mention that your assumptions about those politics derived from scraps of correspondence can't be settled one way or the other. I'm willing to bet Gesualdo wasn't nearly all fuzzy collaboration. Music has evolved dramatically in the past century and, as we've already dealt with, neither notation nor performance practice kept up (the latter is catching up). *But* 25-year-olds are finally able to play the music written in the decade or two before they were born -- though I have to keep in mind here that you are one of those who don't believe turntablists are composers. ;) In what I call 'nonpop', some musical creation is collaborative, but the vast majority is not. The main creative task is the composer's (or improviser's in the case of on-the-feet composition), and the interpretive task (not the decisions about making notation optional) is the performer's. For the scoring composer, unlike the improvising composer, the instructions are simply not collaborative. They *are* prescriptive. Yes, feedback is useful and sometimes critical, particularly from a performer with which the composer has a relationship and where they jointly agree to push boundaries of composition and performance. I have learned from the bassist for whom I wrote a piece this summer because this difficult solo piece demanded that both of us stretch the boundaries of our skills. *Both of us.* And I'm the first to admit my limitations and where I need feedback, help, and instruction. The past few weeks I've been putting in hours every day working on my Theremin skills for one of my rare public appearances (the last one was using my extended vocal techniques for my "Spammung" in August). I've got to get it right first -- *then* I'll interpret. But the notation of a performable 8va passage is not one of these optional, interpretive, collaborative moments. New nonpop notation is pretty doggone prescriptive. >It was a blueprint, albeit >a crude one in some ways (but very exact in others), from which the >performer was expected to create a performance, and it was understood >that probably no two performances of the same music would ever be >identical. The trotting out of this tautology was about due. ;) >It's fine to be prescriptive, if that is your mindset, and to say "I >want everything that's on the page and nothing that isn't on the >page," but music isn't one damn note after another. Music must >communicate, must have soul, and must touch the heart and mind of the >listener, and markings on a page cannot do that. Of course it can! I can find the passion in a score without having to use plumbing or scratchboxes or 19th century contraptions. A conductor has to! And that's just as clear as finding the passion and gloriousness in an electroacoustic piece that no performer could ever begin to replicate -- listen to Carl Stone's "Shing Kee" and tell me it doesn't move you to tears! Yours is just an exaggerated sideways argument against playing correctly what's written. For me, playing correctly what's written is just the *starting* point for the communication, the soul, and the touching of heart and mind. (Categorize me further: I thought Horowitz's mistake-ridden Carnegie Hall 'return' concert back in the mid-1960s was appalling. Talk about politics!) I mentioned those 25-year-olds. I had a performance recently in which one piece deemed nearly impossible when it was written early in my career was played movingly, powerfully *and* correctly. And I didn't have to change a squiggle on the page for that to happen! I just had to wait a whole generation for performers who could cut it *and* would want to. [composers of the past] >they were ALWAYS writing >for singers and players whom they already knew well and trusted >implicitly. Mmmm. Like those concerti for whatsisname Brandenburg? :) >And they were such fine craftsmen that their music still >speaks to us Old music speaks to me less and less. It's just no longer interesting. I haven't listened to a piece of music in my home more than 20 years old for months and months. Nor am I rock & roll nostalgic (please! those TV ads! aaaargh!). Old music just sounds, well, old. >I'm not foolishly saying that a composer's wishes aren't very >important, but with rare exceptions the composer isn't the performer, >and has responsibility to provide as detailed a blueprint as >possible, to make sure that it is playable AND sounds good as >written, and to answer in advance any questions that may arise. Did some sort of composer ignorance come up? I don't think so. What was in question here was whether performers could willy-nilly ignore composers' instructions when they wouldn't or couldn't cut it. That's *not* the composer's fault. Our hard-won art and craft have had enough bashing. I've spent nearly 40 years honing my skills while listening to performers enthuse over their Beethoven so they can 'emote' and jack up the applause-to-work ratio. For a few years in mid-career, I almost started to believe it. And then came a generation of performers for whom brilliantly accurate, powerful, and thrilling performance meant hardly raising a sweat. (Listen to the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, or Non Sequitur, or the Flux Quartet.) So I won't hear that argument any more. I won't "fix" what you can't cut, but if something is wrong, I'll fix it. Show me my mistakes, and I'll shamefacedly patch them up. And for amateurs, I'm happy to make changes (though this discussion has moved away from that) or suggest a different piece or create a new one just for them. Just wake up & smell the doggone 8va. :) Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
