[Keith:]
>Thank you David- my thoughts exactly! If my bass clari player spits the
>dummy and says "up yours- I'm off!"- guess what- I have no Bass Clari!
Do players really up and leave just because they don't like being asked to
do something the composer has written in a piece? You have to treat them like
delicate china lest they take offence at a reasonable request or suggestion? It
sounds a bit like a spoilt child to me - taking your bat and ball and going home
because you think you know better than the composer what the composer wants.
And if your bass clarinettist spits the dummy, is he or she going to be out
of work for very long because of that?
>Denis- my 'handle' is Keith in OZ-- yours would be Denis in Utopia?
I'm sure this is just a joke - but I see a kind of underlying meaning,
perhaps not consciously intended, in this. Perhaps I'm just seeing this because
of my own prior perspective on the issue. But I'd just like to look at it a
little further.
We seem to have two camps of thought about the role of notation:
There are those (who seem to be in the majority, on this list, at least)
who see notation as an extremely subjective thing, creative interpretation of
which is encouraged, because it can't be avoided, or even minimized. This
interpretation is very often inextricably tied up with all sorts of historical
or cultural considerations, tied to particular times in music history and maybe
locations too, which it might be very difficult for those outside the culture or
historical period to know about. (Even experts seem to disagree on how to
interpret some notational feature of music 200 or more years old - so what hope
has the non-specialist got of having an informed opinion on these matters?)
This camp seems to hold that it is wrong or impractical for composers even
to try to arrive at an exact notation that communicates its intentions as
accurately as possible, without having to depend on assumed practices that
belong to a particular time or location within music history. They will happily
write notation that doesn't attempt to notate literally what they want
performed, and seem quite happy to let assumptions or conventions of performance
that belong to their own period of musical history be implicit in their
notation, so that proper interpretation by performers would require them to know
of those conventions. The swing discussion of a while ago was a clear example
of this sort of thing.
The other camp, while I assume they don't deny that historical practices
have at times been assumed by composers and not explicitly notated, seems to aim
to get beyond this, and create a new approach to notation that attempts to be
both precise and self-sufficient, so that (at least in theory) one could read
the notation and have a fair idea of what the composer intended - and this would
depend less on the reader having detailed knowledge of traditional practices of
the historical time the music was written in. This approach seeks to make
notation as logical and self-consistent as possible, and to thus minimize the
possibility of debates in later eras in musical history over how something
should be performed. Perhaps the unpredictability of musical history makes it
impossible to be totally literal - but that is at least the aim of this second
approach, and I would hold that it is possible to achieve it to at least a
substantial degree.
This second approach seems to be especially characteristic of certain
schools of 20th-century music, perhaps serialism being the ultimate expression
of this approach.
Now I get the feeling that Dennis belongs to this second camp, and is
making what I would have thought the reasonable request that performers honour
effects or features he has clearly notated in his music - and anyone who's read
previous postings of mine is probably aware that I tend to go this way, too. I
cannot think of anyone else on this list who stands out as being of this view
about notation. (If there are others I'm ignoring, I apologize, since I just
don't recall anyone else at the moment.)
Some of those who are questioning Dennis's view of notation seem to belong
to the first camp I described.
I also get the feeling that members of the first camp sometimes have a
slightly condescending or disapproving attitude to members of the second. The
feeling I get is that the first group thinks the second is being too academic,
too ivory-tower; alternatively, they think the second group's attempt at more
precision and self-sufficiency in notation is going to suck the soul out of
music in some mysterious way, and reduce it to mere notes.
These attitudes may not often be said explicitly, and I am reading between
the lines of remarks made on this list in various discussions over the last
couple of years. Keith's good-humoured remark about "Dennis in Utopia", in
spite of doubtless being intended as a joke, does seem to me to show something
of this attitude - or am I imagining it?
It would be interesting, just as a matter of curiosity, to find out if
there is any link between which notational camp a composer or performer belongs
in, and what style of music they compose or perform.
John Howell's later comment also shows something of the attitude I'm
talking about (I am writing separately about this, though):
[John Howell:]
>One difference between today and previous centuries is that the old
>guys weren't composing for publication, for glory, or for
>"self-expression."
I'm not having a dig at you, John - but why do I sometimes get the feeling
that people in the first camp I mentioned tend to accuse members of the second
camp of doing their work for egotistical reasons?; and why do they so often
denigrate the idea of "self-expression", which I happen to think is a major part
of what any art is all about? I certainly don't equate self-expression with
glory automatically (although one *can* of course use one in the pursuit of the
other); and certainly publication is a different thing yet again (and something
I would think most composers would like).
Now perhaps my general approval of "self-expression" may strike some people
as all too warm and cuddly and fuzzy - just a bit too vague and "New-Agey",
rather too earnestly profound and deep and meaningful. But the logical
consequences, it would seem to me, of a rejection of that side of human
endeavour (taking it to its ultimate extreme) would be to abandon the arts, and
perhaps go into the sciences, or maybe even the higher levels of big business or
politics. That would be *very* hard-headed, with no room for warm fuzziness or
self-expression. But for us in the arts, interested in music in various ways,
which surely includes all of us on this list, what's wrong with self-expression?
I have to accept that there are composers who do explicitly reject (or reduce in
importance) self-expression - but I honestly don't understand what those
composers are on about.
I'm just curious about why certain attitudes become associated with certain
schools of thought about notation. Is it a new incarnation of older ideological
differences between "classical" and "romantic"? Is it now utilitarianism or
light entertainment vs. self-expression? But I don't see why you can't do all
of these at the same time, or any combination of them that you desire and are
temperamentally suited for.
Just a few thoughts prompted by recent discussion.
Regards,
Michael Edwards.
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