At 11:52 -0500 3/4/08, John Howell wrote:
It's pretty obvious in hindsight (and crystal
clear from an historical point of view) that the
development of new kinds of notation through the
20th century, for and by the composers who
believed themselves to be cutting edge on the
non-pop side of music, was driven by the fact
that copyright laws required a composition to be
notated on paper to be eligible for copyright
protection. (And I'd be interested in whether
Jeff and Dennis B-K would agree with that
summary, simplistic though it is.)
there is no foundation whatsoever for this idea.
in the case of pop, i think your argument is a
little off the mark, but am not familiar enough
with pop to talk about it with any authority:
perhaps the piece would have to be notated to be
registered for copyright, but in such cases i
would expect the notation to be extremely
traditional because the more unfamiliar the
notation the more difficult it is to justify that
symbol X really does mean play sound X. new
forms of notation don't always have an
established tradition to rely on and therefore
would be at the very least inefficient as
references in any copyright dispute. the same
symbol means different things in different
contexts and by different composers; this is not
the case with pop notation.
have a look at a haubenstock-ramati score and ask
yourself what the "identity" of the piece is in
relation to the notation; have a look at a
madonna chart and ask the same. consider that in
the realm of copyright protection.
even the most cursory scanning of even the
poorest books about music (of which there are
many) since the early 20th, or music since 1945
(the two typical measuring references) show that
the development of notation is a result of
changing aesthetic interests, changes in
performance protocol and musical / sonic
experimentation and variation in the traditional
performer-composer roles in some cases as well.
an interest in improv and questioning of the
supposed interpretive inflexibility inherent to
the scores of some composers also led to the use
of more graphic notation. the situation is far
more complex than can be summarized in email
conversation, so i would hope that your remark is
only a thought intended to open the discussion
rather than some sort of absolute claim as to the
nature of notation in contemporary music that a
comment starting off with "it's pretty obvious
in hindsight" would seem to suggest. i'll
assume the former and continue...
So my question is, since the rules changed on
January 1, 1978 (in the U.S.), and a composition
is now protected by copyright the instant it
exists "in fixed form," has the development of
new notations and new notational conventions
stopped or slowed down in favor of other kinds
of "fixed forms"? I would think that it should
have, but I don't know that it has.
on the one hand, we are no longer in the early
stages of new approaches to musical notation,
where such practices would seem novel, "out
there", or deemed "experimental" (implicitly
suggesting impermanence although not neceessarily
meant so), and on the other hand, so much has
been done that it is really difficult today to
develop any new symbols -- and possibly
performance techniques -- that have not yet been
used. there would also seem to be at the moment
a trend to more deeply explore the large range of
approaches that developed so rapidly in the past
40 years rather than develop new and unheard-of
techniques of notation / performance protocol.
on a related topic: what is needed now is a
resumé of what has been done and an attempt to
standardize notation -- as far as this is
possible. so far we have the ghent conference,
which was done too early and has not benefitted
from any follow-up amendments: it remains only a
partial solution to the problem. the typical
problem with standardization is that it is too
inflexible. the larger notational reform that is
needed today is one which articulates a system
with potential alternative situations / notations
and which is not incestuously regional, as some
"proposals" for notation standards have been.
(reminder: i'm talking about **recent** trends in
notation)
you can't talk about notation without bringing
performance and composition into the discussion.
this is true since any form of notation has
existed, whether written or oral.
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