The first main historical articulation in western music is the apparition of notation. Let's not try to fix an exact moment in time, an exact location, nor its conditions neither its internal evolution. Let's just consider the general changes it implied.
It's generally accepted that the notation — (music notation, and any kind of language notation) — allows sharing, comparing, transforming, elaborating.
In the case of music, the time before notation can be called the Orphic period: music was transmitted from one to one, this individual being half deified, in possession of a special power. This power was connected to magic, to gods, to charms. One can think of the bard, of the singing ladies in Africa when one passes away to have living examples of this conception.
That's why catholic Church kept suspicion on music for such a long time: it was suspected to be either too sensual (made for the entertainment of the crowd) or pagan: a contrepower to Jesus one. Music, before being written, was a divine power. The first musician had magic powers, and he was the only one to have it. Given by gods, music was to come to certain persons, exclusively. Music and musicians, therefore, were not questionable, they were superior. Before music was writable, notated, it had to be thought as a a-historical art: a dangerous a temporal magical apparition which could put crowds in trance. Time, evolution, comparison and hierarchy was not in use.
The apparition of notation is the start of the critical historical period, in which music falls from the Heaven to the mass of humans, ready to absorb it, copy it, analyze it, discuss it, change it, sign it. Music falls from the hands of God to the hands of the craftman.
This switch is the start of the notion of humanization of music, the authorship, the artist as a human living being. From there, the nostalgia of the first period is an easy path : the romantic artist will emphasize the connection between him and God, or at least the infinity, the transcendence. Liszt and Wagner for instance consider the artist to be the interface between the people and God, and music is the tool for that communication, under the name of GENIUS.
For Liszt, this genius goes through the path of virtuosity, the virtuoso being the assessor between mortality and deity. The construction of the Wagner personality cult is based on this nostalgia of the transcendent, para religious and superior role of the artist.
But since the beginning of the XX° century, when the industrial revolution starts to become the technological revolution, we are now leaving this critical historical period. The notation in music is not the central point of work for artists, neither it is the pivot in evolution of musical styles anymore. The musical score, which has been for centuries the main medium for music propagation, for the establishment of styles, for the teaching processes is now considered as a burden, a heavy tracing tool which can more easily and practically be replaced by video, and all the digital devices of producing music.
One side effect of the dissolution of the music score as a main media for transmission of music, is the reification of the score.
More attention is given to the conventional signs, which are so complex and peculiar that they are all but conventional.
The preface of the score can also grow and take more and more importance, when the actual staves are not strong enough to support all the information.
Clearly, the traditional notation has made its time, and its practical tonal emphasis on pitches and rhythms are just not appropriate anymore.
Everybody who wants to have a precise timber evolution with a bow, for instance, or notate the extraordinary potential of the sounds of the bow on the strings faces incommensurable difficulties.
Therefore, the complexity of the notation raises, and becomes less and less sharable.
Each composer, even each score develops its own conventional system, (consistent or not).
That is exactly the opposite of notation: it's cryptic and requires a new reading learning each time.
And to go a bi further in this direction, this complexity, or at least the graphic potential as well as the musical developments don't need to coincide nymore, the score becoming an independant object, a work by itself.
Instead of concentrating its tools to the realization of the musical project, the score becomes a selfcontent object, a fetishized score.
The hierarchy between professional musicians, listeners, producers is more and more disappearing, and is replaced by a cloud, fundamentally digital, and superficially manifested as a network. It's never been so easy for non musical readers to produce complex music, by the only use of alternative languages, proposed in the music softwares. Another symbolization of the music parameters than the traditional notation, simplified, but directly accessible, non to be read but to be assembled, distorted, through the visual interface tools: stretching the sound shape stretches the duration of the sound, etc.
The network which before was music schools, ensembles, orchestras, concert houses, opera houses, churches, is now the computer, the internet, some concert halls, festivals, clubs, and more specifically the different operators and distributors of music: youtube, Spotify, Facebook — all the rapidly changing and adapting the general movements.
This period replaces the perspective in historical critical view by a systemic and structural thought.
Technology gives us new powers: a feeling of ubiquity (we can see, listen and communicate with any part of the world where we are not physically present). We now can listen to music which is not performed at the same moment, neither at the same place, not even by LIVING musicians.
A good illustration of the drama carried by technology in the relation to the world in the 50s is the formal refusal of traditional Indian musicians to record their performance, because their music (ragas) is to be performed at certain hours of the day and not others. To play this music at another moment of time might disrupt the normal course of the universe.
As folklorist this vision can seem today, one must not underestimate the beliefs that underlined the roles, functions and meanings of music. Exorcisms, ritual dances in shamanism, were sociological and cultural structural elements, not decorating superfluous entertainments.
And now that with technology everyone is able to produce music without notation, and the networks make it possible to spread music all over without any pressure from a social group, (no professionality needed), we are slowly turning back to the orphic conception of music: ubiquity, no authorship, divine power, eternal life of the artist, universality of the message...
It's generally accepted that the notation — (music notation, and any kind of language notation) — allows sharing, comparing, transforming, elaborating.
In the case of music, the time before notation can be called the Orphic period: music was transmitted from one to one, this individual being half deified, in possession of a special power. This power was connected to magic, to gods, to charms. One can think of the bard, of the singing ladies in Africa when one passes away to have living examples of this conception.
That's why catholic Church kept suspicion on music for such a long time: it was suspected to be either too sensual (made for the entertainment of the crowd) or pagan: a contrepower to Jesus one. Music, before being written, was a divine power. The first musician had magic powers, and he was the only one to have it. Given by gods, music was to come to certain persons, exclusively. Music and musicians, therefore, were not questionable, they were superior. Before music was writable, notated, it had to be thought as a a-historical art: a dangerous a temporal magical apparition which could put crowds in trance. Time, evolution, comparison and hierarchy was not in use.
The apparition of notation is the start of the critical historical period, in which music falls from the Heaven to the mass of humans, ready to absorb it, copy it, analyze it, discuss it, change it, sign it. Music falls from the hands of God to the hands of the craftman.
This switch is the start of the notion of humanization of music, the authorship, the artist as a human living being. From there, the nostalgia of the first period is an easy path : the romantic artist will emphasize the connection between him and God, or at least the infinity, the transcendence. Liszt and Wagner for instance consider the artist to be the interface between the people and God, and music is the tool for that communication, under the name of GENIUS.
For Liszt, this genius goes through the path of virtuosity, the virtuoso being the assessor between mortality and deity. The construction of the Wagner personality cult is based on this nostalgia of the transcendent, para religious and superior role of the artist.
But since the beginning of the XX° century, when the industrial revolution starts to become the technological revolution, we are now leaving this critical historical period. The notation in music is not the central point of work for artists, neither it is the pivot in evolution of musical styles anymore. The musical score, which has been for centuries the main medium for music propagation, for the establishment of styles, for the teaching processes is now considered as a burden, a heavy tracing tool which can more easily and practically be replaced by video, and all the digital devices of producing music.
One side effect of the dissolution of the music score as a main media for transmission of music, is the reification of the score.
More attention is given to the conventional signs, which are so complex and peculiar that they are all but conventional.
The preface of the score can also grow and take more and more importance, when the actual staves are not strong enough to support all the information.
Clearly, the traditional notation has made its time, and its practical tonal emphasis on pitches and rhythms are just not appropriate anymore.
Everybody who wants to have a precise timber evolution with a bow, for instance, or notate the extraordinary potential of the sounds of the bow on the strings faces incommensurable difficulties.
 |
| Lachenmann string quartet. the notation emphasizes the timber evolution. |
Therefore, the complexity of the notation raises, and becomes less and less sharable.
Each composer, even each score develops its own conventional system, (consistent or not).
That is exactly the opposite of notation: it's cryptic and requires a new reading learning each time.
And to go a bi further in this direction, this complexity, or at least the graphic potential as well as the musical developments don't need to coincide nymore, the score becoming an independant object, a work by itself.
Instead of concentrating its tools to the realization of the musical project, the score becomes a selfcontent object, a fetishized score.
 |
| Brian Ferneyhough, Unity Capsule |
The hierarchy between professional musicians, listeners, producers is more and more disappearing, and is replaced by a cloud, fundamentally digital, and superficially manifested as a network. It's never been so easy for non musical readers to produce complex music, by the only use of alternative languages, proposed in the music softwares. Another symbolization of the music parameters than the traditional notation, simplified, but directly accessible, non to be read but to be assembled, distorted, through the visual interface tools: stretching the sound shape stretches the duration of the sound, etc.
The network which before was music schools, ensembles, orchestras, concert houses, opera houses, churches, is now the computer, the internet, some concert halls, festivals, clubs, and more specifically the different operators and distributors of music: youtube, Spotify, Facebook — all the rapidly changing and adapting the general movements.
This period replaces the perspective in historical critical view by a systemic and structural thought.
Technology gives us new powers: a feeling of ubiquity (we can see, listen and communicate with any part of the world where we are not physically present). We now can listen to music which is not performed at the same moment, neither at the same place, not even by LIVING musicians.
A good illustration of the drama carried by technology in the relation to the world in the 50s is the formal refusal of traditional Indian musicians to record their performance, because their music (ragas) is to be performed at certain hours of the day and not others. To play this music at another moment of time might disrupt the normal course of the universe.
As folklorist this vision can seem today, one must not underestimate the beliefs that underlined the roles, functions and meanings of music. Exorcisms, ritual dances in shamanism, were sociological and cultural structural elements, not decorating superfluous entertainments.
And now that with technology everyone is able to produce music without notation, and the networks make it possible to spread music all over without any pressure from a social group, (no professionality needed), we are slowly turning back to the orphic conception of music: ubiquity, no authorship, divine power, eternal life of the artist, universality of the message...
