At 12:30 PM 11/9/02 -0500, Andrew Stiller wrote: >>Composers who don't write is a longer tradition than those who do. > >Not in any meaningful sense.
Some meaning derives from writing. Wow. That's pretty reactionary! The meaning of "composer" then becomes limited to an enormously specified area of European work from about 1650-1950. I could deconstructively argue that anyone before Monteverdi didn't compose because they left out the orchestration. Or that anyone since 1940 who used aleatory didn't compose because they left out the tune. Or that any composer who taught others by rote alone -- even if the works were carefully worked out -- was actually not composing. If that's your definition, prepare to be embarrassed in musically mixed company. >If it is improvised, it is not composed. Period. Wrong. Composing on one's feet is no less a creative act of arranging music into shape than one if which that process is, to use your word, frozen. Even the plain old dictionary defines compose, among other definitions, as "To create or produce (a literary or musical piece)." There is no qualification of writing it down. >Can one compose without "freezing" the result somehow? Yes, certainly >(Balinese gamelan pieces come immediately to mind), but the whole >thing then has to be kept in one's head, which is why all non-notated >composition, I think without exception, has been the province of >people who primarily are performers: it is much easier to remember a >piece when you can play it, just as music was an aid to the >remembering of epic poetry in the ancient world. So electroacoustic creations from Stockhausen forward are not "composed"? And only the percussion part of my new piece for percussion and computer is composed? Are works composed as computer programs composed because they are 'frozen' and reproducible? What if those programs are algorithmic? How about the aleatoric compositions? Or the aleatoric parts of compositions? Compositions based on algorithms and then auto-notated? How about the solo performers whose work is consistently recognizable and who have created a compositional style that is imitated and written -- even without them writing it down? What about pieces for non-specific ensembles? Or pieces specifying chords but not voicing? Which of these are compositions, and which are not? >If somebody wants to set themselves up as a composer (as opposed to, >say, a singer-songwriter), but nonetheless has to farm out the >notation of their works to someone else, I think that that someone >has a legitimate grumble. Not at all. Because that person has specialized in translation (sound to page) doesn't give them any rights whatsoever, any more than the dance videographer who records the dance to help teach others can complain. Notation is a conservative business, but its practitioners don't get to say who is a composer or isn't based on how closely they do what notators do. Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
