Darcy James Argue wrote:
On 17 Mar 2005, at 11:00 PM, John Bell wrote:
John, I'm afraid I think that's an absolutely awful idea. Just because you want a project to look handwritten, that doesn't give you license to make up the rules as you go along. If you really want it to look like authentic manuscript, get a copy of Clinton Roemer's _The Art of Music Copying_ and follow his practices.
There's good and bad handwritten music, just as there is good and bad engraving. Putting all downstems on the right-hand side of the notehead falls squarely in the latter category.
I have to respectfully object to this. There are no "rules" in music notation, there are only conventions. There are no institutions which determine the rules for notational practice in the way that some languages are regulated by national Institutes or Academies. And if there were such an institution, I'd surely feel no obligation to follow it.
Music notation has changed without interruption over time and contemporary practice is anything but uniform. The Jazz manuscript style has a number of conventions that many classical musicians find appalling and probably the vice versa is also the case. I enjoy playing early music in historical notations and contemporary music with new ideas about notation and like that diversity. The composer Christian Wolff, for example, has a manuscript style (with wavy barring) that is decidedly unorthodox for contemporary practice, but recalls a manuscript practice with real historical pedigree
Personally, I would probably dislike reading a score with unconventional stemming, although I can imagine some some compositional rationale for doing it (e.g. in an extremely complex rhythmic environment, this would aid in creating a notion that is proportional both in note value and spatial position). I haven't yet written anything where such a practice would be useful for my own music, but I reserve the right to do so and certainly defend Mr. Bell's right to do the same. Whethere such an innovation ever gets accepted by musicians in any number is an independent issue: aesthetic ideas compete in a market, although that particular market's decisions are rarely executed with the precision of ordinary economics.
I realize that saying that there are "no rules" may be a particular affront to teachers of music. After all, particularly when one has to grade a student exercise as right or wrong, it's convenient to have a fixed reference. But I believe that this is not honestly conveying the complexity of real musical life where both diversity and innovation compete constantly with convention, making an ever surprising and lively mix. If we take students seriously, we owe them some honesty about this.
Daniel Wolf Budapest
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