Think about a child first learning to sound out words, not able to string together a sentence. That’s what I hear when a person just starts learning to sing or play some notes without understanding how one might relate to another.

Think of a middle schooler reciting Shakespeare who—even if understanding the grammar—can’t really grasp the depth of meaning. That’s what I hear when an “advanced” student can play a bunch of notes—all at the precisely correct time—without ever really making music.

Think of the community theater actor who has been acting for years and can present a character convincingly… the same way that every other good community theater actor who has been acting for years can. That’s what I hear when I hear semi-professional performances of music that are quite good, but aren’t perhaps presenting a “magical” performance.

Think on the seasoned actor who can read into the depths of a script the things that no one else sees (maybe not even the playwright!) and presents a unique piece of art that stuns audiences night after night. This is what I hear in the great musicians who can take what seems like a jumble of dissonant notes and turn them into the most transcendent melodies and harmonies one could imagine.

How did we go from playing all the right notes yet not making music to the presentation of “magical” or “transcendent” musical experiences? By understanding the material more. The greatest actors don’t make it to the top by luck! Sure, there are some people with natural talent; but natural talent without understanding will stop short of the heavenly performance.

What was that about music theory being “boring”…?

It might be better to think in terms of what Dmitri Tymoczko calls “macro-harmonies” in A Geometry of Music:

In most Western and non-Western music, pitches are drawn from a relatively small reservoir of available notes—typically, between five and eight. As a result, Western music has a two-tiered harmonic consistency: at the local (or instantaneous) level… while over larger time spans it articulates a scale by using only seven different notes. The scale can be considered a kind of “large” or macro harmony that subsumes the individual chords.

In other words, instead of “closely related keys”, we might think of “closely related macro harmonies” that differ by only one or two pitches. A useful chart could be made that shows not only what keys are closely related, but also which pitch(es) must be altered to transform one into another. This would show the various accidentals that we would not only accept, but would actually expect in a piece said to be “in a key”.

If not only to simply correct our expectations, this kind of thinking can help us see big-picture relationships in music. The forms of Classical music can sometimes just ‘pop’ off the page when considered in these terms. We can scan a score for the presence of persistent accidentals (i.e., those that are not immediately changed back within a measure or so) to identify global harmonic motion. Take Haydn’s Piano Sonata no. 6 in C major as an example.

In the first block (up to the repeat sign in the score) there are two distinct macro-harmonies: tonic and dominant. The second block (following the repeat sign) has a jumble of several distinct macro-harmonies that last for only a few measures at a time, indicating development or transition. The last block is the longest block of all: a tonic macro-harmony. What kind of form has two contrasting key areas followed by a section that cycles through a number of keys only to settle back into the tonic for the remainder? How about a sonata? (I’ll grant that this is a fairly straight-forward example, but go ahead and try it on other Classical scores; I think you’ll be met with similar success.)

I’ve found this to be useful for some of my students; what do you think?

I figure that there are probably two things that contribute most to anxiety over performance:

1. the expectation of memorization; and
2. the expectation of perfection.

The ironic result is that anxiety over memorization tends to cloud the memory even further and anxiety over perfection tends to hamper performance even more. I want to go out on a limb and question these demands on performance, but will provide a big caveat in the end.

First, it might be noted that the expectation of memorization is a relatively new phenomenon. The practice of memorizing music came about as a “parlor trick” of sorts, akin to the extraordinary feats required to play a Paganini Caprice. It was another virtuoso performer, Listz, who first made it a regular practice. Anthony Tommasini wrote in the New York Times about “Memorization’s Loosening Hold on Concert Tradition”, which might suggest the fad is coming to an end. It mentions that pianist Gilbert Kalish “spearheaded a change in the degree requirements [at Stony Brook University] in the 1980s, so that student pianists could play any work in their official recitals, from memory or not, whichever resulted in the best, most confident performance.” Are we missing out on hearing great performances of music because not all musicians are also great at memorizing?

Second, I find it fascinating to listen to early recordings of music because I inevitably find unpolished, yet passionate, performances. Something changed with the advent of recording technology when a musical performance can be measured against a gold standard of perfection by simply replaying it over again. In the meantime, as musicians sought to achieve that standard, much of the spontaneity of music-making was sometimes lost. Part of the dread of walking on stage to perform is the knowledge that your performance will likewise be measured against the gold standard, even though you are performing live, not with edits. Have we lost some of the fun and excitement of music-making in the process?

I think it’s time to reevaluate some of the goals we set for music-making, just to be sure we’re on the path we think we’re on. It may be that at times we work against one of the most important things of all: the music. If memorization or the expectation of perfection gets in the way of truly inspirational musical experiences, I think something must be—at the very least—called into question. On the other hand, why is it that we do expect memorization from music students? Why do we evaluate every last note? Like Leo Burnett said, “When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.”

Pretend music is books. There are a lot of different types of books for all ages and reading levels. On one end of the spectrum are books for children. Think of the Dick and Jane readers with writing like this:

Come, Dick.
Come and see.
Come, come.
Come and see.
Come and see Spot.

What may be taxing for a child just learning to read can be simplistic and unsatisfying for the typical adult. Of course, adults tend to read much more complex literature altogether. But here, there is also a range. Think of sentences such as the following from Henry James’ The Golden Bowl:

The spectator of whom they would thus well have been worthy might have read meanings of his own into the intensity of their communion—or indeed, even without meanings, have found his account, aesthetically, in some gratified play of our modern sense of type, so scantly to be distinguished from our modern sense of beauty.

That’s probably a bit beyond what is easily understood by most of us on a first read (or perhaps even a second or third!). You can imagine how it might be tiresome and exhausting to read through all 789 pages. Would it be a stretch to say that even the most simple Haydn sonata is like this for the typical American today?

Could it be that popular music trends correlate with the musical literacy of a people group, i.e., not significantly more simple or complex than can be understood by the group in question? As music classes are taken out of public schools in America, would it be any surprise that its popular music might at times be reduced down to few chords, static “melodies”, and one (loud) dynamic, etc.?

This is one of the reasons I teach music. I want my students to be able to understand the depths and riches of a range of music that includes complex music. I want them to understand themselves, society and life better through music. It’s no harder than learning to read and the rewards are just as good. What’s stopping you from learning to appreciate music more?

“In Terms of the Inner Voices”

Some of the most important ideas I learned while studying with Gregory Proctor involved the power of voice leading. I also became intrigued with the careful explanation for every single pitch in a piece as graphically analyzed by my colleague David Tomasacci. These ideas have been a central pursuit in my own compositions over the past two or three years. One further impetus for a careful interest in voice leading was described by Brown:

… [A]lthough certain aspects of tonal motion are controlled by the outer voice counterpoint, others can be understood only in terms of the inner voices. When graphing a particular piece, the analyst should not simply trace the motion of the soprano and bass voices; he or she should also monitor the behavior of the tenor and alto voices. … In parcitular, we found that bass motion by fifth inevitably arises when the upper voices move by step in a single direction by parallel thirds or sixths. (136)

I was somewhat surprised to realize that if you take “voices mov[ing] by step in a single direction by parallel thirds or sixths” you must generate a sequence in order to maintain good counterpoint with a third voice and that all of the typical tonal sequences can come about as such.

Furthermore, given that “voices mov[ing] by step in a single direction by parallel thirds or sixths” can simply be understood as a harmonized Zug (“a direct, unimpeded motion from one place to another,” Snarrenberg), they can be readily related to activity over a pedal tone—a relationship that Brown makes quite obvious. I find this interesting given that I tend to find sequences as the most direct way of experiencing prolongation despite the constant activity. While I could explain that sensation through the incessant repetition and the lessened impact of a clear end-goal through endless cycling, I find this tonal explanation much more salient.

I recently found myself encouraging a composition student to generate this sensation of what I described at the time as “floating.” I felt that the piece could use some breathing space from its harmonic motion. The solution was to lift the bass voice up into a more tenor-like range. I can’t help but wonder now if the result (which worked well) could have been playing off of inner-voice motions with an implied pedal. I find this idea of the bass part leaving the bass voice to join with inner-voice motions as a means of suspending harmonic motion in time worth further consideration.

“The Myth of Scales”

Also in part due to Tomasacci and Proctor, I have remained interested in the viability of scale-like pitch collections that can be used in a prolongational manner. Tomasacci has uncovered an interesting phenomenon in the harmonic bass motion of Skryabin’s music that works rather well. However, the upper voice is consistently best explained in terms of an octatonic scale that lacks the specificity of a asymmetric scale. Proctor dealt with this scale in terms of a ‘transposition operation’ rather than a harmonic-contrapuntal process.

Brown notes that in general, “scales have only limited explanatory power.” (169) He quotes Mary Louise Serafine as saying that:

[S]cales… have figured disproportionately in music research, chiefly through their influence on the design and conception of studies.

and David Huron as noting that:

In comparison to most of the world’s music, Western music tends to be highly harmonically oriented. Where scales provide the basis for predominantly melodic music, explaining the harmonic properties of these scales may be inappropriate.

But he begins his demonstration of the limited explanatory power of scales with a quote by Taruskin:

Just as we get our sense of Mozart’s C major not only from his use of the “C scale on C” but also from the way the “black keys” are related hierarchically to the tones of the scale, so, if we are able to conceive of the octatonic collection as a tonality, we must be able to account for the use of the “other” four tones in relation to it.

This quote captures two important concepts on opposite ends of musical complexity. On the basic level, it is simply unhelpful to use scale-membership as a means to determine key. Brown explains further:

Even on an intuitive level, we know that scale membership is neither necessary nor sufficient for determining the tonality of a passage or piece. … It is easy, for example, to imagine how a key might be defined by progressions that do not contain every note of the relevant scale. … Similarly, the mere presence of a given scale need not guarantee that a passage is “in” the corresponding key. … To complicate matters further, we can also establish a tonality using progressions built from pitches outside the diatonic collection. … [T]onality does not simply depend on the presence of the “right” notes, but rather on the fact that particular notes appear in the “right” order according to some general laws of tonal voice leading and harmony. (144)

And yet, basic theory courses most often associate scale and key as interrelated concepts. It’s no wonder why students can sometimes get so confused when they are first asked to determine the key of a passage that does not reflect the key signature. For that matter, I suppose it should not be a surprise that students often forget to raise leading tones as those notes are not in the key signature. It might be worth discussing keys divorced from key signatures just to keep separate the idea of scale or mode and key.

On the more complex level, I find the Taruskin quote interesting due to what it says about the “other” four pitches not in the octatonic scale. It brought to my attention the fact that when I come across a passage that can be described as octatonic (or possibley whole-tone or pentatonic and the like) it is almost inevitably limited to the pitches of that particular scale. That is very different from what we experience in tonal idioms. As Brown put it:

The beauty of Schenkerian theory is that it is powerful enough to explain surfaces that are almost continuously dissonant and chromatic. (186)

I find the lack of some way of interpreting those “other” four tones outside of an octatonic scale—or some other complementary set to another scale form—an intriguing difference from tonality. This is also not merely a result of modern constructs given that modal music likewise used a limited set. Rather, it would appear that tonality is rather unique in having a set of behavioral expectations (depending on context) for each pitch of the 12-tone aggregate.

This last point may be one of the more interesting facets of tonality that permeated Brown’s book: the uniqueness of tonality may be more a result of particular behavioral expectations than anything related to pitch content. Not only does each pitch have particular behavioral expectations, but also, tonal music exhibits recursive applications of such behaviors. This is not inherently necessary, nor is it necessarily impossible with other pitch collections. Rather, these recursive strings of simple relationships simply make for a unique idiom that allow for some fascinatingly organic constructions.

Proctor and Huron

Finally, I just want to note how incredible it is to have studied/worked with two musicians who would show up in important ways throughout a book that is trying to “explain tonality.” I have truly been blessed!

Google “Disgusted” With Record Labels

I was surprised to learn this tidbit about the scope of the market from a story about Google’s imminent venture into the music industry:

The latest rumor to emerge from the Google campus is that the company’s much anticipated music service is just about at the end of their rope with the major label licensing process. A source close to the negotiations characterizes the search giant as “disgusted” with the labels, so much so that they are seriously considering following Amazon’s lead and launching their music could service without label licenses.…

Google may be starting to think that if the industry weren’t going to sue Amazon, then why would they take on Google? After all, who needs whom the most in this scenario? Could you even wrap your brain around the legal costs? As a source pointed out to me, “Larry, Serge and Eric could buy the entire music industry with their personal money.”

An analysis of Google’s position points to the following:

The fact that this is literally true tells us something that is often overlooked: the music industry is economically quite small and unimportant compared to the computer industry. And yet somehow—through honed lobbying and old boy networks—it wields a disproportionate power that enables it to block innovative ideas that the online world wants to try.

On a rational basis, the music industry’s concerns would be dwarfed by those of the computer world, which is not just far larger, but vastly more important in strategic terms. But instead, the former gets to make all kinds of hyperbolic claims about the alleged “damage” inflicted by piracy on its income, even though these simply don’t stand up to analysis.

IMSLP & the Music Publishers Association

Meanwhile, I was even more shocked by the sudden takedown of the website for the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP). IMSLP came under attack by the Music Publisher’s Association of the UK (MPA):

Today, the registrar of our domain, a division of Go-Daddy, froze our domain name (imslp.org) due to a complaint issued by the Music Publisher’s Association of the UK, who made two assertions in their complaint:

1. Rachmaninoff’s work The Bells, Op.35 is under copyright in both the United States and the EU.
2. IMSLP is somehow responsible for enforcing EU copyright terms upon the entire world (the same claim UE attempted back in October 2007).

Go-Daddy (a registrar based in Scottsdale, Arizona), apparently reacting to the DMCA complaint due to its assertion of US copyright violation, took the drastic and harmful step of freezing our domain name without first notifying us of the British MPA’s nonsensical assertions.

IMSLPs position on the takedown can perhaps be best described in these creative terms:

Too bad that a gang of dying companies running on a failed business model can’t find anything more productive to do with their time (like maybe promoting the works of living composers, instead of playing lawyer over ones dead since 1943).

[Fortunately, the site seems to be back up and running again.]

The Music-Industry Delusion

On the one hand, there is MPA fighting hard against IMSLP to protect the ideals of copyright protection; on the other, the realization that the entire music industry is hardly worth Google’s effort to even put up a fight.

I find myself getting caught up in the survivalist thinking of earnings and artistic protection from time to time. While some contemporary composers have made all of their scores available for free online, I—like many others—still provide only excerpts or partial scores to peruse before purchase. And yet, I—again, like many others—am hardly making anything directly from my compositions or performances. Still, I have yet to meet the composer who would give up composing if they could not make money at it.

The World Intellectual Property Organization makes it clear that the purpose of copyright is “to encourage a dynamic creative culture, while returning value to creators so that they can lead a dignified economic existence, and to provide widespread, affordable access to content for the public.” We must not lose sight of the delicate nature of a dynamic creative culture in our eagerness to return value, especially when the value does not or can not return to the creators.

Can you imagine if IMSLP’s hypothetical was reality? Instead of an industry that puts all of its energy into limiting access to music and art, could we have one that put all of its energy into promoting the works of living artists? An awful lot of work is put into the current model without much return; it couldn’t hurt to try a new paradigm. It will always be difficult to find the perfect balance, but I would think that the stories above clearly suggest that the current imbalance is unsustainable.

1. Would the Bard Have Survived the Web? (14 February 2011)
2. Free Trove of Music Scores on Web Hits Sensitive Copyright Note (22 February 2011)

The first might be considered more of a philosophy of copyright law, whereas the second deals with practical issues. If not for both sides of this same coin, this might be a much easier issue to ignore.

Copyright: Then & Now

Shakespeare is cited in the first article as a benefactor of an incipient profit-protection plan for artists:

When William Shakespeare was growing up in rural Stratford-upon-Avon, carpenters at that East London site were erecting the walls of what some consider the first theater built in Europe since antiquity. Other playhouses soon rose around the city. Those who paid could enter and see the play; those who didn’t, couldn’t.

By the time Shakespeare turned to writing, these “cultural paywalls” were abundant in London: workers holding moneyboxes (bearing the distinctive knobs found by the archaeologists) stood at the entrances of a growing number of outdoor playhouses, collecting a penny for admission.

Further along, the author draws the conclusion that “money changed everything…. As with much else, literary talent often remains undeveloped unless markets reward it.” The argument here is that if artists are not paid for their work, they will simply stop producing. If we want and value art, we need to protect the income of artists.

While being a good start for a philosophy of copyright, the unfortunate end result of copyright thinking results in the situation described by the second article:

“In many cases these publishers are basically getting the revenue off of composers who are dead for a very long time,” Mr. Guo said. “The Internet has become the dominant form of communication. Copyright law needs to change with it. We want people to have access to this material to foster creativity. Personally I don’t feel pity for these publishers.”

Economics of Art (Some Initial Thoughts)

A simple argument could be put forward: Everyone needs the means to obtain life-sustaining goods. An individual’s productive energy and time can be spent 1) cultivating life-sustaining goods; or 2) performing an activity in exchange for the means to obtain life-sustaining goods. If we (society) wish to have artists spend all of their productive energy and time producing art, they must be able to obtain life-sustaining goods in exchange for their time and effort producing art.

In contrast, it has been a formidable challenge to determine how best to coordinate an economy of artistic production:

• Artists can earn some income for direct exchange of an original product of art, e.g., a commission. The problem is that it would be difficult to piece together a living off of commissions alone.
• Artists can earn income from related activities—such as teaching—one of the most likely scenarios. And yet, if the goal is to provide the artist with maximum time to produce, how does this help?
• Artists can be supported by a regular salary from an institution—such as a government or church—to produce art on an ongoing basis, which gets more complicated when it takes larger organizations to be able to afford such an endeavor that would likely be unable to agree on aesthetics or goals.
• Artists can earn derivatives from prior work via copyright laws.

And none of these take into consideration the great likelihood that many artists make most or all of their income from some completely unrelated employment.

A World without Copyright…

The heart of the argument for copyright law in the first article is “centuries of scientific and technological progress based on the principle that a creative person should have some assurance of being rewarded for his innovative work.” We are to believe that if there was no copyright protection, artists would simply stop producing art.

I somehow doubt the story would end there. If that were entirely true, we would never have had artists before copyright law. For that matter, the practice of Shakespeare’s day was not copyright, but rather something a little closer to earning income for direct exchange of an original product of art, a performance. If a derivative production of a Shakespeare play were to come about that was equally good and yet charged less, the Bard would have to simply write something new and try again.

What would happen if copyright law were suddenly nullified? The first likely thing to happen would be a continuation of the present: consumers would download all sorts of music and books for free via the internet. Then, artists would likely find it unsustainable to continue spending their time producing art. But, it wouldn’t stop with this defeating blow to the arts. At some point, someone would want to support an artist again. According to Google’s autocomplete function, “without art life is” … “stupid.” [I’m sure there is a more eloquent way of putting this, but the irony of this made me smile ;)]

Respecting the Arts

Why do so many consumers—as the first article puts it—”transmit and receive copyrighted material without the slightest guilt”? I believe it may come from a sort of extended adolescence that is pervasive in many arenas of life. One historian [with whom you do not necessarily have to agree politically to get the point of the description] describes The Rise of the Adolescent Mind:

We live in a therapeutic age, one in which the old tragic view of our ancestors has been replaced by prolonged adolescence. Adolescents hold adult notions of consumption: they understand the comfort of a pricey car; they appreciate the status conveyed by a particular sort of handbag or sunglasses; they sense how outward consumption and refined tastes can translate into popularity and envy; and they appreciate how a slogan or world view can win acceptance among peers without worry over its validity. But they have no adult sense of acquisition, themselves not paying taxes, balancing the family budget, or worrying about household insurance, maintenance, or debt. Theirs is a world view of today or tomorrow, not of next year—or even of next week.

Because copyright law ensures sufficient “assurance of being rewarded for [an artist’s] innovative work,” it hardly matters if individual consumers actually support artists. “Someone will pay for it,” they argue. And they are right. Copyright law catches enough dissidence to scare most people into respect of the law. The question is, do consumers respect the artist? I would venture to say that the ubiquitous search for free downloads would suggest otherwise.

Concluding Thoughts

I’ll reiterate what I noted above: If not for the philosophical and practical sides of this same coin, this might be a much easier issue to ignore. Surely, IMSLP’s free hosting of public domain music does not deprive any artists from their due. Even the publisher’s admit that “there’s room for both of us.” The problem comes with the practicality of living artists earning their due. Even completely eliminating copyright law would likely make things worse before there was any chance of getting better (as I predicted above). And yet, I can’t help but see a lack of respect for art that I believe would be alleviated if consumers recognized that not paying for the art reduces the likelihood of future availability.

1. Defining “New Music”

“New Music” has been loosely used to refer to music written as long ago as the turn of the twentieth century. I would suggest that music that has been around longer than it takes a person to be born and earn a doctorate in new music composition can simply not be called “new.” Pick a cut-off date and try to stick to it. How about even as many as 25 years ago? Even with such a loose definition of “new,” try to include more music written in the past five or ten years such that it occupies a majority of the space on the program.

I realize that much of the music written between 1920 and 1980 tends not to get played very much because it’s too “modern” to be classic and too old to receive the boost of a premiere. One could argue that this music has failed the test of time, but I will give it the benefit of the doubt and suggest audiences haven’t heard enough of this music to make it familiar. And yet, this still does not mean we should refer to it as “new music.”

2. Plan on Variety

Within the great variety of new music, there are clear trends and “schools” of composing. For the simple sake of giving exposure to a broad range of new music, why program several pieces that are in many ways similar?

More importantly, it’s tiring to listen to a lot of the same thing. I love Beethoven, for example, but it’s very difficult to listen to more than one of his quartets or sonatas on a single concert. More than two pretty much kills the evening for me. Perhaps one of the most tiring experiences can be an entire evening of only one composer or very similar composers. Given all of the variety available, why not program a balanced and contrasting concert?

3. Local New Music

Supporters of new music in the past were in many ways local. Given the number of composers today, there is no reason that new music could not still be primarily local. Granted, the internet gives us wonderful access to music from around the world that we may not otherwise encounter. And yet, why not support local composers as much as possible?

A local new music ensemble—i.e., one that does not travel—could really be a driving force behind the growth and support of new music. Composers generally do not make it big on a national or world scale before doing well locally, except for those who are the exceptional one-in-a-million. This could really be a compounding force for new music as more composers find support locally, resulting in more new music gaining recognition and acknowledgment.

4. The Audience’s Timing

Modern concerts of “serious” music from any time period are generally structured in similar ways. The two halves of the concert generally feature two or three pieces each, only one of which is a “major” work. Overall, the concert is likely 1.5-2.5 hours, including intermissions and breaks. This works well because it plays into how long an audience can sit comfortably with rapt attention. Why would a new music ensemble think that an audience would want to sit longer? Or listen to music during the intermission? Or otherwise have their sensory inputs filled to the limit and beyond?

This assumes that the music is the only focus. Another model could be that of dinner and music. The divided attention that the dinner requires could allow for more music. I think the same thing is true for all performances. I can listen to jazz music at a bar or club for hours on end, but put it on a stage and I can only listen to so much.

5. Intrigue, Don’t Alarm

I don’t think that it is any (or at least most) new music ensemble’s intent to alienate the audience. It’s a fine line between broadening an audience’s horizon or making a philosophical statement and simply pushing the audience away. I don’t think this issue necessarily even ever involves the music itself. I see a lot of new music ensembles try to catch audiences off-guard with performance logistics such as lighting, timing, etc. that deviate from concert norms. Do we really need or want to have audiences feel uneasy during performances of new music? Isn’t it enough that they are listening to new music?

I’ll also note that it is the philosophical intent of some composers to alarm their audiences in a very real sense. There will likely always be a market for this, but it should be no surprise if it drives away a large part of an audience that may otherwise be interested in new music.

Tid-bits

It’s been my impression that “new-music-black” references the Avant-garde of the mid-twentieth-century more than some want to admit. The professional ensembles that specialize in new music that I see generally dress in a trendy, clean fashion. That often includes jeans, but need not do so. The familiarity of jeans is welcoming to audiences, but the neatness and trendiness generally makes a clear separation from performers and audiences. “New-music-black” is sometimes just a bit ominous.

Also, I suspect that the audience we want to attract for new music ensembles is accustomed to the professionalism of the symphony or local chamber groups that have been around for quite some time. That means program books have to be clear and engaging, posters have to be sharp and well-made. I truly believe that professionalism could easily put a new music ensemble on par with any other local ensemble. Audiences want to know they can expect good things.

Concluding Thoughts

I decided to go forth with publishing this as is, even though I suspect I may have further thoughts down the road. I would also like to see any responses to the ideas listed above that I can incorporate. I tried to make this as general as possible, but I do suppose there will likely be exceptions.

Thoughts?

Audience-to-Artist Conversion

Freeman is driven by his desire that “everyone could share in this experience [composition] that I find so fulfilling” because he believes that “all of us are musically creative and have something interesting to say.” However, he laments that so few actually compose music despite increased music consumption. He cites the NEA 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, which found that only 12.7% of American adults play a musical instrument at least once each year. Freeman reasonably assumes (although it was not part of the survey) that those who compose would be fewer.

What Freeman does not seem to note is that this is the highest rate of participation among the performing arts. Only 2.1% of adults participate in dance related activities in a given year and merely .8% participate in non-musial theater (.9% participate in musical theatre). Individual visual arts fare little better with only, for example, 9% who paint/draw/sculpt, although the overall participation in visual arts appears to be higher with 6% in pottery/jewelry, 13.1% weaving/sewing and 14.7% photography/movies. Furthermore, creative writing holds at 7% despite the fact that most adults can at least compose in English.

What is it that keeps an audience member from becoming a participant? Given the statistics for other, non-musical artistic endeavors, the lack of participation in music appears to not merely be an issue of being too difficult for the layman to approach. Most Americans can effectively use the English language and understand what many words mean and yet they do not use this knowledge toward creative or artistic ends.

Denatured Musical Language

And yet, Freeman’s solution to increase audience-to-composer conversion was to simply denature composition into a pseudo-visual/auditory task of piecing together blocks of musical gestures in a web-based platform called Piano Etudes. The approach resembles Earle Brown’s Available Forms I. However, the ‘composer’ need not read music, given that all of the musical fragments are represented visually by pseudo-registral/durational notation.

Western musical notation has been a long time in development. However, the more-or-less standardized notation of the modern era is hardly an obvious choice for the music it is employed to represent. For example, most of our modern music relies on equal temperament (i.e., all adjacent tones are equivalent). And yet, it hardly appears that the interval between D-sharp and F-flat would sound the same as E-flat and E-natural despite the equivalent aural result.

One solution to represent modern music would be a graphic notation where notes can be plotted against an x-axis representing time and a y-axis representing pitch. The visual representation would be easily understood as analogous to the aural realization. Freeman uses precisely this notation.

While this approach has its advantages for visual representation, it also lacks in its convenience for reading. The standard five-line staff groups pitches and allows us to easily recognize pitches in reference to a fixed point. It becomes difficult to maintain a reference point on an equally-spaced graph across groups of 12 lines.

Need Music Participation be User-Friendly?

Perhaps one of the most unfortunate cultural shifts in the past century was the move away from the ubiquitous teaching of our children how to read music. In years past, such knowledge could be assumed and would allow for the participation in amateur performance, composition and the like that is not approachable by those with little to no knowledge of the musical language.

And yet, I also do not think that familiarity with the musical language would result in any more participation. Given the rates of participation across all of the Arts, I believe we are in a crisis of leisure. Average Americans are more likely to consume art than make it.

The question of whether it is worth making music more user-friendly seems to hinge not on those who do not currently participate and are unlikely to start, but rather on the efficacious nature of musical notation for those who would otherwise be currently involved. If I’m right about that, then I would suggest we are right on track. Experiments with other methods of representation don’t hurt, but we should not kid ourselves about increasing Arts participation by dumbing-down its means.