 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2025-06-14 16:17
I worked many years as a software engineer for a machine tool manufacturer. Over time that work informed me that the definition of software is in three parts: first, a vague idea in a customer's head about what they want; next, a vague interpretation of that idea in the heads of the engineers; and finally, a vague impression of how it works in the heads of the end users. Note that what the customers say they want turns out to often be different, or even at odds with, what the end users need. The links between the three sets of minds are also impeded by the usual types of distortion and noise.
In music, I imagine a similar definition that substitutes composer, performer, and listener in place of customer, engineer, and end user. Vague, vague, and vague. In the end, anything that's clear is art.
The idea of composers' intentions should be treated with respect, but the listeners' needs and situations are at least as important. Further, the performer is more than just a link between composer and listener. All three own the music equally.
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2025-06-14 16:48
Hi Philip,
I really enjoyed your thought-provoking post.
Perhaps the conductor could be the lower manager who believes he knows what the customer/composer wanted, and how to get the users produce those results?
I might see the correlation for classical music...not sure if I see a correlation for non-classical.
Pop tunes of the 1930s and 1940s were adapted and performed by several different bands/groups in a very short period of time. The individual bands' arrangers rewrote the parts to have different intros, different beat emphasis, different swing, different instrumentation, etc. Today's pop groups do the same thing - just over a much longer course of time.
So - I think pop, jazz, folk, and most other types of non-classical music - generally use the composer's work as a loose idea on which to build upon - and not a literal request/command (probably not a statement which flatters composers, but I think this is the reality).
Fuzzy
;^)>>>
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Author: ruben
Date: 2025-06-14 18:05
I believe in closely following a composer's intentions and markings, with one exception: metronome markings. I have worked with many composers -never Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart or Brahms, I must admit- and found that they were incredibly slipshod about metronome markings and didn't respect them themselves. Mind you, a work has a life of its own and when composers go back to pieces they had written a long time ago, they have sometimes changed their mind about them.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
Post Edited (2025-06-14 21:04)
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Author: brycon
Date: 2025-06-15 02:20
Quote:
In music, I imagine a similar definition that substitutes composer, performer, and listener in place of customer, engineer, and end user. Vague, vague, and vague.
The French musicologist and semiotician Jean-Jacques Nattiez examines this idea in his book Music and Discourse, though he uses the terms "producer," "message," and "receiver."
For Nattiez, the producer (you could substitute composer here) goes through various "poietic" processes to arrive at his or her message or piece of music. These processes range from deliberations about what's to be done ("Do I want a full cadence here or a half cadence?") to the actual production of the work (physically putting notes onto staff paper).
The receiver (performer) must then interpret the message. Importantly for Nattiez, interpretation is active: "Why is there an accent here on this pitch? How should I perform it?" It's not as though interpreters mindlessly receive instructions and then execute them: "Oh, this C has an accent. I therefore need to play it louder than the surrounding pitches." (Now, I know many musicians think this way. Unfortunately, it seems to be a result of poor training, which then gets passed down to the next generation of students.)
When a performer plays a piece of music, then, he or she becomes another producer, the performance itself another message, and the audience another receiver. And the whole thing continues branching outward (with reviews, recordings, etc.).
Not everything a composer puts into a piece is going to be picked up by the performer (Nattiez uses the term "trace" here). And similarly, not everything a musician puts into a performance is going to be noticed by the audience. But perhaps it's good to think of it this way. The 19th century's version of things, where we gather at the cathedral/concert hall to hear the word of God/Wagner, is rather boring.
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2025-06-15 21:57
Hi brycon. Thank you for the reference to Nattiez's book. I may see if I can locate it. If it's in French, I may not.
Ah, how to play a given accent. Or diminuendo. Or tempo indication. etc. I assume good performers routinely ask themselves questions such as, what was intended by this marking? - what is supposed to be expressed here? - what are the possibilities available in this? Presumably the answers to these and similar questions are often implemented in finer detail than many listeners will discern, but the overall process generally helps bring the music to life for the audience.
Pianist - great pianist - Sviatoslav Richter was a stickler for playing what was written, yet his playing was nonetheless idiosyncratic and immediately recognizable. When asked about his interpretations he repeatedly would insist that it was "all in the score."
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