Davidsbuendler Music Blog

Musical notation seems to be omnipresent in music culture - at least if you look at the schools, music schools and academies. Actually, it is a very limited phenomenon. Most of the music of today and past never was written down. Only a few cultures besides the european developed notation systems; but none of these (except the european one) was ment to be a representation of the music. Instead, the symbols were used merely as a memory aid for the chiefly improvising musicians.

In the past, when there were no technical possibilities to record music, scores were a means to distribute music and save it from oblivion which is very important in our society that worships and collects everything from the past. But today, with CDs, radio, YouTube and iTunes, we don’t need scores anymore. All the music is there, we can suck it out of the air into our computers and mp3-players anytime and anywhere we want. That is a very important change. And of course, musicians and composers today, who generally play their music themselves (in bands) have no real need of notation, either. One of the main reasons for composers of the last centuries to write down their music was to communicate it to the interpreters. And the few times we see modern musicians use notation is when they have guest musicians on stage to accompany them.

The very elaborate western notation system is a blessing and a curse at the same time. It was the foundation on which composers like Bach, Beethoven and Schumann could compose their complex, polyphonic music, but it also set them harsh limits. It is funny how musicologists or classically trained musicians react to passages in compositions where the music frees itself from the bar lines, displacing the accents across them; as if it would not be the most natural thing for music to be free and that the bars and bar lines are nothing but a part of a constructed system which has been put above the music. Unfortunately though, the system is often stronger and dictates what can be done and what can’t be done or at least tempts composers to do certain things and avoid other things. The musical complexity modern rock music reaches in its soundscape and rhythm can be explained by the fact that it operates outside these limits. Classical music, in contrast, reaches its complexity by bringing together many notes inside a system that says very little about the sound and seduces composers to write regularely accentuated rhythms. Rock music doesn’t care much about notes, more about sound. A piece of rock music would sound ridiculous and oversimple if you’d try to write it down and play it on the piano - because the main thing gets lost that way.

There’s this myth about the »innocence« of musicians who can’t read music. They often refer to this innocence as an advantage and praise themselves for their inability. There is always some truth in myths, but I believe it is not that simple. Maybe both sides, the »literate« and the »illiterate« have to unite. A lovely anecdote that I read somewhere on the internet may conclude my flimsy thoughts about this important subject. Thereafter, Thom Yorke, lead singer and head of the band Radiohead, stated in an interview that he’s always asking Jonny Greenwood (the Radiohead guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and arranger) to teach him notation, but Jonny refuses, saying that he had to remain the »ignorant one«, the only member of the band who can’t read music. It is meaningful that the »ignorant one« is the one who comes up with most of the great ideas, rhythms and melodies.

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