Culture · 6 pages · 12 min
Why a score is not the music
A score is a page of instructions, and the music is what sounds when they are realized.
When the purchase is complete, return to the original window. It will refresh.
From the opening
A score is a written arrangement of signs that records selected musical relations and tells trained players how to begin. The music, as a listener meets it, is the sounding event that happens when those signs are realized, or when a tradition sounds with no page at all. The opening covers signs underdetermine the sound, two readings can both be lawful, and oral music needs no page.
The rest of the brief — the later sections and the reading notes — opens after Stripe confirms payment.
Inside
- Signs underdetermine the sound
- Two readings can both be lawful
- Oral music needs no page
- Cage's silent instruction still sounds
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- The score as instruction rather than sounding event
- Cage's four minutes and thirty-three seconds