I should also add that Aaron's point of view seems quite radical and therefore very interesting, and I'm glad I've been made to think about it. 

Here's an initial attempt at a proper explanation of my argument ...

My view is that we as listeners understand/group/identify any given musical object based largely on the physical actions/energies required to create that sound.  The article I cited above, for example, begins w/ the very simple example of two sustained high C's (above the treble clef staff), one on flute, one on trumpet.  My argument is that it's not merely timbre that distinguishes these two sustained sounds from one another but also the quite dramatically different kinds of physical activity/energy required to create those sounds.  (And, indeed, these differences in physical energy are in many ways the reason for the differences in timbre, vis-a-vis the physical/acoustical properties of the instruments, but that's for another post.)

The way in which a sound is created is in fact an essential component of the sound itself.  The two are not and, in my view, cannot be separated.  And yes, Stuart, that goes for wind instruments as well.  I think perhaps you're thinking of 'physical gesture' as only being some sort of bold and obvious visual motion, seen, say, by an audience member in the 25th row (as in your trombone example).  But wind fingerings are crucial (and in fact are also quite visibly present, even when only subtle!), as are the actions of the breath, the energy sent into the tube, the tension of the lips, the (very physical!) vibrations within the tube, how much of the tube is actually closed, the relative stability of that particular fingering/air pressure/embouchure combination, etc., etc., etc.  And the same is true for any sound on any purely acoustic instrument.  

So, CD, yes of course you'd get different aural results on your plastic violin than on an ordinary violin, but from the standpoint of gesture and our ability to understand that action's gestural identity, the two are in fact the same.



Then what do you make of, for example, the hand crossings in the middle movement of Webern Op. 27?  Would it be acceptable in your view to redistribute the notes so that the hands never cross?  Or in the Scarlatti sonatas?  



Sorry to be a bit lame, I'm going to quote myself (from a footnote from my article on all of this ...), b/c it's easier to cut-and-paste ....

I would say that the hand crossings in either case do produce a specific audible result. It just might be possible to fake that result with an easier hand distribution, but still the audible result in question derives from the particular physical gesture. But I think you would agree?

In principle I have no objection - I think the two staves (in the Webern) serve very well to differentiate the two parts but I see no reason why a pianist shouldn't play the notes written with any ordering of hands or fingers they wished. In Scarlatti (bearing in mind that I only know a few works) I don't think I would mind as long as the audible result was the same. I've never been a big fan of theatrical elements in music performance - although they can be effective, I grant you - and in fact I often close my eyes at concerts to avoid being put off the music by extraneous (as I see them) gestures. Might make me sound boring, I know, but it's the way I've always been...


This is all true, but why is it important to the audience? What does it communicate that's beyond the capabilities of the sounds themselves? Is the evidence, the expression of this energy not there to be heard, in its most potent form, in the result?

To clarify the "iconic" and "coded" distinction:  When a percussionist hits a snare drum, the audience can see the chain of causation that leads to the sound they hear, and what's more, they can account (to a degree, anyway) for distinctions from one sound to the next based on visual cues.  If the drummer's wrist snaps quickly, one kind of sound; if it falls more slowly, another; if it flicks in the direction of the log drum rather than the snare, a third.  As a singer, on the other hand, I can make all kinds of noises–and, more to the point, change the kind of noise I'm making in many ways–without betraying myself visually.  This is even more pronounced with a laptop controlled by a QWERTY keyboard, for example, a situation whereby the performer has an infinitude of sound (within certain diffusion/output constraints, of course) at his disposal, but the "gesture" associated with one sound–hitting the space bar, for instance–is the same gesture we associate with every other sound.

"Iconic" may not be the best term.  I borrowed "iconic" and "coded," but I think I'll use "transparent and opaque" from now on–any thoughts on vocabulary?


I can't speak for anyone else (Egregious or otherwise), but my personal feeling is that attending a performance and listening to a recording are qualitatively different experiences, the latter so auratically poorer than the former that I can only bring myself to value it for its  educational potential (i.e. what does the piece sound like) and not its aesthetic essence (i.e. what is the piece).  Call it superstition if you want.

And I should say, by way of perhaps unnecessary clarification, that the reason for tablature in my work is quite dramatically different than in Richard's.  What I'm interested in is a scenario in which those physical actions are ends in themselves.  This is not to say that the resulting sounds are less important (or are unimportant), but rather that those physical actions are indeed musical material in their own right.  Thus, much of my tablature work involves high degrees of indeterminacy -- indeterminate instrumentation, indeterminate scordatura, etc.  And in my current work, I'm experimenting quite a lot w/ constructing fairly limited palettes of gestural actions that can be transferred b/t instruments (even across instrumental families ... so that, for example, LH fingering patterns that begin in the oboe might end up on the valves of the trumpet). 

I'm quite fascinated by the idea that, as in my piece The Crutch of Memory for indeterminate string instrument (any non-fretted, bowed instrument w/ at least four adjacent strings), the same physical actions executed on any range of instruments w/ different scordature by different players w/ different hand/finger sizes/shapes will produce dramatically different sounding results but will still be ontologically identifiable as iterations of the same piece.




Also, Richard has introduced what is, as I mentioned above somewhere or other, the biggest sticking point w/ my argument:  I'm not at all sure what to do w/ electronic music.  But I'm working on it ...

With a view to seeing an example of what physical gestures might be involved in electronic music, I searched in google images for a well-known duo of which one of our contributors is a member. I wasn't prepared for what I would find.

Don't try this search at home, folks! (Really, don't do it!)

The cool thing about electronic music, though, is that with the proper hardware and software almost any action can be a music-making action.  Some hacking is required, but contact mics, infrared and motion sensors, DV cameras, and so on can be used to convert the most prosaic activity into music-making.  Even swinging one's arms around (following, of course, a meticulously detailed score) can make music:



Of course, the rules by which these actions translate into sound are at the composer's discretion, so the transparent/opaque continuum has to be "composed" as well.  In my opinion, this is one of the most interesting areas for musical research.