How To Think About Music Notation
When you think about music notation, you probably picture the traditional five lines of the music staff with little dots, lines, and articulations scored across the page. You might imagine choir music with lyrics or piano music in a lesson book. But have you ever wondered where our music notation system came from and why it’s used to write and share music?
Brief Background
Music notation developed over hundreds of years in Europe as churches canonized their liturgical music. This church music was a collection of chants and prayers that followed repeated melodic patterns. Notation was first introduced as little inflections or shaped lines above the text in this “music.” The markings didn’t necessarily indicate discrete pitches but more so general shapes and ideas. Eventually, these shapes took a more concrete form to represent clear pitch relationships. The music reader could get a sense of how the melody would be shaped. The modern staff with notes and rests took form alongside the development of more musical instruments and increased musical literacy.
I know this is a crude summary of the development of music notation, but generally speaking, music notation emerged as the dominant system of capturing and documenting musical ideas from religious chants to serious composition.
Years ago, before recording technology, musical ideas could only be preserved by orally passing on the songs or by writing them down. You can appreciate the important role of writing music when you realize this was the only sure way to preserve music from generation to generation for centuries. St Isidore of Seville said, “Unless sounds are held by the memory of man, they perish, because they cannot be written down.”
Even though we have other ways of preserving music, traditional music notation (and its various forms) still has a place in modern music. Whether due to the efficiency of distributing music to larger ensembles like an orchestra or the practicality of using of notation as an educational tool, notation is here to stay. If you’ve been around music notation for a long time, I’d like to show you a different way of thinking about it. If you’re new to music notation, I’d like to show off some of the reasons you might take a closer look.
Notation as Transcription
Music notation is a transcription that represents a musical idea. This came alive to me when I read Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni in his book Sketch Of A New Esthetic of Music.
“Every notation is, in itself, the transcription of an abstract idea. The instant the pen seizes it, the idea loses its original form. The very intention to write down the idea, compels a choice of measure and key. The form, and the musical agency, which the composer must decide upon, still more closely define the way and the limits.”
In other words, music notation requires the composer to perform an act of discretion. Something of the intangible musical idea is necessarily “lost” as the formless and boundless imagination is condensed into a language and system that others can understand and interpret.
You may have experienced something like this if you ever tried to write a song or compose a musical work. The moment inspiration hits, you are confronted with the mad dash to capture the idea and preserve it through some means of transcription. Yet it seems that with every note and word you get out, the product is less and less the pure inspirational form and more a construction of something from the parts that made it through your creative process onto the page.
This compromise always exists with notation. Some composers have written through more mathematical, strategic, or organized approaches (read the case study on Milton Babbitt below). Yet this approach is only possible through the embedded nature of music notation as a representative musical system. The symbols and icons in a musical score only point to musical ideas that can be produced by an instrument or voice. Without a musician, they are just symbols.
Milton Babbitt in 1982.Credit...Keith Meyers/The New York Times
Case Study: Milton Babbitt
In mathematical composition, the categorical elements of traditional notation are constructed into a sophisticated arrangement of musical ideas. Relationships between pitches, rhythms, and even timbre are broken down into puzzle pieces and put back together. This mathematical symmetry or complexity appeals to the intellectual mind.
The results are sometimes a bit strange-sounding to the average listener. If the listener possesses an understanding of the detailed musical relationships, they might experience something that transcends the sum of the parts. In the view of academics like Milton Babbitt, this “efficient” music is meant to move beyond the common and emotional reaction into a new evolution of musical thought.
Babbitt and his contemporaries were composing such elaborate and detailed works that the capacities of human performers were seen as insufficient. The music was increasingly advanced and complicated, but the inaccessibility of the music was also related to the complexity of the tonality and the intentional departure from common structures. Babbitt’s music could be readily notated with musical systems, but its complexity outpaced the ability of the average listener to compute and understand the work aurally.
Music notation as a representative tool can quickly move beyond the grasp of the average listener. And this makes sense if we think about the upper extreme of how many notes can be included in a measure of a musical staff. Even the most virtuosic musicians have limitations. Machines break this barrier with abilities always far beyond humans in terms of note count and speed.
Babbitt turned to these machines to “perform” his music. While he was teaching at Princeton University, he used what was essentially a custom-made synthesizer called the Mark V that read punch cards to produce computer-generated sounds, almost like a player piano. He composed his music with Western music notation, but his work required a second transcription of music onto the punch cards he fed the machine. In a 2011 interview with Gabrielle Zuckerman for YourClassical, Babbitt shared about composing Philomel for the synthesizer. “I composed it first. With regard to the synthesizer you had to compose first and then go in and realize it. You couldn't sit and...there was no improvisation at the synthesizer, you were punching this stuff in.”
As soon as music is written with immediate feedback from a machine, the composer stops thinking of ways to condense and transfer ideas. They begin composing through the medium, where the input directly correlates to the output. This is the state of modern composition. Ideas are molded into their final state, all through one continuous process. Babbitt was a pioneer in this method, along with other early adaptors to electronic music composition.
Systems Change
Music notation has served as an ideal form of documenting and preserving musical ideas because it utilized an agreed-upon system of rules and interpretations that composers and performers understood. However, as soon as the rules and interpretations change, the notation or transcription form can change. The little microphone on my iPhone serves as one of the best musical preservation tools. I keep my musical ideas fresh with that reference and a brief sketch of the lyrics or melodic structures. Since I’m the only one who needs to “transcribe” the music, this method works well for my songwriting process.
Earle Brown, Folio II
Other systems are developed in smaller circles to meet the notation needs more efficiently. For example, the Nashville number system is a useful tool for county/pop songs based on more essential chord changes. The heart of the music comes more from the lyrics, melody, and groove, so any more detailed notation would probably interrupt the musical flow.
As more technology becomes available, more ways of transcribing and notating music emerge. Some composers (through genuine musical exploration or pure satire) have pushed the boundaries of music notation beyond the practical or structured. Wild caricatures of music notation are displayed in works like “Folio II” by Earle Brown, where the lines between musical systems and visual art are blurred. Sure, you could find a way to extract musical ideas from that collage of icons, but the point seems to be that music definitely transcends notation.
Notation Alternatives: Musical Sketches & Direct Input
The musical staff is a very Western musical language. If we can look past the elegance and clarity of classical music notation, we can see how many other unique ways there are to write and capture music. Music notation provides a unique understanding of music, but learning through listening exposure, mnemonic devices, call-and-response, and input exploration or experimentation provide totally new ways of thinking about music.
In many cases, music notation is an unnecessary stop. Jazz music can be quickly limited through sheet music when it comes to originality and expression. The collected jazz charts the high school big band plays are monuments to the hit big bands of the 20s and 30s, but the music in Jazz clubs makes sheet music look more like a road map we write out of necessity. Jazz always seems to be straining to leave behind those restrictive markings. A genre like jazz breaks down the order of Western music with improvisation and spontaneity.
Photo: David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images
In other forms of music creation, notation looks like modes of direct input like MIDI sequencing, where the notes themselves trigger sounds and samples selected by the composer. In some cases, the MIDI sequencing is just information recorded into a computer that the writer creates through listening and exploration. Why concern ourselves with organized sketching when we can write, play, and hear all at once? In MIDI sequencing, the detail is in the code, not the visual representation of the music. A kid with a laptop and an ear for music can create beautiful music with a few tools and zero music training.
The point is that music notation can look like a lot of different things. It would be hard to find a system of notation that is more detailed and widespread than our Western staff, but sometimes, the music is created, read, and performed through different means. Taking a wider look at music notation helps us be more innovative and creative with our creative process.
Whatever your preference, it’s worthwhile to think outside of the box of how you have always made music and discover that different systems can help us think differently about music. Remember that at the end of the day, the music is you. Just because you are comfortable with one way of engaging in music doesn’t mean that’s the only way you can engage. I find that grow every time I press into a new concept in music creation. The new ways of thinking inform my strengths and give me the opportunity to develop new skills.
So, think about music notation as a representative language. If it helps you get your ideas together clearly, use it! If not, use something else! The important thing is that you keep making music and discover the unique ways you can express yourself.
