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In the Forum: Musical Discussions
In the Thread: Cmpare them
Post Subject: I wonder to what effect transcribing music has in the preservation of music.Posted by Gargoyle on: 8/6/2024
The first video has notes that neatly fall into fractional timings, wheras the second video could almost be described as a series of arpegios.
It's not that you can't technically transcribe the second song, it's that you likely wouldn't have. The transcriber would not have been there for the improv, if they were they would be unable to transcribe this song due to lack of memory or playback during Bachs time.
Not only that, they could not interact with the artist at all. Improv is almost random and reflexive in the sense that changing even one note, an accidental slip of the pinky finger can, but not always take the song in a whole new direction. You can't stop playing while someone dips their feather.
If the recorder and artist were to work together, the song would resemble less like an improvisation and more like the conventional "work" music of the time, structurally.
It's the difference of recording/performing vs creating.
It seems the problem of preserving musical detail in performances precedes our tubes and diodes.
The first video could be easily scripted to come from an air-powered player piano, but what has that lost compared to Bach noodling around on the piano amongst friends?
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