Page 60 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

The topography of composing work 49

interpretation and at the same time leave much implicit. The relation between
music notation and sound event remains underdetermined. It has to be prac-
tically revealed, tried and negotiated through playing. While Carl Dahlhaus
(1970: 65 – our translation) states that “the reading of sheet music […]is
always accompanied by acoustic imaginings”, this is neither entirely true nor
completely false. Acoustic imaginings do not have the sensory concreteness of
sound events because they always contain vagueness. They consist of acoustic
impressions that those reading the score already have in their aural memory
from previous experiences. That can be the only explanation of why, for every
piece of music, there is always a spectrum of different interpretations that are
deemed legitimate by a community of shared cultural practice.
If we define scores as the outcomes of intentional acts because they are
primarily aimed at performers, then there must be case-specific criteria for
success. The writing and finalising of scores is then an activity that requires
various competences to meet these criteria. Performing musicians read the score
by starting with the notation signs and then channelling towards the musical
meaning. The directionality of their reading is crucial. It has an underlying
aesthetic intentionality even in the absence of any intended musical meaning –
for instance, in Dadaistic concepts – and even where composers try to be
illegible by deliberately including discontinuities, polyvalent marks and allit-
erations. Both reading and writing are procedural acts, which implies that they
weigh potential meanings. Importantly, this includes implicitly taking into
account those aspects which cannot be represented through a given notation
system. All composers are aware of the multi-layeredness and ambiguity of
writing processes and reading. Clemens Gadenstätter approaches the issue
pragmatically and with a relaxed attitude: “[Helmut] Lachenmann”,hesays,
developed a fantastic notation system, “and I don’t see any reason to re-invent
the wheel when it’s already great. […] Anyway, one thing’s obvious: there’sno
such thing as a perfect notation.”

1.4.3 Algorithms and software
Previous sections have repeatedly demonstrated that it is now impossible to
imagine the practice of composing without technical apparatuses, and espe-
cially without computers with specific programs. The importance of algo-
rithms in this cannot be denied, either. However, our empirical material on
the topic is too limited. Consequently, we will address the subject only briefly,
with a few fundamental reflections on the significance of algorithms for the
practice of composing.
Algorithms existed long before modern computers were invented and have
been used in various ways in composition processes. Historically, we know of
algorithmic approaches from the Middle Ages onwards, and in 1787 Mozart
invented a musical dice game. It is only from the 1950s onwards, however,
that they gained in importance (see Essl 2007). Algorithms are formal
instructions or calculation models for generating, processing, transforming