NICK@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Nick Papadakis) (06/06/88)
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 88 16:04 EDT From: UUCJEFF%ECNCDC.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Subject: >> RE>...a steeplejack and his mate, a good jazz ensemble, ...) To: ailist@AI.AI.MIT.EDU >No. Fire and ambulance personnel have regulations, basketball has rules >and teams discuss strategy and tactics during practice, and even jazz >musicians use sheet music sometimes. I don't mean to say that implicit >communication doesn't exist, just that it's not as useful. I don't know >how to build steeples, but I'll bet it can be written down. This person obviously doesnt know much about music performance. Of course jazzers use sheet music but have you ever seen a page out of the Realbook, if you have, you never follow it literally. Even the more classically oriented stuff, the bandwidth of the information on the sheet no where nearly approaches the gestural dimensions required to musically or otherise correctly interpret the piece. For one, there is tradition, which is passed through schools, performance ensembles, and now recording media. If you are a trumpet player in an orchestra, and you see a dot over a note, that dot means different things depending on which composer, period, genre, tempo, etc, ect, ect. With jazz there are even more intangibles, like you can be on top of the beat or lay in the pocket. Nowhere is a written method which can gaurantee that you are going to get the right feel, man, you just gotto feel it baby *snap*. You still may want to call jazz a language, of course it is, it has meaning, but it is not something that can be put down in a machine readable format. Jeff Beer, UUCJEFF@ECNCDC.BITNET ================================== Language is a virus --- Laurie Anderson