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MUSIC SCORE: WHAT EXACTLY IS MUSIC NOTATION?
Music without notation, like language without writing, goes back hundreds of thousands of years.
The technologies of notating music (the music score) and language are relatively recent non-instinctive cultural constructs, invented in the past few thousand years. Being non-instinctive inventions, writing language and scoring music require specific schooling to master.
A piece of notated music, like an architect’s drawing, amounts to a technical, symbolic representation of the real thing.
When you play or sing a piece of music from notation, the “frozen artifact of the score,” what you play never corresponds exactly to the notation. A computer can do that, you can’t. The difference between what’s notated on the page and what you actually sing or play constitutes your personal style (not counting unintended errors).
When you notate music, you code sound, which gets decoded during performance. At the same time, the brains of listeners re-code the sound, thereby experiencing music.