It struck me in responding to Steve that perhaps the reason that groups like BOAC et al, appear to contemporary rock fans as irrelevant or behind the times is likely a result of their notational and performance practice. Perhaps the integration of composer with ensemble in groups like GYBE, Radiohead and Sigur Ros encourages the type of experimentation that such a timbrally fluid entity needs to be cutting edge.
Notating a guitar feedback yelp is possible, but playing it just right and according to the needs of the composition is problematic. We have no real rock music ensemble notation and a record of the recording process that Sigur Ros uses would be a record of experiments (as evinced by their recent interview in TapeOp magazine).
Maybe a valid notation (and not merely a record of experiments) is the next step in the cannibalization of rock?
Posted by jeff at September 15, 2004 02:40 PMJazz notation practices could pretty easily be adapted to this.
Posted by: Lucas Gonze at September 15, 2004 04:16 PMThe effects of notation are paradoxical -- on the one hand, you can notate what had previously been transmitted by ear and essentially freeze a tradition from further development(which is what happened to German folk music, and was similar the practice in many East Block countries); on the other hand, the development of a tradition of informed but creative _reading_ (and mis-reading) of musical notation is potentially very rich. (The composer Richard K. Winslow put it this way: "if you want music to be played exactly the same, transmit it orally; if you want it to change over time, write it down).
A bit of writing and reading might do rock well. I believe that sufficient notational devices already exist, and it's telling, to my ears at least, that the least-notated part of the rock practice, the percussion, is precisely the area of the ensemble that has become most stagnant in recent years.
Posted by: Daniel Wolf at September 16, 2004 04:18 PMThat's an interesting point, Daniel, and does shed some light on rock percussion as it is today.
In cases of acts like Sigur Ros, given that their compositions are so sound-specific, I'd guess that they wouldn't bear much fruit in more abstracted forms such as written instruction. Perhaps as meta-art or lateral thinking devices, but little beyond.
Posted by: Steve Hamann at September 17, 2004 01:08 PM