I have a master’s degree in music composition. In graduate school we were encouraged to write music that broke notational conventions. This approach was inspired by pioneering composers who saw the cognitive, expressive, and cultural limitations of inherited norms, and quickly became a form of academic dogma. But the instruction was effective at helping us to “think differently” and make different associations between meaning and symbol than we otherwise would.
Here is an example of a composition from grad school. Note the “legend” - most compositions from this kind of approach require a legend, but all performance has culturally transmitted instructions and norms. Unfortunately I cannot find an audio recording.
The Map is Not the Territory
I generally did not like this as I went through it but, as with many such things, the lessons followed me and percolated more than I realized.
The following year, making extra income as a substitute teacher, one of the music teachers who asked me to cover her string students had told them that “Aaron is a composer! Maybe he’ll do some composing with you”.
There were 5th graders who couldn’t play a simple folksong, let alone Beethoven or Bach.
I had to think quickly and improvise. I was meeting each group by instrument (violins, cellos, violas, basses) and then everyone was reconvening at the end of the day for the group experience.
So I said, “Well, can you make some interesting sounds on your instruments? Now let’s draw a picture for that sound. Now let’s draw a timeline on the bottom of this paper and write the symbols when you want to play them. Now, follow it to the right and play when you see the symbol. That’s composing. That’s all it is in a sense.”
Meeting with the small instrumental groups throughout the day I trained them in the method.
Then, convening the large group at the end of the day, I split them into varied ensembles and said “Okay, you remember what we did today? You are all going to do that together, and write a 30 second piece to perform. Have fun, be creative, and remember there are no wrong answers!"
And they nailed it. They had so much fun and were so proud to share their wonderful ensemble works. The music was intentional, inventive, full of drama and nuance, with shape and architecture. They were genuinely interested to see how their classmates approached the same task. To this day, one of my deepest regrets is that I did not have a video camera with me (it was before the smartphone era) but I do have this one score that I saved.
The following year, teaching music theory at my local university, I remember this assignment and began the year with it. Here’s the college-level version of that assignment:
And this time I was prepared. Here are examples of some of my favorites. I loved them all pretty well though, and I think my favorite part is the scores; this was a way to get music students to do visual art projects (and there is extensive precedent for that going all the way back to the medieval era, probably further). By the way, this was a high scoring project; nothing lower than a 90 I think, and it was pretty well universally admired by both students and colleagues as a creative approach to pedagogy that touched on most, if not all, fundamental concepts in musical thinking, experience, and logistics:
I became very good at teaching music theory and fell in love with it. It’s much like a branch of mathematics. But I think I always loved this project the best.
Following the project I would present a wide-ranging and energetic lecture that showed the development of musical notation across time and various cultures.
I talked about Jewish cantillation, with which I have some personal experience.
Then Gregorian Chant.
Then the Western standard system and variants.
And then postmodern notation like this (the painting is precisely timed to the electronic composition):
It’s all about encoding theology (hypothesis of most valuable outcome) into ontology (symbols). That’s what all human life is actually. I call it commerce theory and, as far as I can tell, it always follows this pattern (from bottom to top):
And last year I wrote about it in this book:
Here’s an excerpt from Part 5, Systems & Signals, that draws heavily from my musical experiences:
“Systems & Signals are the moment-to-moment, observable evidence of the 4 deeper layers of Commerce Theory. None of the other layers are so accessibly or unavoidably discernible to our senses, but they all ultimately manifest in terms of discoverable systems & signals if we know where to look. Everywhere we go we find systems & signals that point to group allegiances, their ritual lives, and the underlying theologies from which they draw coherence and animation. It is Systems & Signals that afford observational access to all the deeper layers.
Here’s another way to think of it. I studied music and musical composition in college (hence my story about jazz history class from Layer 1, Ontology). One of the professors (not the jazz history professor) who, without question, exerted the most formative influence on my way of thinking and working would commonly describe music, and I’ve never met any other musician who did this so explicitly and thoroughly, as an intricate series of communicative gestures called affects. Affect has a long history in the craft of music, particularly Western art music, but its conscious use as an organizing concept is not nearly as fashionable now as it was in certain past eras, and his methods sought to revive this sensibility. As a result of his influence it was hard not to see the intentional application of affect, or lack thereof, in every musical situation that one experienced. He would say things like:
“Imagine a great pianist or organist preparing to play [and for him there was no greater figure with regard to technical or expressive mastery than J.S. Bach, so that is who he asked us to picture]. He was thinking, what is the expression of the way I sit? The way I turn my head? The look on my face? The way my hand approaches the keyboard? The speed and sharpness of my body motions?”
And this was all prior even to the actual music that was produced (although I suppose this depends on which parts are included in a systematic definition of musical performance). Music is a series of sonic events arranged in time and musicians have developed an exacting technical vocabulary to describe details which include terms related to: melodic interval, rhythmic duration, sonority, formal organization, intensity of amplitude, and much more. All choices are meaningful and expressive, and they must be, or else we would make different ones. So, he would challenge us, what is the intention behind these choices, and how comprehensive is your understanding of their effect on the listener, the deep principles that anchor these choices?
Today I can look back at these lessons and see that he was encouraging us to view music as a series of signals that create expressive results, each indicating on the surface a much deeper creative process and sense of relationship with the audience, and that’s all it really ever is or could be. Most of his teaching, then, focused on developing our worldview about music in general, in other words working on the 4 hidden layers of Commerce Theory that shaped the surface of the music we created. He wouldn’t have said this next part exactly, but all signals in music point to a craving for transcendence, some kind of sacred commentary on the human condition itself, for it is a part of all theologies, as far as I can tell, to celebrate and comment on the mystery of the human condition itself, and music is simply one of the means by which we do this. For more on the nature of this metacommentary, see my article “Abuse of Play”.
To facilitate the creation and transmission of these signals that comprise the language of music shared between performer and listener, teacher and student, scholar and peer reviewer, etc. there is a robust infrastructure of systems that include best practices, mechanical technologies, intellectual tools, and much else. Musical instruments, for example, are technological innovations. Performing venues are intentionally structured to house the central rituals of music-making. Notation and theory provide the mental framework to shape the cognition and increase the sophistication and consistency of musicians’ creative outputs. All musical education and performances must be supported by a network of finance, contractual law, real estate, access to utilities, and academic accreditation which require a whole other set of systems and signals integrated within the wider economy.
So, we see that what we call “music” is a vast and complex ecology of Systems & Signals, which are merely the momentary and surface-level evidence that reveal the deeper structures of human commerce and social influence, and therefore always rests firmly upon a foundation of the 4 preceding layers of Ontology, Theology, Sociology, and Anthropology. We can note here also that all systems themselves are signals, indicating group preferences for best practices and seeking to rigorously maximize perfections such as reliability, repeatability, clarity, efficiency, ease of use, etc.
For example, the use of a staff in notation is found in certain musical circles more than others, and this speaks directly to the priorities and values of various groups around the ideal shape of musical composition, performance, memorization, improvisation, interpretation, etc. So systems are signals, and signals are found within systems even beyond those that they are intended to organize. Systems and signals are generated constantly, continually, endlessly, and at almost countless levels and gradations of depth.
Everywhere you go, every organization you visit, every culture you experience, every locale you observe is replete with the Systems & Signals placed by social groups for the facilitation of rituals that point to their sense of what is ultimately the best way for humans to live. This layer is the completion and culmination of Commerce Theory, and allows us to act as detectives of human motivation to solve difficult problems and overcome vexing social challenges. I don’t know any other tool that could, so if the problems are solvable, it is Commerce Theory that can solve them. Examining the Systems & Signals is always, and can be the only place, to start, for all the other layers are only truly exposed through this kind of investigation.
While systems & signals are often difficult to disentangle from one another as noted above, we can roughly classify them this way: signals are what we show to one another (whether we mean to or not), and systems are what we build to facilitate the reliable generation of signals and organize their transmission. All moment-to-moment human choices and actions fit into either or both of these categories. Rituals themselves are composed of signals organized in a systematic way, so even when we enact or observe rituals, it is only the systems & signals, and ultimately the signals, that reveal them.”
So, when you see symbols, even math, just remember that they are all forms of religious prayer or chant - a way of encoding the values of a community into systematic manipulation for transmission.
And math may be the deepest, most universal version of this. And some people have a better imagination for it than others. But it’s all the same.
And symbols become part of reality even as they encode it. That’s what the “rationalists” miss I think.
