Musical composition is perhaps one of the most mysterious of
all art forms. It springs from deep wells within the human spirit,
and efforts to capture music and fix it in a tangible form have
preoccupied humans since the beginnings of civilization. Music
was indeed encoded in the cuneiform script of Mesopotamia. Yet,
the current form of notes on staff lines only dates from Guido
de Arezzo's 11th century treatise, Micrologus. In the
West prior to Guido, neumatic notation left the exact relationship
of one pitch to another and one pitch length to another unknown.
Guido's creation has inexorably led to our current ability to
notate an avalanche of music with increasing speed and precision.
Compared to the myriad influences and technologies in existence
today that bring music to the public, this exhibit is fairly restrained.
We have chosen to treat only three aspects of musical composition.
The first is composition as a graphic art, specifically as a
manifestation of the printer's art. Prior to electronic means
of copying, lining up notes, rests, staff lines and spaces, the
entire vocabulary of music notation, was an enormously difficult
task for an industry based on moveable type. Not until the early
experiments with music typewriters in the 20th century was composition
finally freed from some amount of handwriting.
The second deals with composition as a musical art. Since every
composer's method of creating music is different, we have chosen
to let composers speak themselves through their oral histories
and their sketchbooks. We have attempted to show something of
the progression from idea to published score or recording in the
works of Adolphus Hailstork and Allan Blank.
The third aspect is composition not as art, but rather as business.
While marketing and advertising, the proper of the publishing
industry, lie outside the scope of this exhibit, we show a basic
process, along with a few caveats, of how to become a paid composer.
This exhibit is made possible by funding from the F. Ludwig Diehn
Music Fund of the Norfolk Foundation. |
