Bruno,
> They of course conceive of pitches which a fingering
> on the shakuhachi can give, but not necessarily notes.
If I understand your concern, it has more to do with music notation rather
than the music (sound) itself. You're making the point that Japanese and
Europeans notated differently--Japanese notation being closer to literal
instructions of how to play the flute. Which hole, which finger and so
on--kind of like the books for those beginning to play the recorder.
European notation, however, is more abstract--one needs to learn to 'read'
music which requires a passing familiarity with certain musical
concepts--octave, scale, notes and so on.
I'm referring more to this definition: Scale--a series of tones arranged in
a sequence of rising or falling pitches in accordance with any of various
systems of intervals: especially, all of such a series contained in one
octave. This definition ties together tone, pitch, interval, octave and
scale. It leaves out 'note', but which is implied. Notice that this
definition says nothing about systems or methods of notation.
Your point may well be true that if one doesn't notate by 'scale' one
doesn't comprehend scale, I'll leave that question to people smarter than I.
But what we're talking about is notation and in either case
(Japanese/European) it's somewhat irrelevant. The map is not the territory,
the notation is not the music. The menu is not the meal.
To claim that Japanese didn't comprehend scale/notes because they didn't
notate by scale/notes seems to me, more than a bit iffy.
I've always thought it a little odd that the paper and notation on it is
referred to as 'music', as in "Gather up your music and put it away." To
gather MUSIC and put it anywhere seems to me to imply a live performance.
But maybe I'm too much of a literalist.
Nelson
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