Music exists both as what is directly heard by listeners, and by its remembered and written forms in music notation and oral tradition. The means by which a performer makes choices in how to present the remembered and written form of music to an audience, whether live or in recording, is musical interpretation. Roughly speaking, musical interpretation is what is intentionally varied or chosen, whether from one performance to another, or from original sources which are ambiguous. Composers and song writers who present their own music are interpreting, just as much as those who perform the music of others or folk music. The standard body of choices and techniques present at a given time and a given place is referred to as performance practice, where as interpretation is generally used to mean either individual choices of a performer, or an aspect of music which is not clear, and therefore has a "standard" interpretation. An example is the metronome markings in Ludwig van Beethoven's Choral Symphony which are not clear, and thus have a "standard interpretation".
A musically sensitive person needs to guide the interpretation process: it is not a machine that makes its own fully meaningful musicinterpretations, nor do we wish to achieve this (it is inherently impossible we believe).
The interpretation of music is a special function that has arisen in Western music through the ability to write down a musical thought, imperfectly.
Music files together with their interpretations can be transmitted on the internet by e-mail to others and immediately performed by anyone who has SuperConductor.
To comprehend the present crisis in the musical world, it must be understood that music is an art that has been preserved and passed on by means of "oral traditions" which were fostered and transmitted with the same care and high moral sense as any of the great religious teachings.
Music notation is a relatively new and very limited development in the history of music.
Because the limitations of music notation only allow the preservation of the barest outlines of a musical composition, music remains an art that is passed on by word of mouth and personal demonstration.
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