thoughts on music

the conference yesterday got me wondering about the similarities between arts and music research - there were so many questions that seem to have some common ground -

• the idea of the need (or not) for the source of a work to be apparent 
• the role of the maker / composer in transforming, assembling or framing 'raw materials' (sound, noise...) to present a narrative or  perspective
• the role of the composer and the performer in creating - and recreating the work - wonder whether this could be analagous to the relationship between the maker and the viewer in contemporary / post modern practice where the beholder is central to constructing meaning
•  whether the gallery or curator could be seen as analagous to that of the promoter of the concert hall in selecting and presenting work in a form or product that is understood by a 'consuming' public
• the tension between technique and emotion in judging the quality (or dramaturgical impact?) of a work
• the problem for researchers by practice of the balance between publication and performance or exhibition
• the question of the need (or not) to set up situations where normal or natural ways of working with a tool or instrument are subverted or challenged in some way
• the question of where the image or the sound exists - an intellectual or physical / phenomenological experience, both for the performer / maker and for the audience - Schaefferian analysis...?
• the question of narrative in a piece of music (and  in a piece of work)-  whether notes on the process of producing a work (such as a graphic score or directions for installation) are art works in their own right
• the problem of documenting a performance or the experience of seeing / being with an art work that may traditionally have been created with an emphasis on one sensory mode (the eye or the ear) but is increasingly being presented / curated as a multisensory (time-based?) work
• the shift from narrative to abstract aesthetic ideals- perhaps from the particular to the 'essential'