Conflicting ideas of transcription

Having carefully examined a collection of sketches, you will want to communicate your findings. To do this you will need to present the evidence sustaining your interpretation. Often this will mean showing your reader well-chosen examples taken from your objects of study. The two traditional modes of presenting musical manuscripts are transcription and facsimile reproduction. Transcription means to rewrite or to write over. In music this can occur within the same medium (transcribing handwritten sketches into printed notation) or from one medium to another (transcribing recorded music to staff notation). Today a facsimile reproduction presents a copy of the original using photographic technology. Regina Busch insists that there is in fact no real difference between them from an ontological point of view.

Her point is well taken. Facsimiles can replicate original sources more exactly than a transcription, but differences remain. For example, none of the facsimiles in this book involve colour. Also, digital images can be brightened or darkened, depending on whether the user wishes to highlight traces of writing or the texture of the paper (see Figures 7.3 and 7.4). Nevertheless, Busch eschews dealing with the problems and issues one must confront when having to choose between transcription and facsimile reproduction. In the following, we will examine the advantages and disadvantages of each. We will also look at the conflicting approaches to the transcription of sketches that arose in the twentieth century.