Picture of some of the sheet music from the Fiery Furnaces' web site

Yeah so I copied Time Magazine with the “brief history” titling, but imitation is flattery right? (They will get over it) Why would one be bringing up the seemingly archaic topic of sheet music in a contemporary discussion? For the reason that this author came upon quite an interesting news headline the other day, that experimental indie group the The Fiery Furnaces will be releasing a “silent album”, yep you read that right, a silent album. What this means exactly, as defined by them is that The Fiery Furnaces’ upcoming album will “consist of instruction, conventional music notation, graphic music notation, reports and illustrations of previous hypothetical performances, reports and illustrations of hypothetical performances previous to the formation of their hypotheses”. 

Now to be totally forthcoming, I had not had any true knowledge or opinion of the musical library of The Fiery Furnaces prior to reading this article (nor is this article a review of their music). This is simply about this most wonderful of ideas about the way in which to convey and sell music in a difficult market. The Fiery Furnaces are attempting this experiment, “Because file-sharing, or downloading, or whatever, has notoriously, or supposedly, made the production of the conventional ‘with-audio’ record obsolete”. Because they feel, rightly so, that their is not a proper or just profit to be made in the sale of their music due to mp3 file-sharing culture of today they have decided to forego that route all together and try to bring back an antiquated one.

Sheet Music:

Prior to the 15th century sheet music was written and copied by hand and preserved in manuscripts and then in larger volumes. However, these were not usually sold or made known to the public and possessed usually by the Church or by the Nobility (the two main players in all aspects of written music at the time). It was not until after the advent of the Gutenberg printing press in the mid 15th century that the printing of sheet music for the public even became a possibility. Then in about 1520 in England a man named John Rastell invented a method for “single-impression” printing, making printing music easier, quicker, and cheaper. He was granted a monopoly of all music publishing in England by Elizabeth I (wow, image that in the modern age!). Soon enough the effects of this musical revolution started to take effect.

The musical compositions of artists could now be sold and shared with whomever had the means and knowledge. This meant that now musical information spread quick and that there were more & more works, outside of church music, that “everybody knew.” Hence we have, in this author’s view, the birth of the modern music industry. Composers now wrote & sold music for amateur performers, as well as keeping their music alive in perpetuity by the public. Music now became something more than a treat to be enjoyed in church or by the elite, it was a public commodity to be replicated or interpreted by anyone who had the skill to do so. 

The hight of the sheet music industry was the 19th century. As having a piano on hand became the standard for middle class homes and establishments of enjoyment at this time, there was an explosion in the popularity of “parlour music” fueled by widespread sheet music sales. The first “Platinum” single could be defined as Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag”, composed in 1899. Its sheet music, an early ragtime composition for piano (one of the most famous ever), went on to sell over a million copies!

All can surmise that sheet music, as a way of selling music to the public, was then quickly killed off by radio and the record player. As people had a way of buying and hearing the desired music actually played by the artists that composed them, few felt the need to release the (seemingly unnecessary) accompanying sheet music. Now instead of sporting a large piano in one’s living room, it was proper to have a large radio. Sheet music was then only kept alive by proficient professionals who wrote or conducted music.

Until now that is. 

Due to our computer-based technological advances, and collective refusal to establish any effective, decent and logical rules around the distribution of the mp3; it is now not so prudent for any artist (outside the largest of acts) to rely on the sale of their recordings to pay the bills. Indeed it is well known that the live-music world is now becoming more profitable than CD/mp3 sales for the majority of artists.

One suspects that The Fiery Furnaces are also releasing their “silent album” as a way to garnish attention (they have come up with numerous other attention grabbing techniques, such as releasing a cover album of an album of their own) as well as a means to challenge the ways of the music world. Yet this author loves the idea of challenging the status-quo of the business aspect of the music industry, by simply harking back to a simple yet almost extinct idea. The Fiery Furnaces tell us on their website, “Upon release of the record, the band will organize a series of Fan-Band concerts, in which groups of perfectly ordinary Fiery Furnaces’ fans will perform, interpret, contradict, ignore, and so on, the compositions that make up Silent Record.  Write to thefieryfurnacesemail@gmail.com to nominate your post office break room, truck stop parking lot, municipal arts center, local tavern, or what-its-name to host one of these ‘happenings’.  By ‘happenings’ I mean, what will be in the future, perfectly normal rock shows.  And propose yourself for Fan Band participation.”

Not only are they challenging the contemporary economics of music, they are challenging the philosophy of it as well. They are releasing music that is left EXCLUSIVELY to personal interpretation, as there exists no standard “original and proper” way of playing the songs left by the composers. This should spur endless discussion and variations, upon the way this music should be played. If there ever was a positive way of “re-inventing the wheel”, this is it, as the Fiery Furnaces bring us a totally novel way of thinking about/listening to/interpreting music without actually bringing us anything new at all. Bravo!

The Future: I found out something interesting. A website, Musicnotes.com, recently sold its 2 millionth copy of sheet music and/or guitar tabiture. It was started in 1999 and didn’t sell its 100,000 copy of music until 2002. That means the sale of sheet music, for them, has catapulted in the past few years and looks like it will continue. 

What could this mean? Will we one day start referring to cover songs as interpretations… As we do for classical music with different composers and orchestras? Maybe not, but for me the Fiery Furnaces have brought us an idea I hope does not die with this first “silent album”. One can only imagine what would (or could) happen if a prolific act as The Beatles or Pink Floyd or Radiohead released a song via sheet music without an original recording to accompany it. Every artist or band would rush to release their interpretation of the piece as none could ever be actually be “wrong.” It could spur interesting and positive debates for decades. Do many artists have the constraint of Ego to release “silent music” without an accompanying verifiable recording of the “way it is supposed to be”? This has yet to be determined, and I have my doubts indeed.

What I do know is that I love this novel and exciting approach to contemporary music that will force people to think slightly differently. It is a subtle revolution of philosophy and business, without being anything actually new. 

I say it again Fiery Furnaces, Bravo!

Written by Sean Poynton Brna