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Full Idea
A performance of a certain work with a false note is still a performance of that work, albeit a slightly imperfect one, and not (as Goodman has argued) a performance of a different work.
Gist of Idea
One false note doesn't make it a performance of a different work
Source
Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.6)
Book Ref
Simons,Peter: 'Parts: a Study in Ontology' [OUP 1987], p.284
A Reaction
This is clearly right, but invites the question of how many wrong notes are permissable. One loud very wrong note could ruin a very long performance (but of that work, presumably). This is about classical music, but think about jazz.
Related Idea
Idea 20438 A performance is only an instance of a work if there is not a single error [Goodman]
| 171 | Music is a knowledge of love in the realm of harmony and rhythm [Plato] |
| 316 | Music has harmony like the soul, and serves to reorder disharmony within us [Plato] |
| 5063 | Music charms, although its beauty is the harmony of numbers [Leibniz] |
| 20101 | Without music life would be a mistake [Nietzsche] |
| 20341 | An interpretation adds further properties to the generic piece of music [Wollheim] |
| 12168 | Music is not representational, since thoughts about a subject are never essential to it [Scruton] |
| 12875 | One false note doesn't make it a performance of a different work [Simons] |
| 20402 | Music is too definite to be put into words (not too indefinite!) [Davies,S] |