Hell is full of musical amateurs, but so is heaven

Today, whenwe think of musical performance inWestern art music, it is easy to take for granted the division of labor between, for example, musician and composer. However, music has obviously been produced for many thousands of years without there being a need to compose and write it down before playing it. Most genres of music have sustained and developed without this split between creator and performer. In genres where improvisation play an important role the musician sometimes embodies both the creative act and the interpretative–simultaneously. In musics built on aural traditions the composed component is integrally bound to the musician. However, as advanced and standardized technologies for systematic notation of music were developed in Europe the role of the musician slowly began to evolve into two, often separate parts: one part primarily responsible for the construction of music (composer), and one part primarily responsible for the performance of it (musician). There is no doubt that composition and notation are extraordinarily ecient means to structure, communicate and preserve musical ideas and it is fair to assume that the development that led to the division of labor loosely sketched here participated in the advancement ofWestern music into new aesthetic areas