Musical notations with the function of prescribing works by providing instructions addressed to performers are scores. Scores must be read in terms of the notational conventions and performance practices they presume. Not everything to be played is notated and not everything notated is to be read ‘literally’ or takes as work-determinative. Scores may be indeterminate if the works they designate are the same, but incompleteness and ambiguity in scores are undesirable. Goodman requires too much of notations in expecting them to specify works while divorcing them from the historical context in which they are produced, from the demands of using and following them, and from the conventions and practices they assume.
Keywords: convention, indeterminacy, instruction, notation, score, work