the notated abstract.

"If the primary stuff of music is sound, which I believe, then notation, no matter how ordinary or idiosyncratic, is no more than a representation of the real thing.

Furthermore a description of notation such as this is a symbolic representation of a symbolic representation - twice removed from reality."

Lejaren A. Hiller, Jnr

[sourced from John Cage's Notations (link to PDF of book)]