Musical interpretation
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Music exists both as what is directly heard by listeners, and by its remembered and written forms in music notation and oral tradition. The means by which a performer makes choices in how to present the remembered and written form of music to an audience, whether live or in recording, is musical interpretation. Roughly speaking, musical interpretation is what is intentionally varied or chosen, whether from one performance to another, or from original sources which are ambiguous. Composers and song writers who present their own music are interpreting, just as much as those who perform the music of others or folk music. The standard body of choices and techniques present at a given time and a given place is referred to as performance practice, where as interpretation is generally used to mean either individual choices of a performer, or an aspect of music which is not clear, and therefore has a "standard" interpretation. An example is the metronome markings in Ludwig van Beethoven's Choral Symphony which are not clear, and thus have a "standard interpretation".