eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) (03/16/90)
In article <9073@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> pa2253@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (pa2253) writes: ;In article <14531@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes: ;Princeton University--a university I'd like to attend in the Fall. At ;such a university I can see the encouragement of possibility--whereas ;UCSD imposes a pedagogical theoretical curriculum which is founded upon ;rigid style analysis projects. These projects waste the student's time ;by demanding that a specific task be performed without making the demand ;for synthesizing the task into a larger philosophical or theoretical ;framework. By imposing upon the composers time, they succeed in dictating ;musical preferences. There's another possibility, which is to stay out of school altogether or study something else. I'm perfectly serious. The reason that there are such things as PhD programs in composition is that back when, Milton Babbitt demonstrated to admissions that composition was a rigorous activity, that theoretical studies were inevitably a part of the compositional curriculum, and that composers were an autonomous lot whose standards were as high as those set in other fields. Admissions sez ok, you got a program. About 30 years later none of the above is true. Composition is rigorous activity if you want it to be, but no one sits on your back making sure that you have a lengthy explanation for every sound in your piece. Theory is less intrinsically part of the curriculum since the canonical theories -- say, those of Schenker -- have been somewhat relativized, and it's understood that you can get along perfectly well without them. Composers are no longer an autonomous lot, because few people really do believe that just because your music sounds like shit therefore it must not be or that just because your music doesn't sound like shit that therefore it is. Composers today want to make some sort of appeal to a public, to break into a bigger commission-claiming bracket, maybe even capture some of the mainstream sector, as did Glass, Reich, Adams, etc. In short standards of compositional excellence are no longer set, as they once were, from within the university (or in Europe, the major administrative organs, Darmstadt, Donaueschingen, etc). Result is that today music departments have lost much of their claim -- indeed much of their need -- to be tied to universities. Or they have as intrinsically as great a claim to offer PhD's at research universities as would, say, fashion designers. Some universities exaggerate the importance of theory studies because of the need to articulate a cogent curriculum. You can't say, "we let our students do whatever the fuck they want to because they're artists" and have admissions agree. Admissions sez, "What is your curriculum." So you must make one up. And given that historical-theoretical literacy is low in this country, you make your undergrads do Fux. Not that they must: but they must if there is to be a program. Sometimes you can learn something from this anyway, sometimes it's completely irrelevant, sometimes you just can't even do the stuff. But you're studying not because this is the only known way to become a composer. You're studying because this is a reasonably good way to make a program in composition. You can prove that somebody learned how to do something. If you go to school in Germany, you don't study theory. You have a few subjects, but essentially you concentrate on composition. The catch is that in order to get into a german conservatory, you have to plop down a few scores that you wrote, like maybe something for big orchestra, maybe a chamber piece. Then you do exams in which you prove that you can do counterpoint. If you can't, they say "get a private teacher." Stateside, this is what you do. You program your mac to record you playing your casio, and you submit a song called "I really want to get into your University," roughly in the style of Barry Manilow but even lousier. You never heard anything written before 1961. You can't read music. So of course it seems like a good idea to make university programs in composition teach students about things like sonata form.
pa2253@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (pa2253) (03/17/90)
In article <14580@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman) writes: > (alot of information) Very perceptive, Eliot. I have neglect the relationship of music departments to their larger parents: the university bureaucracy. A program`s survival depends upon its perceived worth in the eye`s of its funders. Empirical tendencies in curricula structure can justify a program regardless of its content. Administrative bodies cannot be expected to understand compositional values, so I can see that it is a true struggle to develop a program that promotes freedom and restricts imposition as program evaluation is the task of bureaucrats, not musicians. With this reality exposed, I can only ask for as much freedom that I can get away with. Christopher Penrose penrose@do.ucsd.edu
lseltzer@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Linda Ann Seltzer) (03/19/90)
>Some universities exaggerate the importance of theory studies because >of the need to articulate a cogent curriculum. You can't say, "we let our >students do whatever the fuck they want to because they're artists" and >have admissions agree. Admissions sez, "What is your curriculum." So >you must make one up. And given that historical-theoretical literacy is >low in this country, you make your undergrads do Fux. Ideally, a traditional music curriculum will separate the music of the past from the commercialization which such music has suffered in the modern performance and media world. Perhaps at UCSD the traditional music curriculum made the music of the past seem hackneyed, but if you will go a bit north you will find a program at Berkeley which makes the music of the past come alive and which engenders a love for traditional music, both Western and non-Western. Perhaps some students feel it is a waste of time to devote several years of study to the music of the past, but for others, especially those who have played an instrument for many years, there is an honest desire to understand this music. In the context of such study the relationship between fields such as signal processing and composers of the past becomes real as one understands the acoustic properties of such music. If a program is not honestly inspiring students to appreciate music of the past, then there is something wrong with the program, not something wrong with the idea of having traditional music programs. If you take exercises in harmony and counterpoint to be mere manipulation of musical materials, then it may seem remote and inaccessible. But it is necesary to look at exercises as practice in the work and experience of composition. The chorale melodies were very deeply religious and have very deep emotions associated with them if one opens one's heart to them. I found the practice of harmoniizng chorales three times a week for two months to be a deeply religious meditation practice which required many hours of devotion and concentration in order to create harmonizations which were alive and which suited the sentiment of the melodies and their context. To the present day I still play my chorale harmonizations as a means of putting myself in the frame of mind to compose. Emotions have to be spontaneous rather than forced, contrived or controlled, and it is hoped that the natural emotion towards the music of the past can be one of love and of separating the music and its truth from any means by which the commercial media, such as radio stations, have presented the past and distilled it of its meaning. It is with this sentiment that the study of traditional music is undertaken. The purpose is not to engender means by which the composer can simply take surface phenomena and mechanistically "apply" them. As for the relationship between digitial signal processing and traditional music, to say there is none is quite untrue. The relationships must be discovered by means of one's own insight and one's own ability to view the past in a new light. This is not to say that education in a traditional music is a *requisite* for musical creativity. I do see a traditional education as a desirable and valuable experience in itself, however, which is worth the required devotion and time.
mgresham@artsnet.UUCP (Mark Gresham) (04/13/90)
In article <14961@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> lseltzer@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Linda Ann Seltzer) writes: >>>But what if I enjoy music tremendously and my family couldn't >>>afford music lessons? Or they thought the 1812 Overture is the >>>height of musical expression? Shouldn't I be allowed to enter >>>on the basis of my enthusiasm and willingness to learn? > >This question is very close to my own experience. I did not have >the opportunity for musical training when I was a child, and it was >only at the age of 19, when I was studying literature in college, that >I became interested in music. What finally worked for me was to enter >a program as a non-degree student (I was in my early 30's when I entered >Berkeley) and to take as much time as needed without constraints of >requirements or time-of-completion. The demographics of college >enrollment indicate a larger percentage of older students than there >were 20 years ago, and it would be helpful if excellent music schools >devised a means to give them the proper preparation to enter a >professional level performance program. This key words in relationship to my comments is "give them proper preparation." I don't care how old or young a student is. If they are *prepared* to enter a collegiate-level music degree program, that's what counts. So if someone decides at age 19, like Linda, to study music, then a means of reaching that level of preparation is great, but, again, not *within* the degree program! Another note re my own experience and preparation: when I entered a university music program as a freshman, I placed at the beginning of my junior year in theory. However, I was told that I'd have to make up the *credit hours* in higher-level theory/comp courses (which were sparsely offered) in spite of the competence demonstrated. Now if you compare that experience with the constant observation of incompetent incoming students (and me, as an accompanist teaching them their music, as they couldn't read/learn it themselves!) you can see some of my frustration at the inaneness of the situation. IMHO, if someone is able to demontrate competence, then by gum they should get some kind of recognition/credit for that competence! But to penalize someone for it and then promote *incompetence* elsewise is absurd. Linda is quite right about the need to look more closely at the current age-demographics. But let anyone entering a program be ready for it, and if they are ready for it let them study, be they 13 or 35. Cheers, --Mark ======================================== Mark Gresham ARTSNET Norcross, GA, USA E-mail: ...gatech!artsnet!mgresham or: artsnet!mgresham@gatech.edu ========================================