daemon@bartok.Sun.COM (03/18/90)
Music-Research Digest Sun, 18 Mar 90 Volume 5 : Issue 28
Today's Topics:
greeting in French
Music-Research Digest Vol. 5, #21
reply
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Date: Thu, 8 Mar 90 10:27:08 EST
From: Otto Laske <laske@edu.bu.cs>
Subject: greeting in French
To: music-research <music-research%uk.ac.oxford.prg@uk.ac.nsfnet-relay>
As a P.S. to my goodbye to discussing KA on the network, here is
some food for thought quoting Bernard Bel, a French practitioner
of KA in music:
"Il est interessant d'observer que, dans deux "univers musicaux"
apparemment opposes--celui des traditions orales et celui de la creation
contemporaine--,la difficulte de verbaliser les mecanismes de perception,
evaluation et production de la musique, contribue a renforcer une opinion
courante (sic) selon laquelle l'activite musicale n'est pas aussi
systematique que les musiciens le pretendent, autrement dit que toute
tentative de modelisation de cette activite est vouee a l'echec. En
premier lieu, cette conception reflete une mecomprehension de la demarche
scientifique experimentale, ou l'echec est une source d'enseignement a
part entiere; en second lieu elle encourage, du moins dans les societes
traditionnelles, un reniement de methodes pedagogiques hautement
sophistiquees au profit de ce qu'on peut appeler l'apprentissage par
imitation (Kippen, The Table of Lucknow: a Cultural Analysis of a
Musical Tradition, Cambridge University Press, U.K., 1988). Vraisemblable-
ment pour les memes raisons on constate que tres peu de chercheurs en
informatique musicale s'interessent a l'acquisition des connaissances,
alors qu'un nombre grandissant de theoriciens projettent leurs espoirs
dans le connexionisme en raison de leur interet presque exclusif pour
les activites de perception et de memorisation. On n'hesite pas aujourd'
hui a identifier le processus de "creation" avec celui de "generalisation"
qui est mis en oeuvre dans un resaut neuromimetique. Ici encore Laske
met en garde les musiciens contre une conclusion aussi naive, soulignant
que la creation artistique est bien plus qu'un processus de reorganisation
ou de generalisation des oeuvres anciennes, et que si un observateur croit
voir ou entendre une oeuvre radicalement nouvelle creee par un reseau a
partir d'oeuvres existantes, il faut y voir une limitation de ses facultes
perceptives ou conceptuelles (reponse, music research digest 1990).
Bernard Bel, Considerations generales et methodologiques, Laboratoire
Musique et Informatique Marseille, 1990 (janvier).
Otto Laske
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Date: 14 Mar 90 19:56:39 GMT
From: Roger Lustig <roger%phoenix@edu.princeton>
Subject: Music-Research Digest Vol. 5, #21
To: music-research@prg
In article <8077@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> pa2253@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (pa2253) writes:
>In article <132393@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> music-research writes:
>>How much of the traditional music curriculum (theory, history,
>>keyboard proficiency) should be maintained in an electronic and
>>computer music degree?
>It is important for a computer music composer to have a rapport
>with compositional collegues and antecedents. The importance lies
>in the potential benefit that can occur with the exchange of musical
>ideas. To establish such a relationship, a computer music composer
>should have a means of communicating musical ideas. The academic
>community has and still highly values traditional music notation
>as an avenue of musical communication. The possibilities of
>computer music, however, are not bounded as stringently as the
>possibilities of traditional notated music. The form and function
>of instrumentation and pitch can change radically. To force a
>composer to ignore these new possibilities in favor of rehashing
>a hackneyed past is a grave travesty.
STRAW MAN!
Tell me, who has forced computer music composers to ignore any
possibilities whatever? Where are such things happening?
And tell me more about this "hackneyed past" that somebody's rehashing.
Exactly what past do you mean, and what's hackneyed about it?
Seems to me that the vast majority of music being composed and performed
today, with or without computers, whether academic, mainstream
"classical," jazz, pop, or any of a thousand other kinds, has strong
roots in one or another musical tradition. Pop is especially strong in
its traditions, and most of the music being written TODAY in that genre
and others is directly connected to the music theory of the "past," such
as harmony, phrase analysis, and species counterpoint.
Is all of the music we listen to "hackneyed?" If so, then I don't know
what the word means anymore.
Seems to me that the issues of instrumentation and pitch system in
computer composition are simply of a different type from the issues of
"traditional" composition. There is no incompatibility there at all.
Moreover, since almost all composers who use hte computer are
interested in using traditional materials in some way, it is important
for them to have an inside-out knowledge of these materials.
Another good reason to learn "hackneyed" theory is EXACTLY its
simplicity. To do almost anything well, one needs to master simpler
versions of the task first; and complete mastery of old-fashioned
technique has always stood composers in good stead. Schoenberg taught
most of his students nothing but elementary harmony and counterpoint;
Brahms likewise recommended the archaic ideas of Fux and CPE Bach to his
students. Not coincidentally, it was those two writers whom Haydn used
in his self-education; they were both describing music that was outdated
by the time Haydn read them, and htey made him into one of the great
radicals in music history. Mastering them, that is -- not rebelling
against them, even!
>Because computer music
>affords such possibility, I find it unnecessary for composers of
>computer music to adhere to rigid music history and theory
>curricula.
Um, exactly what IS computer music that it has nothing to do with the
history and theory of music?
>They should be required to understand basic theory
>to the extent that they can communicate with their collegues but
>they should be given the freedom to apply their own musical knowledge
>toward personally defined musical goals.
COLLEAGUES? I want them to be able to communicate with their
audiences! Don't you think there might be some experience that a
thousand years of insightful composers might have picked up, that might
be applicable to musics other than their own?
No matter WHAT kind of composition we're talking about, I think there
are better things for any composer to do than constantly reinvent each
wheel in the gearbox.
>The imposition of a
>theoretical agenda can distract composers in a host of different ways.
>I can expand on these distractions if you have a couple days.
Again, that's a straw man. Who imposes these agendas? Seems to me it
can only be the composer herself. Anybody else is just teaching theory,
or teaching crafts of composition. The real work of composition is
never hampered by such teaching, except if the composer allows this to
happen by losing sight of her own interests.
I wish I'd taken more music theory. The last class I took was called
Composition for Musicologists. In that class, we were given little
snatches of 18th-century-sounding music, and told to complete them. My
thinking about all kinds of music was enriched by this exercise.
My teacher? 12-tone composer Shulamit Ran.
Some years before that, I took a course in which we derived ideas about
music theory -- instrumentation, harmony, voice-leading, melody,
counterpoint -- from the orchestral works of Felix Mendelssohn. There
we derived "models" of music, and hten applied them to pieces in all
kinds of different styles. Needless to say, our instructor had received
many years of training in such matters, as well as a thorough grounding
in 12-tone composition. Several members of my class have gone on to
become musicians of various types; some do electronic/computer music.
So does the instructor, Paul Lansky.
Roger Lustig
"La musique est une science
qui veut q'on rit et chant et danse."
-- Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377)
>Christopher Penrose
>penrose@do.ucsd.edu
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Date: Wed, 7 Mar 90 19:40:58 EST
From: Otto Laske <laske@edu.bu.cs>
Subject: reply
To: music-research <music-research%uk.ac.oxford.prg@uk.ac.nsfnet-relay>
March 7, 90
Dear friends
I think that silence is now the best answer to your talk about
knowledge acquisition. The hostility is unbearable, as if I had hit a
raw nerve, which I am sure I have.
I see no attempt to distinguish between between theory and
practice. I can't even explain to you that, perhaps, doing "knowledge
acquisition," in one way or other, is good only for getting to know
one's own compositional process. That is what it has done for me.
I get the feeling that in this country, the notion of composition
theory is wasted on people. They don't want it, they don't need it,
so why should they have it?
While you keep insulting each other and me (which I am going to
be oblivious of), I am looking for better pastures to build my mind
So long,
Otto Laske
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End of Music-Research Digest