Where did they all go wrong?

I'm not sure what's happened to the idea of being a student, but it has changed - and not for the better.

I'm teaching a class on counterpoint right now. I love it. I think the concepts central to writing good counterpoint are the foundation for all of music. After all, harmonic practice and voice-leading are both derived (to some extent) from counterpoint. The handling of dissonance and consonance have been the foremost issues of harmonic practice for the last 600 years and those are precisely the issues that the practice of counterpoint tackles. Why, then, would a music student, someone ostensibly forging a path to a career in music, not leap at the opportunity to unravel these secrets? I don't know. Maybe they just don't get it yet. That's fine - I would be happy if even a minimal effort were shown. Things are much bleaker still:

I assigned a paper a number of weeks ago about the last movement of the Jupiter Symphony (Mozart, k. 551 for the uninitiated). It's a beautiful finale to the symphony, weaving in passages of elegantly crafted imitative counterpoint and building to a coda (the movement is in sonata form) that is a fugue. GENIUS! But that's old-hat from Mozart. The concepts of synthesis and evolution in the context of sonata form that imitative counterpoint makes possible are, as is the best of Mozart, transcendent. I asked my students to write about the use of counterpoint in this movement - how/when is it used? to what effect? How does it change the musical outlook, having more than a homophonic or melody-and-accompaniment structure available? On the first try I got back play-by-plays of the music - not remotely analytical or insightful.

I inquired as to why that was. Apparently at the institution where I work - a major university - the music history department has not taught them how to write a research paper in a proper academic style (like not in the first person, no colloquialisms, etc.) and with citations (APA style, you know, the kind the big kids use). Shock. Horror.

I gave them a primer on paper-writing, having to actually inform them that quoting Wikipedia is NOT acceptable in ANY paper. I gave them a week and a half to rewrite these 3-page papers. Pretty generous, I thought.

Then came day of reckoning. They were to come to class, papers in hand. I, of course, got a handful of emails telling me about printer trouble and that the paper was attached. OK, I can handle printing the paper, no problem. But, there was one particularly egregious condition over which I am still fuming: I have 20 students in this class. 10 were in class. I received 12 papers total without so much as a note from the remaining 8.

Quite apart from being inconsiderate and disrespectful to me and their classmates, I fail to see how the lack of personal and professional responsibility has been allowed to grow unchecked, like an intellectual cancer, in the lives of these students. Sure, we all slack off, hand things in late occasionally with sob-story emails that we spent more time crafting than the assignment, but never have I seen the likes of trying to justify non-engagement.

This country, for all of its prosperity and freedom, has engendered a false sense of entitlement in the adults(?) currently enrolled at the undergraduate level. They act as if they are to be presented with information, like college is just an extension of the required education system, brimming with knowledge to be spoon-fed to them. They live a multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank intellectual existence. Pretty bleak. Where does it come from?

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This past summer I worked for Say Yes to Education in Syracuse. They are an organization designed to get elementary and highschool kids excited about learning, about the power and confidence that having a well-developed mind brings. Kind of...

After two weeks of highfalutin workshops on educational theory and lesson-plan making 'counselors' were sent to teach groups of 20-odd 1st-4th graders at a time twice a day for five weeks. The implementation of these workshops as a teaching aid and lesson-plans as an organizational (and evaluative) tool was little more than sketchy at best, but that's for another time. Things really fell to pieces when the district's policies came into play. Rule-following was of paramount importance, trumping even the most basic of common-sense considerations. For the adults, I mean.

I think during the course of those five weeks this past summer I generated something on the order of 5,000 pages of media (copies included). I filled out almost every form in duplicate, somtimes up to quadruplicate. This was all because the system for gaining permission from parents was set in stone; unquestionable. For instance, every child was required to have a medical emergency card with parents' names, telephone numbers, doctors' information, etc. Great idea! Cards were sent home with the kids on day one for them to bring back filled-out before the first field trip. We were still sorting these things out before the final day's field trip because the method of return, the (rightly) unreliable kids, was an asinine means to gain essential information.

At one point during the summer I noticed that all of this information already existed in two other places: First, each child, necessarily being enrolled in the district, had one of these cards already on file in the main office (but it was yellow, not purple - obviously unusable). Second, this information existed on the application that each parent filled out before the child could be enrolled in the summer camp. I said to my boss, "Why can't we just use the information we already have so that we can get to the other work (like getting supplies that never materialized) that NEEDS to be done for these kids to have effective learning experiences?"

"Because it's policy." was the retort.

Probably "That's stupid." was an inappropriate response, but lo and behold it escaped my lips and I met with the candor that inspired in quick time. But in all seriousness, because the other office workers and I could not spend time coordinating the pressing material issues, because we were sidelined trying to adhere to a literal policy whose goals could be met without literally having that stupid purple card in hand, we could not effectively manage and develop the support that the classes needed. How difficult would it have been to create a master binder with copies of all this information? It may have taken 2 maybe 3 hours. There were DAYS spent on making phone calls, creating duplicate cards to fill out, etc.

Policy, dogma, adherence without understanding. These are the plagues of the educational system and, sadly, they seem to be trickling through to the students' methods of learning. They don't want to know concept, they want to know answers. They want to pass tests (regents, anyone?) and they want to get good grades. They don't want to be handed information as if it is a currency to be handed back in exchange for a grade.

Why are we bartering with information? Has the idea of being intellectually engaged become so abhorrent in our society that we refuse to even teach how to do it anymore? Are we so scared of wanting to be elite?

"Oh, you're some kind of intellectual elitist." I've heard many written-off in this way because they choose to value thought and argument. They choose to want to learn, to be curious and they expect the same from others. They expect society to engage at a level that takes up its problems and works towards progress, not merely tread water as vigorously as possible in the name of simulating action. What's so bad about aspiring to elitism anyway? Everyone wants to be at the top of their particular game. Everyone wants to be the best. To appreciate that and engender a competitive and critical (not malicious) attitude in people seems to be the way that we might think together instead of against one another. If elitism is the attitude that advocates an "elite" ideal as a primary force in a given society, what's so bad about that? Let's aim high!

Until then, more frustration with laziness.

Stand... or else?

I've been subbing as a choir accompanist on a semi-regular basis at a couple area churches here, in and around Syracuse. Each time I go there is some doubt in my mind as to what my role really is. Sure, I have to know the music and be able to work with the musicians (who come from every extreme of the music literacy spectrum). But, to what extent am I there as a kind of "praise leader"? If I am 'in charge' of leading the musical portion of the worship for that day am I also obligated to act in the mold that the church desires of its members? Am I then merely a hired gun, not able to take the moments in whatever sanctuary to worship in my own way? (This is less a concern of mine, being über-protestant)

I've been unsure of where my duties end and where my sense of personal obligation picks up. However, something that happened this past Sunday set me off in a new direction. I was playing at a Catholic service. It was one for which I had subbed four or five times. This time, however, one of the members of the choir asked that I stand during certain portions of the mass. This was by no means a huge request, but the statement behind the actions requested from me was unsettling. Maybe it was on principle (out of defiance?) that I questioned whether or not I should honor the choir member's request - I'm just here to play the songs, lady! Right?...

I eventually stood at the appointed times, but couldn't help feeling a little dishonest. Somehow when the decision to 'play along' for the sake of the congregation fell on my shoulders I was more comfortable with doing so.

I'm still not sure what I'm being asked to do when I lead music for a service.

Recess

I was talking to my mom today about a lady that has 'pioneered' a program for organized recess in California. The program, which schools pay $50K for, teaches basic games and conflict resolution (in no small part using Rock-Paper-Scissors) to inner-city kids. After working with city kids all summer I know that this kind of guidance is needed, but I question the need for this kind of costly and, seemingly, common-sense program. Why aren't teachers teaching the tools of organization, conflict resolution, etc? Is there any (public) school that isn't so bogged down by bureaucracy and propriety that they can make an attempt to teach tools instead of information. Has the "curriculum" of our public school system become so dogmatic and prescribed that we have lost all adaptability and, terrifyingly enough, imagination? I'm going to check the documentary tomorrow - perhaps that will spark an update...

WebLog?

I just wrote the following piece and submitted it to NewMusicBox.com. I think it has some validity, although I am trying to suss-out how to implement it with my own site - I think it's going to take some major revision. It's an exciting thought (to me, anyway).

Composers are constantly looking for exposure. I think that all of us, at some level, hope to burst forth from the bubble that is “new music” and have some kind of mass appeal; à la Copland (but bigger!) might be the thought. Of course we all strive towards whatever artistic ends we might have the skill or luck to achieve, but there is, in this media-dominated society, a bastion of antiquated form. It seems strange to say it aloud given that the advent of this particular device was maybe two decades ago, perhaps less in the compositional realm. I am writing, of course, about personal web pages. Each of us who is serious about our compositional endeavor has been at least counseled to get a web page. Depending on our technical prowess we trim (or pay somebody to do so) our pages like commercial Christmas trees (redundant?) in the hope that we can appeal to any who stumble by our nook of the internet.

There is a logical oversight in all of this. If we are sequestered in our new music world, then our web pages are as well to some degree. Certainly the facility and accessibility of the net might lead someone by chance to encounter our pages, but there is little reason to say that they would be interested or know what they are looking at. Moreover, most composer web pages fall into one of three categories: the super-minimal self-ad, the gaudy graphics-bedazzled self-ad, and the barebones-of-html self-ad. (Certainly there are suave, well-chiseled web pages, but we all know that hired help usually makes those.) In the end all that matters is that these web pages are our only outlets of ‘free’ (minus hosting fee) publicity. We can inform, debate, update, expose, etc. on these pages. Why do so few do this?

Web pages seem to have fallen into a resume-derived script. We need a page about concerts, upcoming works, bio, pictures (if you can avoid breaking the lens, in which case I envy you), audio files, news, etc. Some people have figured out the email mailer, but that is far from the streamlined blog style of an RSS feed or the like. Why shouldn’t we style our pages after blogs, updating our throngs of fans about what we’re working on by talking about what we’re reading, writing, listening to, etc. If nothing else it could be a rewarding creative reflection, and at best it could give some much-needed writing practice (in words) to many who may need it. Access to this information by listeners could be crucial to understanding artistic vision, exposing new art, or anything in-between.

Cell phones. We have them. iPhones, Blackberries: many composers I know, despite our pay, have them. Smart phones seem to be the future of everyone’s communications arsenal. Why, then, are we not taking advantage of this? At a given concert I would wager that half the audience has smart phones. If they are confronted with a piece by a (gasp!) living composer and a stodgy program note they probably want more if they aren’t a classical music buff. Since the internet (or interweb, as I prefer) is now everywhere, all the time, they could have access, given our work on the right kind of web pages, to a plethora of information pertaining to compositional process, personal taste, life events influencing our art, etc. which would never in a million years make it onto a “respectable” program. We have the opportunity to create great visibility not just for our would-be professional personas but for our honest-to-goodness artistic selves, with all of our faults and prejudices on display for any curious listener or reader to measure out.

That sounds like the kind of publicity I want. I’m going to overhaul my website by the end of August. Give it a try (or at least start an adjunct blog on Blogger or Wordpress) – it could be a great parallel creative outlet that pays off in publicity.

That's Inconceivable!

Recently on NewMusicBox.com Colin Holter wrote about trying to create music that sounded bad but was good. This seems impossible for two reasons: First, if music sounds bad and you are bothering to listen to more than the surface it is. The end. You can't polish a turd, so the saying goes. Second, if you try to write music and you are writing in anything other than your own voice (which would be necessary to speak in a 'bad-sounding' musical langugage) your music will inevitably be bad in sound and construction. You can't write in a musical language which seems foreign enough to be called bad. The root idea is the same as it has ever been: write what you know and know what you are writing.

new fun word

new word used in context: I practice floccinaucinihilipilification at work daily.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floccinaucinihilipilification

La!

Check out my new songs. Performed by Sequitur with Abigail Fischer, Mezzo-Soprano; Harold Meltzer, Narrator. Texts by Eevin Hartsough.

Maybe, maybe not, but certainly not certainly.

I'm in a class dealing with John Cage right now. Here's a question about indeterminacy that was posed to us along with a short answer of mine. Thoughts?

Q:What notions do the words “intentional” and “unintentional” inspire and to what extent do they apply practically?

With regard to musical composition, intention can be questioned often. Scores are mere directives about making music, not the music itself. Music is meant to be played and listened to, not simply read from the page. Thus, the music is only realized when a musician renders a version of it from the instructions on a sheet of music. A composer, therefore, must strive to communicate and intend musical consequences through the language of notation. And, although the written language of music has evolved greatly in just over five-hundred years of existence, its syntax grasps at multiple other languages for clarification – German, Italian, French, and English adjectives and directions, diagrams, drawings, and other graphic depictions meant to elicit emotional and interpretive responses from players. This is not to ignore the relatively specific notational conventions for pitch, rhythm, and relative articulations. It is notable that much of the notational system is made of subjective marks, open to a relatively wide range of interpretations – markings such as crecendo, decrecendo, forte, piano, multiples of f and p, etc. All of this is to say that there is only a certain amount of intention that a composer may hope to bring to fruition with any degree of certainty. There will always be a necessary element of interpretation and, perhaps, improvisation. Performance practice, tuning conventions, acoustical fads, and other narrowing factors play a large role in narrowing the scope of possible outcomes, but with a long view of music in mind, these factors are fleeting, and composers may never have full sway over their work unless they record it. In doing so, however, they might remove themselves from the artistic practice of composition, whereby the composer creates a more-or-less specific musical structure from which players may swing gracefully, or fall on their faces. There will always be unintended musical happenings with music as a performing art.

ha!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VcoV37kRFc&feature=related

Ressurection

Ok, let's get this thing going again. Perhaps it's the spirit of the inauguration or maybe some intellectual wanderlust, but there's much to say and much to do these days.

Coming soon: audio blog! I'll be working on a project called 'Due Process' (perhaps hosted here, if I can link correctly...)

More posts, with content (and limited commentary) of material like this:

At the root of our current national dilemmas is an accepted lack of integrity. We are assaulted on all sides by corruption of such magnitude that it's hard to fathom. Almost everything and everyone seems to be for sale. Value is assessed solely in terms of dollars. Quality is sacrificed to commerce and truthful communication is supplanted by marketing. The type of gamesmanship that separates races, genders and ages by 'preferences' is a most cynical brand. The integrity and dedication shown by American artists throughout our history provides a most needed and unequivocal counter-statement. - Wynton Marsalis

Astute and awesome. Let's all get our houses in order.