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From: pa2253@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (pa2253)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Music-Research Digest      Vol. 5, #21
Summary: theory impositions
Keywords: possibilities, compositional freedom
Message-ID: <9073@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
Date: 15 Mar 90 21:37:11 GMT
References: <132393@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <8077@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> <14531@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
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Organization: University of California, San Diego
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In article <14531@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:

>Tell me, who has forced computer music composers to ignore any
>possibilities whatever?  Where are such things happening?

Possibilities can be threatened if your time is wasted on narrowly
focused pedagogy.

>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.

First, I must acknowledge the potential benefits of theoretical analysis
and synthesis.  Your collective study of Mendelssohn and the synthesis
of "models" of music may have been rewarding.  You, however, attend
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.

In another light, you have not provided a rationale for describing the 
necessity for a "thorough grounding in 12-tone composition."  Why not
a thorough grounding in the techniques and structures inherent in 
rap music?  Polka? Blues? automobile transmissions?  Clearly, you must see
that agendas exist.  Theoretical models exist only for a handful of musical
styles.  This absense is another stylistic imposition/suggestion.  Instead
of choosing Mendelssohn, why couldn't you analyze the works of Gordon
Mumma?  The reason is clear--obvious theoretical models would have little
utility in describing the music of Mumma.

>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.

A piece of music obviously has an implicit relationship to the collective
history of music.  However, that does not require an individual to compose
for historically obvious instruments in historically delineated ways.  Why
should a student of composition be forced to learn and use someone else's
musical tools when they are more comfortable and facile developing their
own?  I understand MY musical history better than an institution, and
I have the motivation and desire to create my OWN music as much as it is 
possible. 

>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.

That is absolutely ridiculous!  I doubt that you have had the experience
of working 30 hours a week, while taking prerequisite music theory courses
and attempting to compose.  Clearly in my case, music theory has been an
imposition.  I was never asked to synthesize the information I was given:
that I did automatically and effortlessly;  I was asked to submit to
rigid projects that gave no creative latitude and, therefore, were completely
meaningless to me.  The courses did not promote discussion or evaluation.
Although I gained a few useful concepts from the courses, these ideas 
could have been presented in a much more interactive and efficient manner.
I have taken composition courses where professors literally "corrected"
my scores.  I had notes erased and replaced by notes that the professor
felt were "more efficacious in this context."  He encouraged us to compose
in pencil.  Hmmm.. I think that the composer "must" have imposed those
corrections on himself by making such a foolish musical choice in the 
first place.  Just as in Enlightenment Christianity, you have total freedom
as soon as you acknowledge that there is only one choice of action |-(.

>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.
>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?

Sounds like musical homogenization to me.  You have no right to dictate
musical values.  You assume that most computer music composers are
interested in traditional materials.  This is completely unjustified.
I use the computer to mutate and transform the traditional.  See, I am
different.  Must I conform to your vision of music as you wish it to be? 
What does it mean to have inside-out knowledge of musical materials?
>From the rest of your statements I gather that you imply that there is
only ONE such understanding, ONE such truth.  Knowledge is relative;
there is a multitude of perspectives.  I tend to look at musical objects
timbrally--I think and perceive in terms of density, energy, space, motion,
spectrum, time, contrast, and semantics.  I fully recognize that other
composers may employ a different language to describe their music and
hence they will establish a different musical context.  My intention
is to insure that the multitude of contexts are not systematically
destroyed by the imposition of 'proper musical processes.'  Someone else's
experience is never automatically useful--knowledge must be integrated
into the individual's own history and experience for it to have any
utility.

>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!

One does not have to first become a Nazi to rebel against fascism.  This
metaphor hopefully shows how ridiculous your statement is.  You CAN become
a Nazi first, but I choose not to.  A composer does not have to 'master' a
technique if it offends her, she can simply avoid it and employ another.
I have chosen my own focus:  digital signal processing.  I find this
path to be functional and satisfying.  This is not by any means my sole
compositional process, it is simply a powerful tool that has been very
useful to my music.  Digital signal processing is a subject extremely
alien to traditional music theory; however, it can be extremely intimate
with respect to music.  Now I guess that you will say that such a focus
is fine as long as I share my attention with traditional music theory.
A human being has only finite amount of time and patience available to
her;  I intend to maximize the share of attention that my interests
receive at the expense of copious frustration and disintegration.

>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.

I am glad to see that someone can benefit from such exercises.  I grant 
that my exposure to such exercises has often enriched my musical thinking
in positive ways, but so has rap music.  To think about ALL music one must
be exposed to ALL music.  18th century art music is a mere fraction of all
available music.  I am not going to ignore the flocks of birds, pneumatic
drill grooves, the occasional F14 flying over my house, Jupiter Larson,
wind chimes, the drums of a TGIF from five miles away, Robert Ashley,
poetry readings, by preoccupying myself with my next analysis hoax.  I 
feel that I can take responsibility for my education and I can justify
myself with my musical compositions.  The justification for my compositions
can come from an explication of their impetus, and what methods I employed
to realize them.  I would prefer a world where justification was not 
extant, but I feel that I can justify my work from a variety of perspectives.

Christopher Penrose
penrose@do.ucsd.edu