Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!roger
From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Music-Research Digest      Vol. 5, #21
Keywords: possibilities, compositional freedom
Message-ID: <14686@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 19 Mar 90 19:46:22 GMT
References: <132393@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <8077@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> <14531@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <9073@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
Reply-To: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 349

I don't want this to turn into a flame war, but I think there are issues
here that should be talked about seriously.

In particular, I'd like to know where you're coming from, Christopher,
especially since you've dropped some of the key questions I asked, such
as: what's this "hackneyed musical past" stuff?  and "What kind of
computer music is entirely divorced from issues in our musical
past/present?"

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:

>>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.

Now, I know you feel this way about your current curriculum, and I've
heard severe criticisms of the place in the past; just out of curiosity,
what exactly is it you're forced to do, to the exclusion of all else?

>>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.

Hey, grad school in general is an imposiiton on one's time!  Wait til
you start TEACHING (as a TA or whatever) -- you'll learn the meaning of
imposition.

As far as synthesizing what you've learned, what's so bad about them
leaving it up to you?  I don't think there's a "right answer" to such a
task.  

In fact, doing the synthesis on your own is what grad school is for,
imho.  They sure can't give you surveys of EVERYTHING; so you have to
take whatever happens to be offered, and turn it to your advantage.
(Not to say that you have to accept things uncritically, just that the
actual teaching will of necessity be fragmentary, of the "Topics in
-----" type, unlike, say, a calculus sequence or something.)

>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.

Maybe you should reread what I said.  NOWHERE did I say anything about
the necessity of a thorough grounding in 12-tone comp.; nor has Paul or
anyone else in this discussion.  I mentioned it to point out the breadth
of Paul's education/training/experience as a composer, and that it had
contributed to his ideas about how to compose music that, on the
surface, has nothing to do with 12-tone.

Likewise, I think that a thorough grounding in blues would be terrific.
Might be hard to do it at a college; a weekly seminar at the
Checkerboard might be better, especially considering HOW blues is
composed.  (For the record, J K Randall and Steve Mackey have taught a
very similar course, albeit not from the compositional viewpoint.)

Why Mendelssohn and not Mumma?  Well, it's hard for me to say,
especially since I'd never heard of the latter until just now.  But your
"clear reason" is not so clear at all; I suspect, based on what you say,
that theoretical/pedagogical models of Mumma might have little utility
in describing many other musics of interest to most beginners, which we
were in the Mendelssohn course.  Mendelssohn, on the other hand, has a
LOT in common with many popular (and even pop) musics, including
classic/romantic music.  So it's not that the obvious models wouldn't
work on Mumma, I think, but that the Mumma models might not have much to
say at the basic levels.  Correct me if I'm wrong; this paragraph is
partly smoke.

>>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. 

So why are you in school, then?  SERIOUS QUESTION!!!!!

Eliot already described, metonymically, the purpose of grad schools in
composition.  But universities in general are storehouses of tradition
and received knowledge.  To be sure, the thing to do with tradition and
received knowledge is to CHALLENGE them; but I'm not sure why one would
go to a university and just IGNORE them.

Universities "require" you to do things in historically delineated ways
for several reasons.  One is to allow you to develop your own
relationship to tradition; another is to foster dialectic thinking: to
get you to rebel and do something that is specifically NOT in the
tradition.  A surprisingly large number of musical advances has come
about through just this sort of rebellion.

Now, there's another way to learn, aside from the university:
apprenticeship.  And if you think the university atmosphere is stifling,
you should check out the average apprenticeship/private study.  The
Buddhists say that the first step on the path to wisdom is to find a
master and follow him; you don't even have to do that at a university.

Or you can just work on your own.  But even Charles Ives, the great
self-made man of American music, as it turns out, did a whole lot more
with his teacher than he let on.

DO NOT read the above as an encouragement to drop out of school, or not
to come to Princeton, or whatever.  I'm just curious regarding what it
is you're hoping to find wherever you are.

>>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 |-(.

Can you be a bit more specific?  Are you referring to species
counterpoint exercises, or choral harmonization?   (I must confess that
I don't feel quite as strongly about these as, say, Linda does; but I
wish I were better at them.)  Or are you referring to composition
courses where the only assignment was something like "write a sonata for
solo violin."?  

And, yes, you DID impose this on yourself, no matter what it was.
Surely you weren't present at the creation of the grad program?  Surely
you had a chance to find out what it was like.

And if the courses don't promote discussion or evaluation, well, MAKE
them do it!  Buttonhole the prof.  Ruin his lunch hour and coffee
breaks.  Get the other students to discuss, and to demand discussion.
I've done this more than once, and I think the courses I was in turned
out much better than if I hadn't.

>>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.

Homogenization?  No.  But it is also a revolt against ghettoization.
You see, I AM assuming that most composers of computer music see
themselves as composers of MUSIC.  And I know, and can see no reason to
doubt, that music, the human activity and behavior, is predominantly a
NON-computer-determined activity.  In fact, I can think of no class of
people, either now or in the foreseeable future, that will base its
musical activity in more than a small part on highly computerized
music. 

This is by no means to suggest that computer music is wrong, or
irrelevant, or anything else like that.  I simply think that the
education of a computer musician should integrate some of the other
kinds of music that, in one form or another, are intimately related with
wider human experience: singing, dancing, ritual, etc.

>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?

I don't have such a vision, and I think you know it.  But, by mutating
and transforming the traditional, you must have a vision of what the
traditional is!  Where did you get that from?  Are you resistant to
having that vision expanded, challenged, or otherwise changed?  

That's what we do in universities.

Inside-out knowledge?  Why, that's knowledge AS A COMPOSER, not simply
as a listener.  Is your composition a commentary on your listening to
traditional music (of whatever kind), or is it a commentary based on
more active participation?  Listening is only one mode of musical
activity, and very few composers restrict themselves to composition and
listening exclusively.

>>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.

You gather EXACTLY the opposite of what I believe.  I have made it clear
(I hope) that I value the multiplicity of perspectives and approaches;
what I do NOT value is the rejection of everything but the composer's
own special interests -- the "all I read is in the books I write"
mentality we see in other departments.

But I do believe that there ARE specific contexts for specific musics,
and that some musics are central to our musical culture (and some to
others), and that one ought to get to know these, including the standard
ideas of what is considered "proper" in them -- if only so that one can
more effectively reject what one feels one must reject.

As I say, this is how I see the composer at the university.  (I ought to
have confessed long ago that I'm not a composer, but a musicologist; we
exist almost exclusively in connection with universities, but I'm not
saying even that that's the only proper way for US.)  I don't think I'm
the only one who feels this way, nor the only one who feels that the
university is the right place for *some* composers -- those whose
composition involves a broad agenda that concerns received musics and
musical ideas.

>>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.

But one DOES have to read _Mein Kampf_ or something a lot like it before
one can COMMENT on fascism with any degree of intelligence.  In any
case, one must KNOW ABOUT Fascism and its history.

Your metaphor shows me that you're not really digesting what I say.

>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.

OK: but why are you composing in the first place?  Does it have
something to do with listeners?  (Not necessarily the general public,
mind you, but even Milton Babbitt has an interest in "specialist"
listeners, I think.)  If so, then studying other musical behaviors (I
don't care if it's traditional music theory, particularly; Linda Seltzer
seems to be getting a lot of ideas out of Chinese poetry these days)
might be helpful to the goals, if not the techniques, of your
composition.  

(By the way, if there were a "theory" of your music, how would DSP fit
in?  I think it's not so much "alien" to "traditional" theory as it is
non-intersecting.  I'd like to know, both from the viewpoint of how it
determines or influences what you compose, and from that of the
listener.)

>>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.

Who's asking you to ignore all or any of those things?  I sense more
than a little hostility here, and I think it's misdirected -- ro at
least I can't see the target. I can see that you're defining "music" in
a Cagean sense, i.e., removing the constraint of purposeful creation or
organization of sound by a composer/performer; like cage, you seem to be
viewing composition, the choice-making inherent in music, as something
the listener does, by choosing to listen.  But you're still seeing
yourself as a composer, presumably with a target audience of some sort,
however small or hypothetical it may be.  

So why talk of "analysis hoaxes?"  Are you about to claim that it is
IMPOSSIBLE for someone to learn about composition-useful things by doing
these analyses?  Are you claiming it is specifically impossible for YOU
to learn from them?  If so, then you need to tell us more about your
music, and show why this is so --

for many composers of all stripes have gained from what you call a hoax.

Perhaps your hostility against the university way of composing is based
on bad experiences (in fact, it almost certainly is, from the things you
have said).  But I'd like to hear from you exactly why it is you see
yourself, as you obviously do, as a university-oriented composer.  I'm
sure you do have good reasons, or perhaps a vision of composition at the
university that is radically different from mine.  I'l like to hear
more.

Roger