Tower in the Ivory Tower

This week is our annual Music of the 21st Century festival. The guest composer this year is Joan Tower, long-time composition professor at Bard College and former member of Da Capo Chamber Players. Yesterday many of my students were complaining about preparing her music, especially the very-wet-behind-the-ears First Year students. So I tried to give them a cold splash of reality, pointing out that unknown does not equal crappy. So many students come to school assuming they know almost everything there is to know about music, and just need a little polishing. With that attitude, they then think that anything new, anything they had never heard of before, must not be worthy of knowing. Fortunately most of these students outgrow this attitude, with or without the Mallet of Loving Correction. Those that don't learn to embrace the new end up unhappy as a musician and often unhappy in life. Because it isn't just about being comfortable with atonality. I expose my students to new ideas about music and new pieces of music so they will become life-long learners, whatever the subject may be that they are learning about.

Tomorrow I am moderating a public discussion with Joan Tower, as I do every year with the guest composer. I always take the opportunity to ask some questions of my own before calling on the audience. I plan to ask her about her views on the current state of the classical music industry, teaching composition, and why combining text with music is so unappealing for her. Let me know if there are any burning questions you would ask Joan Tower if you were here. And for my DePauw readers, please come and ask questions tomorrow. 11:30 in Thompson Recital Hall.

Outmoded?

I've been talking with my sophomores about mode mixture, and this next week we get to the use of mode mixture as text painting in German Lieder. Steven Laitz talks about the dramatic role of the bVI, using Schumann's "Waldesgesprach" as an example. The bVI is supposed to create mystery through its otherworldly sound, foreshadowing the revelation that the woman encountered in the woods is not human. The harmony certainly is unexpected, taking a deceptive progression V - vi which is already surprising and adding extra chromaticism to it. But does that chord, really a key area in this song, sound otherworldly? Popular music and contemporary classical music has blurred the lines between major and minor modes so much – with the use of polymodality, pantonality, and world music modalities – that a simple borrowing from the parallel minor may not be striking anymore. We can still make statements about Schumann's efforts at text painting, since in the 1840s a bVI would definitely sound otherworldly. But can we assume that a typical audience will still find it so? I also wrestle with this issue of recontextualization when talking about parallel fifths and octaves with my first year students. I assure them that Bach kills a kitten every time they write one, because I can't rely upon their ears to tell them that it sounds wrong. Power chords and Debussy have broken the dependent voice taboo, so I have to rely upon stylistic practice to teach the concept.

This leads to the question, why teach it then? The quick answer is that enough Common Practice Period music is still performed that the students need to understand how it works, and how subsequent styles differ from it. But as we travel further and further away from the 18th century, I wonder how much class time we theorists will be able to devote to the stylistic nuances of that time period, at the sacrifice of 20th and 21st century stylistic practices.

Busy Day

Today my sophomores performed their third set of comprovisations, incorporating sequences for the first time. In between classes I shot one of my students and got stabbed in the neck by another, taking me out of the game. After classes I went over to the Union building for a faculty forum, including free lunch. After eating and discussing the evolution of language and music with some colleagues, I gave a very short presentation on students submitting self-recordings for homework. The forum topic was on how to deal with student absences due to illness, sports, or other reasons. I wasn't thinking about these reasons when I decided to have students record themselves sight singing with Audacity and submit the recordings as mp3s on our online course management system (Moodle). Instead, I was just trying to figure out a way to give 25 students in a musicianship class enough opportunities to perform for evaluation. With recordings, I can grade 50 students in 30 minutes, because the recordings remove all of the "ums," restarts, and other time eaters from lack of preparedness or nerves. It would take me at least three class periods, probably four, to grade the same number of students, and that would be without any opportunities for dictations or other exercises. But the system I use can also be used to hear oral presentations from absent students.

Right after giving my presentation, I ran back to the music building to play in a brass quintet for a student's senior recital jury. We will be performing Malcolm Arnold's Brass Quintet at the end of the month. Then I went back to the Union to get my laptop, which had been used by the other presenters at the workshop. And then back to the music building to advise two students on their class schedules for next semester and grad school plans, and tutor a student on species counterpoint. I finally had time to start writing the two exams I am giving on Monday for Theory I and III, before going to pick up the kids from school. There was no afterschool program today because of a book fair and pancake supper (see more about that below), so I had to pick them up right before 3 pm. We went home to clean the hamster cage so they would be ready to for show and tell tomorrow, and get dressed for karate class. I also started laundry, which was getting in desperate straits from my extended absence at the conference.

Piano lessons for each of the kids, picking out pieces for the end-of-semester recital. Karate class, hopefully to burn off some of the kids energy, while I continued to work on the exams. Then back to the elementary school for the semiannual fundraising event, the pancake supper. A quick and unsatisfying pancake dinner was followed by a very cute performance by the 2nd graders of music from Seussical the Musical, which the whole school will be seeing this year in Indianapolis. Then a quick visit to the book fair so the kids could burn their allowances on books, then back home for homework and more laundry. Plus playtime with a very antsy dachshund.

Notice how my day was so busy that I started shifting into Twitter/Facebook status-speak? There was no time for subjects or articles! Now the kids are in bed, 2/3rds of the laundry is folded and put away, and I have a tired dachshund curled up on my lap. My grammar is slowly coming back again. Good night!

Teaching as Manipulation, Manipulation as Teaching

Last night my daughter was asking me to explain how reverse psychology works, because she noticed that when her friends try to use it on her, it doesn't work. I explained that it was a form of manipulation, and really only works when the person doesn't know that they are being manipulated. We have an innate resistance to manipulation, though the line between that and education is a slim one. When designing my classes, I first determine the optimal outcomes: what a good student should know or be able to do at the end of this class. Then I try to figure out how best to get the student to that outcome, and finally how to evaluate for that outcome. The evaluation is fairly basic, and the thing I hate most about teaching. The process to the outcome is fascinating, though, particularly when talking about skills.

In my musicianship classes I am working with the students on how to understand what they hear, and how to translate music notation to musical sound as efficiently and creatively as possible. And what I find is that I need to manipulate my students to get them to develop these skills. I could just say, "1) Practice singing every bit of notated music you come across, using a system that forces you to think about pitch and rhythm relationships. 2) Practice transcribing every bit of performed music you come across. 3) Practice manipulating musical sounds, both in notation (composing) and in performance (improvising)." And then I could evaluate their progress at the end of each semester or month, and find that they weren't practicing enough, if at all. Because it is hard to motivate oneself to practice something difficult, unless there is a clear payoff.

So first I increase the motivation by explaining why I have designed these outcomes, and why all professional music programs include aural skills training. That helps somewhat, but isn't enough. So I assign particular bits of music to practice singing, particular bits of music to practice composing, and particular bits of music to practice improvising. I play particular bits of music for them to transcribe. This requires less self-motivation on the part of the student, some of the work has already been done for them. Then I manipulate them into practicing these assignments through the threat of regularly occurring grades. Each grade is a small percentage of the final class grade, but the good students cannot stand getting a low grade of any sort. Thus they are manipulated into regular practice, which is the best way to develop these skills. Cramming doesn't work, just as it doesn't when learning how to speak a new language.

These grades may be thought of as evaluation, but they really aren't. For me, evaluation comes at the end of the semester, when I see how the students perform on the final exams. That is why I weight the final exam grades much more heavily than any other grade. For me, these regularly occurring grades are manipulation tools, forcing the students to practice what I want them to practice.

The point of this post is to ask if there is a better way. I hate grading, and the students hate grading too. Is there some way to create an environment of encouraging students to do the activities that will lead them to the outcomes of the class, without using grades as a threat? Is subtle manipulation the answer? I don't use reverse psychology on my children, both because they are too smart for it, and because I don't like the inherent dishonesty. Rather than manipulating by lying, I'd much rather go for the brute approach of saying "Do this, or get punished." I suppose that is the equivalent of "Do this, or get a bad grade" in a teaching environment. But just as I rarely have to punish my kids with timeouts, and only have to threaten punishment occasionally, I'd really like to reduce grading to a minimum, left mostly for true evaluation rather than brute manipulation.

Musicking

I wrote a little while ago about musicking. This term was coined (as far as I know) by Christopher Small. Here is a brief synopsis of Small's work by Robert Christgau.

He was driven by an overriding idea: that music is always a social activity, never a reified thing. Thus the Balinese and African musics his first book describes early on are the equals of the European classical tradition whose audience he is addressing, and perhaps its superior. The moral agenda that goes with this concept not only insists on music's social context but challenges "the whole idea of music as communication"--especially the myth of the composer as an anointed genius with a message to impart to his inferiors in the orchestra and the audience.

Musicking is that social interaction which comes from making, listening, or responding to music. It encompasses composing, performing, improvising, recording, listening, dancing, analyzing, criticizing, etc. The point is to blur the lines between these activities, tearing down the walls between composers who create, performers who interpret, and listeners who consume. We all create, interpret, and consume, just at different levels of focus and scope. Almost all of my students come in with a focus of being performers or teachers. I want them to embrace their creativity through composition and improvisation, to think about their interpretations by performing their own creations, and to become aware of how they consume music through listening activities (dictation as a means of conscious labeling). To follow the To-Be-Continued theme, I'll write next time about my goals for them as pre-professional musicians.

What is Music Theory?

This summer Carlos and I are revamping the four-semester music theory curriculum here at DePauw. We want the students to become independent thinkers, not relying upon a textbook to tell them how to perceive music. While we will still use a textbook as a reference source for the short term, we will also be assigning readings from scholarly articles and monographs for discussion. It will be particularly interesting when the students encounter opposing viewpoints. They will have to think about which perspective they agree with, and why (or why they disagree with both perspectives). I had some success this semester with the final analysis papers. The students had to analyze a multi-movement or multi-song Common Practice work, developing their own theses to argue. Several students looked for articles or books on their subject, but then confronted these previous analyses, arguing for or against various points. I was very pleased with the results, as well as their responses to my constant challenges to write of their personal reactions to the music, using specific musical facts to explain their reactions. They also practiced this type of analysis in their blogs, though they tended to stick to answering the questions posed in the exercises rather than using the questions as jumping points to create their own theses. The new curriculum will include compositional exercises, as part of the See it, Say it, Read it, Write it pedagogical stance. I want the students to be able to recognize musical features, and an important way for them to learn this is to compose these musical features for themselves. There are additional benefits to compositional exercises as well, but that is my main purpose for this curriculum.

I was sparked to start blogging again, and to write about my summer efforts, because of James Cook's misunderstanding of my perspective on music theory. I do like to talk about harmony, but my conception of harmony is not as a discipline that can be separated from counterpoint, form, or motive. I mash together Schenker, Riemann, Meyer/Narmour/Huron, Schoenberg, Hindemith, Helmholtz, Rameau, Weber, Koch, Riepel, Tenney, and countless others for my understanding of how notes interact horizontally and vertically. I like Schoenberg's conception of key relationships, Schenker's wisdom on hierarchical organization and harmonic prolongation through contrapuntal functions, neo-Riemannian spaces that show how strange progressions can make sense as part of a cycle*, David Huron's expansion of Meyer's and Narmour's work on expectancy, Hindemith's conception of harmonic tension and how it can be generalized to plus-triadic harmonies, Weber's and Helmholtz's very different empirical examinations of music, Tenney's exploration of consonance and dissonance, etc. I want my students to explore at least some of these theories for themselves, to develop their own conceptions of harmony, as well as rhythm, timbre, and various bigger pictures like semiotics.

As I'm thinking about this, one thing I need to include in the theory curriculum is a discussion on what music theory is for. TTU Music Theory Department explains the two basic approaches, analytical and compositional. I won't repeat Michael Berry's excellent explanation, follow the link to read it. Also follow the link to read James Cook's view on what music theory is for: to explain how music is composed, and to provide a metalanguage for describing all music. I want music theory to spark new ideas on how to perform music, to spark new ideas on how to listen to music, and to inform us more on our interactions with the arts. But again, I don't want to shove my definition down the throats of the students. I want them to wrestle with this, encountering James Cook's view as well as many others.

I welcome any suggestions of reading materials, perspectives, or topics to consider as Carlos and I work on our curriculum.

*At some point I will blog about the recent Science article, "Generalized voice-leading spaces" by Callender, Quinn, and Tymoczko. This is a recent development out of neo-Riemannian theory that is quite interesting.

Revenge of the Class Blogs

My Theory IV students have written their first posts to Form and Analysis. The first assignment was one of four excerpts:

1) Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel's "Nachtwanderer" (mm. 14-17)
2) Mozart's Sonata in D major, K 284, III (variation 12, mm. 25-28)
3) Bernstein and Sondheim, "One Hand, One Heart" from West Side Story (mm. 1-17)
4) Scott Joplin's "Pine Apple Rag" (mm. 77-84).

They were to pay particular attention to modal mixture harmonies, and to write about performance issues and their reactions as listeners. Go see what they had to say, and offer your own thoughts on these pieces.

What You Never Learned in School

Today members of eighth blackbird graced my three musicianship classes to talk about their education and how it affects their professional lives. The students were dismayed to hear that ear training was important. In two of the classes the importance of sight singing was particularly stressed, bringing a smile to this solfège meister (as I heal the wounds of World War I). All six members (two each came to the three classes) said they wished they had done more improvisation as undergraduates. Other skills on this wish list were score reading, transposition, and keyboard skills, eliciting more grins on my part and groans from my beloved pupils.

So, what things do you wish you had learned in school? I'd put computer programming on my list. I did learn in grad school, and even wrote some programs for my dissertation research, but learning as an undergrad would have made my life much easier later on. Other wished-for skills or knowledge are interpersonal communication, self-marketing, and weight training.

They're Heere!

That's right, all of the students are back, bursting with tales of their trips to China or to the Quik-E-Mart. I'm trying to use Moodle for all of my classes this semester, along with a spiffy new tablet PC so I can draw on scanned scores with the handy-dandy electronic pen and save the files onto Moodle for my diligent students to study slavishly. I'm also leading the School of Music's senior seminar for the first time, which should be interesting. And finally, class blogs are back! My Theory IV students will be posting weekly to Form and Analysis. This year their assignment is to write a weekly essay describing the implications of the current theory topic on the performance and appreciation of the assigned musical piece or excerpt. The first topic is modal mixture. I'll be asking you loyal readers to go bug the students with questions and comments, pointing out problems and complimenting amazing insights. In other words, to do my job for me!

I Dream of Tuesdays

I meant to write a MLK post yesterday, but got distracted by other things. Last Friday in class we had a really good discussion on rap music. The all-white class first described things they didn't like about rap music, mostly the lyrics with violence, materialism and female objectification. Then they came up with reasons why the music has those features (not all rap has these features, of course). Rap, like British punk music, was born out of crippling poverty. Hence a focus on material goods makes sense, as being poor places an emphasis on material needs. Resentment about being poor and being subjected to racial discrimination (two things that MLK understood very well to being tied together), leads naturally to expressions of violence. It was great to see these mostly privileged white students gain a greater appreciation for both the art form of rap and the affects of economic status on their own aesthetics. I went through the same journey myself, and in fact am still making realizations about it.

I also have a dream about two Korean rap songs that sample Pachelbel's Kanon in D played on gayageum (via Making Light).

Bagels, Beats, and Beatles

Last Friday we ended up not going to the Doors tribute band, because the venue was 21+. So the last minute replacement was Little Voice, a local indie trio playing at Strange Brew Cafe in Greenwood (an Indianapolis suburb). This was their last gig until after the lead singer has her baby. Though there were a few issues with tuning, they were very entertaining and had some thought-provoking lyrics.

On Monday Phil Ford came to give a guest lecture on teen exploitation films, particularly Beat Girl, and how it demonstrates the gulf between adults and the new youth culture of the late 1950's. This was great, exposing my students to academic theories of culture that I don't know well.

Today Phil's colleague, Glenn Gass, gave a guest lecture on the Beatles' High Art period ('65-'67). Glenn, a Greencastle native, is incredibly enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the Beatles. He went from Rubber Soul to Sgt. Pepper's in 1.5 hours for an enthralled audience.

And to ice the cake, I finished planning the whole semester for one of my upcoming classes. I feel very good about the pedagogy, and think I can apply to one of my other classes.

What's out there

A colleague in the math department sent me this link to a great explanation of violin acoustics.

Stephen Casales has finished the Unfinished Symphony.

Composer, teacher and critic Stephen Casale studied theory and composition at the New England Conservatory of Music and musicology at New York University. The project to realize a performing version of the Scherzo movement of Schubert's "Unfinished" symphony based on Schubert's piano sketch for the movement took shape in Martin Chusid's graduate course on Schubert at NYU, where it was performed in 1978. A studio recording of the Scherzo was subsequently made by the Czech Radio Symphony under Vladimir Valek in 1995. The present performance by the Toronto Philharmonia is the first professional concert presentation of this realization of the movement.

A new e-company is trying to connect music instructors with students at ClickForLessons. I have no idea how effective it is.

This Saturday there is a symposium celebrating John Cage's 95th birthday at the University of New Hampshire.

John Cage in 2007: Reception, Performance Practice, Analysis

Symposium, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., M-223, Paul Creative Arts Center, UNH

Our Memory of What Happened is Not What Happened: Cage and the Power of Myth
Brent Reidy, Ph.D. candidate, Musicology, Indiana University

On John Cage's Late Music, Analysis, and the Model of Renga in Two2
Rob Haskins, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Music, UNH

Interdeterminacy and Performance Practice in Cage?s _Variations_
David P. Miller, Boston, MA

Thinking About Cage and Nature, Back Then and Right Now
David Andrew, Ph.D., Professor of Art History, UNH

Concert, 8:00 p.m., Bratton Recital Hall, Paul Creative Arts Center, UNH

Music for One
Margaret Herlehy, Oboe

Four6
Rob Haskins, David Miller, Laurel Karlik Sheehan, and Brent Reidy, performers

Two2
Rob Haskins and Laurel Karlik Sheehan, pianos

Teaching Creativity

In both of my main classes, theory and musicianship, I incorporate creativity through composition and improvisation activities. This creativity is a crucial aspect of being a musician, regardless of the primary role a musician will have in life. I have a pretty good handle on how to coach students through improvisation, but with stylistic composition I sometimes have trouble getting some students to treat the assignment as an act of creation. Today I gave the sophomores their semester-long composition assignment, and we practiced composing a period together. Many of the students were joyful in creating a new work, or excited about the idea of composing their own works. But there were some who were scared or reluctant about the project. So, how do you light the creative spark in these types of students?

And We're Back From Commercial Break

Classes started last Wednesday at DePauw. The School of Music is in a new building, so I have a new office, new classrooms, a new music library, and new bathrooms. We also have a new dean, a new departmental secretary, a new music librarian, a new recording arts specialist, and a new assistant to the dean. And I'm teaching third semester theory with a new text book this year. So, same old, same old.

I'm almost done with my tenure file. All letters from students and faculty were due today, and my completed folders are due next Monday. If any of you are determined to have a say in my tenure decision, you can send me an emailed letter, which I can still include in the files by next Monday. The School of Music has two tenure decisions this year, along with two interim reviews and a promotion to full professor. I'm up first, so I'll know my colleagues' decision in October. DePauw has an open file policy, so I get to see everything in my file, including the report written by the School's personnel committee. I also get to write a response to their report, which is then passed along to the University's Committee on Faculty, which has the unenviable task of reviewing all the promotion, tenure, and interim reviews (and term reviews) for the university. I don't know when I will hear from them, probably sometime late in November by mid-December.

In running I've gotten up to 10K distances, though I'm pretty slow at those distances. I will be running in a local 4-mile race at the end of September, and will look for a good 10K for October.

I have finished a new draft of my articulation article, and am waiting for feedback from an adviser before sending it off for hopeful publication. I have a publisher's review to work on now, and then I'm going to start whittling away at the other two articles I was supposed to work on during my pre-tenure leave. Fortunately my teaching schedule leaves Fridays open for research, and unfortunately my personal life leaves many afternoons and evenings free for both research and class prep. So I hope to make some significant progress in my research.

I'm also ready to start back into blogging, though I have marked all 1400 posts in Bloglines read so I apologize for missing any excellent thoughts you have made. During my blogging sabbatical I watched the complete extended Lord of the Rings (yet again) and read Vernor Vinge's Rainbow's End. Right now I'm watching the documentaries from the Lord of the Rings DVDs (yet again) and reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Stay tuned for my defense of harmony.

Taking time off

I will be taking the next week or two off from blogging, as I have a few things on my plate:
1) finish my tenure file(s)
2) finish my article on cognition of musical articulation
3) compute final grades for my IU class
4) prepare my six(!) classes for DePauw
5) get my kids ready for school
6) go to the state fair
7) give a presentation on library use to new faculty
8) hire a part-time instructor in musicianship
9) torment the cats
10) there is no number 10.

In the meantime, there is a recent article in Memory Cognition (2007, 35(2):242-253) about how to learn song lyrics: "Learning lyrics: to sing or not to sing?" by Racette and Peretz.

According to common practice and oral tradition, learning verbal materials through song should facilitate word recall. In the present study, we provide evidence against this belief. In Experiment 1, 36 university students, half of them musicians, learned an unfamiliar song in three conditions. In the sung-sung condition, the song to be learned was sung, and the response was sung too. In the sung-spoken condition, the response was spoken. In the divided-spoken condition, the presented lyrics (accompanied by music) and the response were both spoken. Superior word recall in the sung-sung condition was predicted. However, fewer words were recalled when singing than when speaking. Furthermore, the mode of presentation, whether sung or spoken, had no influence on lyric recall, in either short- or long-term recall. In Experiment 2, singing was assessed with and without words. Altogether, the results indicate that the text and the melody of a song have separate representations in memory, making singing a dual task to perform, at least in the first steps of learning. Interestingly, musical training had little impact on performance, suggesting that vocal learning is a basic and widespread skill.

And you can go visit James Cook's post explaining why I'm wrong about Chopin. Related to that subject, see Scott Strader's analysis of Chopin's A minor prelude. Scott also just wrote a good post on Krenek and Sorabji.