What it's not

I received a press release from The New York Times Knowledge Network, announcing two new online music courses.  One of the courses is on Wagner's Ring Cycle, starting on March 19 to prepare potential audiences for the Met's productions of the cycle in April and May.  This course is described in a very positive light: "participants in this webcast will have the opportunity to delve into the significance of Wagner’s Ring Cycle in 20^th-century history, philosophy, culture, and even film with one of USC’s most distinguished faculty members."

The other course, however, feels the need to tell what it's not.  Entitled "How to Listen to Classical Music," the press release describes it as "[n]ot a music theory course, not a music history course, this is a joyful listening tour led by The New York Times’ classical music reporter Daniel J. Wakin."  Directly contradicting this description is the previous sentence, including this tidbit: "">this delightful three-week course is designed to help students recognize elements unique to classical music and identify favorite musicians and composers."  Last time I checked, music theory courses were all about helping students recognize elements of music. Perhaps not unique to classical music, in fact I prefer to point out the universal nature of music theory concepts, and how they appear in different ways in different music genres.

I was about to write that I don't understand why the authors of the press release felt the need to distance the course from music theory or music history, but I realized that isn't true.  I know that classical music is perceived to suffer from the slurs of elitism, epitomized by academic courses that perpetuate technical jargon intended to keep the riff raff out.  And naturally, said academic courses are dull, boring, and unrelated to the joys of listening to music.  The PR people at the NYT want to counter that perception, by reassuring potential students that their online course will be fun, and directly relevant to music listeners.  The implied anti-elitism of the dig against music theory and music history is ironic, given the name of the course.  I would never tell an audience how they must or should listen to classical music.  I am happy to point out interesting features as uncovered by study in music theory and music history, hoping that these features will enrich the audience's listening experience, but without proscribing other means of establishing connections to the music.

I think this class will probably be very interesting.  I enjoy some of Wakin's reviews and articles, and I think online courses provide the technology for interesting multi-media presentations of concepts for interested learners.  My mother-in-law is taking a similar course right now through the University of Wisconsin, and is enjoying it a great deal.  But I think the PR department needs to rethink how to brand this course, especially if they want music theorists and musicologists to support the concept.  Don't make us into bogey men (and women).  Instead, embrace the depth of music learning that has been uncovered, and indicate how this knowledge can affect the listening experience.

The enemy of the good

I just found out about a new blog and book, The Musicians' Way. I'll
explore the book and author more later, but one of the posts resonated
with me. Contrasting perfection and precision, the author talks about how impossible it is to create a truly perfect performance. This goes along with my previous post about allowing students to take chances, that it is good to risk a bad performance, and that beauty often lies in imperfection. An emotionally charged cracked note, a rushed and uneven tempo due to
excitement, or a hushed sound that stops too early because the player lost the vibration, these imperfect performances can inspire and elevate our own imperfect selves. And trying to get rid of these imperfections can squash some beautiful sounds due to paralysis of analysis. So let good performances reign, and may you never be cursed with perfection.

What is good?

Clearly I have not been a good blogger, letting this poor site linger untended for so long. I have been busy, writing an essay for Drew McManus' TAFTO project that will be published next week, finishing my contributions for the Daily Book of Classical Music, working on a phenomenology of musical time project, and traveling to Louisville with the kids for Spring Break. I've also been training to do my first triathlon in a few weeks. But now I've got stuff to blog about, so hold onto your pixels.

I've been thinking about the goals for student performances. Twice recently I've heard criticisms of student efforts to tackle musical projects that were very difficult, perhaps too much for the current level of these students to perform to levels expected by these critics. I can understand that it isn't always pleasant to be in the audience for a performance that is very rough in implementation. However, these kinds of experiences can be very rewarding for the students. First of all, the path taken to develop these projects provides many opportunities for learning. Whether it is discovering the challenges in acquiring scores or broadcast rights, or figuring out how to tune chords which you have never heard of before, these are valuable lessons. Second, realizing that you gave a rough performance is a humbling and embarrassing experience, but this realization is also a window into personal growth. The embarrassed student can learn that success is not guaranteed, despite one's best efforts. This student will also learn that failure does not mean the end of the world. Third, the students who are encouraged to take musical chances in the safety of high school or college will be more comfortable taking chances when they are in the less forgiving adult world. And whether those new adults are professional musicians or avid music enthusiasts, the willingness to take risks can only help take music to new levels of awesomeness.

Top of the YouTube Charts

Okay, not at Ahmed the Dead Terrorist levels, but the music program at a New Jersey Episcopal Church has reached 1.4 million hits with its YouTube videos of the pieces performed during services. Bravo to Wayne Burcham-Gulotta for putting these videos up in an effort to educate and serve his parish. It is a model that all music programs should consider, though ticket-selling groups may have to consider how best to navigate rights and dilution of product. Give audiences the opportunity to rehear a work so they can understand it better. Provide an analysis so they can appreciate some of the nuances. Spark a desire to learn more about the piece, the composer, the ensemble, the genre, or the time period. In the case of religious groups, combine musicology and theology in the education process, or provide musical sources of pastoral care. I've been thinking about the mission of musical groups lately, and the clear rightness of these videos (simple, no splashy production values but with good information added) really speaks to me.

The danger of knowing too little

I've read other bloggers kvetching about being assailed by crackpot theorists. Physicists are especially hounded by those who have just proved Einstein wrong. I've also gotten contacted by a few people with their own idiosyncratic music theories, but those aren't offensive, because for the most part they aren't trying to disprove any established musical facts, only trying to put together a grand unifying theory or different interpretive theory. And most often I learn something from those attempts, even if I judge the overall effort to be in the wrong direction. But what I do find offensive is a more directly applicable example of too-little-knowledge causing wrongful judging in the world of music: the choir/band/orchestra parent. I've experienced* parents who have decided that their children's impressions of how to run a rehearsal are more valuable than the impressions of the director. While the director may have over 10 years of training and another 10 years of experience as a professional conductor, his/her rehearsal schedule is a waste of time if the 12-18 year-old child has deemed it so. This is the closest musical equivalent to creationists criticizing evolutionary theory or Pat Robertson claiming that Haitians made a deal with the devil. In each case, a few facts are divorced from the all important context so they can be twisted into a different hypothesis. Pat Robertson falsely equates Voodoo spirits with Satan, creationists falsely equate conjectures with essential axioms, and ensemble parents falsely think that five years of ensemble experience makes their child an expert on running rehearsals. I do not deny that there are bad ensemble directors out there. And sometimes the children are correct in their critiques. But I know I would want some serious corroborating evidence before criticizing a conductor, and that is said as a trumpeter who has dealt with "the hand" in many orchestras.

*Fortunately not directed at me, as the last time I conducted an ensemble was 15 years ago, and that was all college students. And I've only had to deal with helicopter parents three times.

New DePauw Blogs

During my blog sabbatical, my students have been getting busy in the bløgösphére. Two individual blogs, one by a sophomore vocal music education major, and one by a First Year* instrumental major (probably education), reflect on what it is like to be a music major at DePauw, and what life has in hold for them. There is some excellent writing in here, it makes me proud to be one of their teachers. The third blog is for the collegiate chapter of the National Association of Music Educators (MENC). It appears to be a great way to bolster the communal spirit of the music education majors. All three blogs are now listed in my blog roll.

*At DePauw we are not supposed to say "freshman" or "freshmen" because that is too gender specific.

New Year

I've discovered that the most difficult thing to do is to start writing. When I am in the habit of posting every day, it is rather easy. But when I take a break, trying to come up with a good idea for the restart is daunting. Figuring out the mission of the blog, whether the opening post should be personal or academic, a summary or new material, causes paralysis by analysis. But it is a new year, and time to shake the cobwebs off of this blog that I've spent so much time developing over the last 4+ years. I hope that I haven't lost too many readers to newer, shinier classical music blogs.

First up, improvisation as a learning tool. I've promised Eric Edberg that I will write a guest post for his blog, so consider this a brain storming session. While there is much debate on whether music truly is a language or not – with concerns about grammar and syntax, efficiencies of communicated meaning and the like – I feel strongly that the performance of music is the same as the performance of a spoken language. An actor reciting Shakespeare is not convincing if he does not understand the words he is speaking, either singlely or in context. Likewise, I am convinced that a musician cannot perform Beethoven without understanding the notes in the contexts of melody and harmony, at most hierarchic levels of organization. Some of that understanding comes at the theoretical level, working through analyses with Schenker graphs, motivic sketches, and formal diagrams. But, just as the actor is not expected to be be consciously thinking "subject, predicate, adverb, verb, object, adjective" and "iambic pentameter", the performing musician should not be consciously thinking about Roman numerals, intervals, and motivic design. These facts should be ingrained, allowing the music to flow forth naturally, with all these structural elements combining organically to create the emotional and aesthetic content that is conveyed to the audience. This is where improvisation comes in as a pedagogical tool. If a musician can extemporaneously create music in a given idiom, I am convinced that she has been able to absorb the rules of that idiom into her subconscious. In this regard improvisation is a diagnostic tool: improvise 8 measures in D minor to prove you understand tonality. But improvisation can be a developmental tool as well, practicing to gain more understanding. Just as young children combine rote repetition and extemporaneous speech to learn how to read and speak their native language(s), musicians can combine performing from notation with improvisation to develop their sensitivities to the given musical idioms. Please give me your thoughts.

Telly Monster must be excited!

Yesterday's Indianapolis Star had an article about a new local company, Musical DNA, which is producing a software program for visualizing music. From what I can tell, the software maps notes played on a piano or from a recording onto a pitch-class space, with lines connecting simultaneous notes. Thus any standard triad will be represented as a triangle (leading to my post title). The founder, Ken Lemons is a pianist with a BM from Nebraska and an MM from local Butler University. He (and his funders) think that this will be useful for teaching music, either hooked up to a piano or as part of some toys:

A projector that attaches to a child's crib, projecting color-coded animated geometry of music of whatever source the parent desires.

A 12-note Simon Says game of musical geometry that teaches basic shapes of sound in a game format, including connect-the-dots.

A child's guitar, with four buttons: happy, sad, spooky, dreamy -- the four basic triangles of musical sound.

Let's see, happy = major triad, sad = minor triad, spooky = diminished triad and that leaves the augmented triad as dreamy? Wow, I do not associate the augmented triad with dreaminess. Alien, yes. Tense, absolutely. I'll even go with exotic. But not dreamy.

Overall, I don't see the big deal about this software. The "same shapes" Ken talks about do not map into any sameness on the piano: the hand position for a C major triad feels considerably different from the hand position for a B major triad; but is very similar to the hand position for an A minor triad, which is a different "shape". I don't see how the colors are used with the shapes, beyond mere aesthetics. Some of the suggested future uses imply that rhythm is also encoded, and that pitch-classes beyond the 12 chromatic steps can also be encoded. But the demonstration and the toys mentioned certainly don't show this. Does anyone else have an opinion or insider knowledge about this?

Teaching Philosophy

I've been updating my official Teaching Philosophy for my tenure file. It may be of interest to you gentle readers, especially after the good discussion that followed my post on teaching contemporary music theory. So here it is, feel free to critique or comment:

This statement of my teaching philosophy is organized into four sections. In the first section, I describe my approach to teaching music. It will cover why I teach music, and my views on the whole discipline. The second section discusses the purpose of music theory in the curriculum, and how this governs the techniques I use in the classroom. The third section details the purpose of musicianship in the curriculum, and again will show how this purpose governs my teaching strategies. The last section outlines my philosophy of classroom management, regardless of the topic being taught.

I live and breathe music. I can’t imagine a more perfect melding of emotion and intellect, sensation and intuition, than the artistic organization of sound. I teach to spread the gospel that music can feed the mind and the soul, and that we can discourse on music at very high levels of thought. If students can learn to organize their thoughts on the abstract and ephemeral aspects of music, those skills will aid them in any discipline. They are learning a discipline that teaches problem solving, a mighty work ethic, creativity, and self-expression. Schopenhauer called music the most direct expression of the Will, our inner being. Hence the study of music is very appropriate in the liberal arts curriculum.

In the music theory curriculum, students should learn how music is organized into different languages and styles. Because of the emphasis on tonality in performed literature, this language receives more attention than modality or post-tonal languages, though in today’s markets I think more time should be spent on contemporary music styles than one half-credit course. As a practical extension of learning how these different languages work, students should also learn the basics of composition. This introduction should be extensive enough to encourage interested students to continue composing. Students who are not interested in composing music should still gain an appreciation for the discipline and artistry that goes into any musical composition. Students also need to realize that music is a living art, constantly being recreated. It is very easy to regard art music as a static canon, museum exhibits to present as we marvel at the genius of our ancestors. Students need to learn to compose and improvise music so they can feel how it continues to grow and change.

Communication is very important for musicians. They need to explain performance decisions to each other, whether it is coming to a consensus in a chamber group or giving orders as a conductor or section leader. Teachers need to tell students how to play, and why it is important to perform a piece a certain way. Audiences need to be cultivated, through critical reviews, liner notes, and pre-concert lectures. This communication requires terminology. Music theory provides terms and concepts for the communication of ideas about music, from the simplest ideas about pitch and rhythm to the complex ideas of set theory and Schenkerian analysis. Without this vocabulary and these varied views of how music works, musicians would be mute, unable to express in words what they truly think about the music they love.

Analysis is not just about expressing a musician’s current views about a piece. Analysis, like good writing, is a process towards learning about a piece, altering opinions as knowledge grows. A good music theory curriculum teaches students to identify the confusing, amazing, sublime, and faulty within a musical work. It teaches students to interpret what they hear and feel, and to link it with the languages and styles that songs and symphonies float in. Analysis also reveals alternative performance and listening opportunities. A performer that is adept at researching a piece to find the either/or’s will always be able to turn out a fresh and moving performance, even at the fiftieth repetition. A student that is able to identify different listening strategies will never get tired of his/her favorite music, even at the thousandth hearing.

The academic and artistic rigor of music theory is coordinated with the physical and mental skills of musicianship. Musicianship teaches students to become fluent in hearing and performing the relationships between different pitches and rhythms, melodies and harmonies, and form at both small and large scales. A standard musicianship curriculum is mostly about tonality and standard meters, though in Musicianship IV I do lead students into modality, atonality, and asymmetric meters. Musicianship improves sight reading, and allows musicians to approach their performances from an organic rather than mechanical perspective. Musicianship gives them more awareness of what they are hearing and feeling when they listen to music or perform music. Most music majors already have a sense of tonality and meter, they just don’t realize what it is, or how to describe what they are hearing/feeling. Musicianship also provides a language of solfège and metrical/rhythmic terms to improve communication with other musicians in rehearsals and lessons. Improvisation is a major element of musicianship, “speaking” the languages of tonal or atonal music in extemporaneous ways to demonstrate facility and to express emotions and aesthetics.

I believe in a combination of humor and strict policies in managing the classroom. Strict and clear policies on homework, exams, and attendance show the students that I will treat them fairly, equally, and that I will determine their grades through clearly defined and objective standards. No policy will envision all situations, so I do allow the possibility of relaxing rules if an unforeseen event warrants it. Fair and clearly communicated expectations are always my goal. Using humor during lectures tells me if students are listening. If the students are not laughing, I need to re-establish connections so the students won’t miss important ideas and facts. Alternatively, the joke bombs, but it still sparks attention. Dictation and sight singing can be scary activities, and humor can help to reduce the tensions that are natural in a musicianship classroom.

I have been moving away from strict lecture formats in recent years, preferring to use small group discussions, the Socratic method, and other means of student involvement. It takes longer to cover the same material, but I feel the students absorb the concepts more deeply. Thus overall the non-lecture formats are more effective. Sometimes lectures are still necessary, especially when a particularly difficult concept is first introduced. But ultimately the students should lead their own education, with me as a guide and resource.

Using the trees to find the forest

In comments Chris Foley criticizes 12-tone analysis:

Many of the accepted models of contemporary theoretical analysis have absolutely nothing to do with music written at present. Case in point: 12-tone analysis. I cringe when I talk to students that spend the only 4 months of their undergraduate education dedicated to contemporary music theory doing find-the-row exercises for some prof that thinks it's still 1965.

I confess that I have my students identify rows, though certainly not in all pieces and I usually don't spend time identifying every single form of the row in a given piece. Much like with Roman Numeral analysis, I regard find-the-row exercises as an opportunity for the students to find landmarks in unfamiliar territory. Just as a rapidly modulating development of a Beethoven sonata can seem incomprehensible until the modulations are worked out, a serial piece by Schoenberg can seem to be randomized noise to students who have not spent any time listening to atonal music. Finding the rows, showing how the composer used a system to organize the notes in a decidedly un-random way, allows the students to listen with more open ears and more confidence in the compositional control of the author. Thus we can get to larger picture ideas about form, emotional content, and the like.

In addition, cool relationships can be found, such as the tonal implications and relationship to "Es ist genug" of the row in Berg's Violin Concerto or the canonic text painting of Dallapiccola's Goethe-Lieder. These are not always readily recognizable phenomena, but that doesn't always matter.

What to teach?

A few months ago my friend and colleague, Carlos Carrillo, put together a microfestival of new music, including two nights of concerts sandwiching a microsymposium with himself and yours truly. I posted about the preparations for it here and here. During the small but lively discussion, a student asked whether we should change the standard theory curriculum to reflect changes in performance opportunities in the "real world." We had been discussing the success of new music ensembles such as eighth blackbird (who will be visiting artists here at DePauw next year), Alarm Will Sound, Bang on a Can (who will also be performing here), and ICE. This student figured that if he and his peers would be more likely to perform contemporary music after college, the theory and musicianship sequences should perhaps be more heavily weighted to contemporary music. Currently we have 3.5 semesters of tonal theory and musicianship, .5 semesters of 20th-21st century theory and musicianship, and one 1/2 credit course on the history and theory of 20th century music. Instead of immediately agreeing with this student, I have been pondering what background in tonal theory is necessary to understand atonal theory, and likewise for musicianship. It is no secret that students are coming in knowing less and less of the classic music literature of all periods, so that is a deficiency that must be addressed in the history and theory curricula. But should so much time be devoted to the theory and analysis of tonal music? Certainly it should not be abolished, as plenty of our students will be performing common practice music as band directors, wedding musicians, etc. But what balance do you think is right? (I'm attempting to more directly engage my readers this week, which is probably bad timing with the holidays (Happy belated Canada Day to my northern readers)).

I hope they paid the royalties...

Rose Cuizon Villazor is a law professor at SMU. She also maintains a blog, called Property Prof Blog. There she admits that she uses singing as a tool to help her students learn future interests.

My students at SMU told me later that I helped decrease the stress (a little bit anyway) of learning life estates. When I taught Kelo v. City of New London, I circulated the words to the "Kelo Song," which was written by a student member of the Harvard Law School Federalist Society.

In comments some other law professors offered "YMCA," "Whiter Shade of Pale," and "Memorandaville." See, even lawyers need to learn about music.

My best friend used to compose songs that illustrated various partwriting rules and techniques. His best was "The Voice Exchange Song." I need to get a copy of that. Anyone else out there with songs used for pedagogical purposes?

[via]

From the mouths of children

Evan Tobias quotes another Evan, the winner of the spelling bee championship.

“My favorite things to do were math and music, and with the math I really like the way the numbers fit together,”….. “And with the music I like to let out ideas by composing notes and the spelling is just a bunch of memorization.”

This says far more eloquently what I was trying to say here and here.

Lists, schmists

Yesterday a reporter asked me to make a comment on the Little Einsteins top 10 list of classical music for preschoolers. First, here is the press release with the list:

April 18, 2007 -- Music by Smetana and Bach are at the top of preschooler’s favorite classical pieces, according to the producers of the animated television series Disney’s “Little Einsteins.” For the first time, the show has put together a Top 10 List of classical music pieces that are the most appealing to kids.

The writers and producers of “Little Einsteins” conduct hands-on research for every episode at schools with kids 2 to 5, where the show’s creative team can see first-hand which music is striking a chord with preschoolers before the show goes into animation production.

According to Eric Weiner, Executive Producer of “Little Einsteins,” “Kids respond to all classical music, and are attracted to it naturally, very early in their development. However, there are definitely some pieces that are not only appealing to them, but also stays in their minds long after they hear it. Kids express this by dancing, humming and singing along, and we have monitored those reactions and which music gets the highest marks by these kids.”

The top ten list:

1. “The Moldau” from Ma Vlast by Bedrich Smetana
2. “Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B Minor, Menuet and Badinerie” by Johann
Sebastian Bach
3. “Humoresque No. 7” by Antonin Dvorak
4. “Symphony No. 9 in e minor from The New World: Largo” by Antonin Dvorak
5. “Morning” from Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 by Edvard Grieg
6. “Symphony No. 8, ‘Unfinished’” by Franz Schubert
7. “Symphony No. 40” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
8. “Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, 1st Movement” by Johann Sebastian Bach
9. “Wedding March” by Felix Mendelssohn
10. “Triumphal March” from Aida by Giuseppe Verdi

Weiner explains, “Music is organic for kids. We went into a school to test our show and we were warned that the kids there have no music program or music exposure and cannot sit still for very long. We played a classical piece for them and they immediately stopped what they were doing and started to dance.”

About the show: “Little Einsteins” is a half-hour animated series on Disney Channel (8 AM ET/PT seven days a week; additional airing at 8:30 AM on weekends) that follows the global adventures of four young friends (Leo, June, Quincy and Annie) and their versatile shuttle named Rocket, who takes them around the world on a quest to complete important missions while learning about music and art along the way. Classical music and works of art are intrinsic to each mission, and every episode invites interaction from viewers at home who are asked to sing, hum and pat along to the featured symphony and seek a detail while traveling through a master work of art to help their onscreen friends with the mission of the day.

The show is produced and animated in New York City.

And here is what I said to the reporter (I'll wait to announce identities until after the story is published):

My first reaction is to wonder what list of works they started with to winnow down to the top 10. How many pieces did they test on the children, and what criteria did they use to select that initial list? That would reveal any biases, such as the clear bias towards tonal music and orchestral music. Second, at least five of the pieces are used regularly in cartoon music: #1, #3, #5, #9, and #10. The reactions to those pieces might have more to do with Bugs Bunny et al than with the material of the music. The criteria used to measure interest is fine, though scientific studies by Laurel Trainer and others are more rigorous in the application and retesting to check for other artifacts. #6 and #7 don't specify the movement used, even though the other multi-movement works listed do specify which movement was used. It is interesting that of the eight specific works, four are in triple meter or compound meter and the other four are in simple duple/quadruple meter. #6 is in triple no matter which movement is used, and #7 is likely quadruple if the first movement is used, so we have a perfect 50/50 split between 3 and 2. This is rather suspicious. Next, there is an interesting conflict within the producer's quote. He says he was told the children "cannot sit still for very long" and seemingly contrasts it with "started to dance." There is a big debate going on right now in classical music circles about the social expectations for audience behavior. Should audiences be allowed to clap between movements? What about dancing in the aisles? One of my colleagues, Eric Edberg, gave a recital where he encouraged the audience to get up and move. This motion is a natural reaction for young children, but frowned upon by adults, even of college age.

Finally, (much more than 2 cents, sorry!) I support the exposure of classical music to children, but would be leery of naming pieces that are universally loved. My kids were scared by orchestral music when they were 2 or 3, because the sounds were so diverse and loud. My son loves choral music and jazz, my daughter prefers solo piano and brass quintets. This despite the fact that both study a string instrument and both are exposed to the same music at home. Any teacher or parent should explore a wide range of musics with their children to find out what they like.

Music in the News

One of the comments on my last post recommends congoo.com for news, so I tried it. Though most of the stuff under music was trash about Brittany or Phil Specter, the top item was very cheery, an announcement that the National Teacher of the Year is music educator Andrea Peterson. It is fabulous that music education is getting recognized nationally. I also love the quote from Ms. Peterson's school superintendent: "Music isn't a subsidiary subject in Granite Falls. It's part of everything we do."

In general I don't follow news aggregators, perhaps I should do more so I have more interesting things to blog about.

Liberal Arts Blogging

On Saturday I took part in a panel on Web 2.0 technology here at DePauw. I talked about my class blogs (see on the left under DePauw Blogs). The visiting keynote speaker was Bryan Alexander of NITLE. He has put together a wiki of Liberal Arts Campus Bloggers, which is admittedly very incomplete. But I found it interesting to see how class blogs are used in different disciplines. I'd be curious to hear of any uses of social software that you dear readers have used in teaching situations.

The value of music education

Dave Munger has a link to a recent Northwestern University study on music training and auditory development. This study found that those participants with at least six years of musical instrument training had better auditory processing abilities than those with less than two years of training, even at the basic level of the brainstem. This is a very interesting study, and an intriguing finding that training can affect brain structure of such a low order. But i am concerned about how this study might be used. The lede of the Science Daily article linked above implies that music lessons are valuable because they fine-tune the brain. And the lead author of the study doesn't help: "Our findings underscore the pervasive impact of musical training on neurological development. Yet music classes are often among the first to be cut when school budgets get tight. That's a mistake..." This exhibits the same problem that the Baby Mozart/Mozart Effect craze has, that music's value is measured by what abilities it can impart for "more important activities." The value of music education is not in making Johnny a better speaker or giving Suzy better spatial awareness abilities. The study of music puts us in touch with that most ineffable of things, our creativity. Strip away the crutches of language or visual representation, and music is the most abstract form of emotional/aesthetic expression. Schopenhauer called music the most direct expression of the Will, our inner being. Getting in touch with our own feelings, the feelings of others, the joys of collaborative creativity, these are the values of music education.

As DePauw conquers the blogosphere

A DePauw student has started two blogs: Music and Music Education and Composition Blog. Chris Simerman is a trombonist, music education major, and budding composer. The first blog is mostly on his old music ed. assignments, something that should make my colleagues very pleased. The only post thus far to the Composition blog is by Chris' co-blogger, Kyle Wernke. I'll be curious to see what happens with both blogs.

Resources

With the candidates for our dean search coming in these last two weeks, we music faculty have been contemplating what kind of students we want to attract and how we want to teach them. Eric has researched entrepreneurship options at schools of music. I have been thinking about the academic skills I want to impart. One of my students asked why they need to learn library skills when they can ask a librarian for help. While an initial reaction is that the student was exhibiting laziness, the question could also be in pursuit of efficiency. We stress to our students that time management is very important. Now, bringing up efficient use of time is a double-edged sword. Librarian access is a limited resource. If a class of twenty is assigned research papers due in a week, all twenty will want help from the music librarian. Some of those twenty will have to wait several days to meet with the librarian, and if they wait several days to start the research, that is not an efficient use of time. But perhaps we need to be teaching our students how better to use the human resources of the university. Perhaps library instruction should focus on how to use the librarians, i.e. what types of questions the students should craft to ask. We have been wrestling with the design of our First Year Seminar in the School of Music. I think an important component should be on how the students should use professors, tutors, staff, fellow students. What are appropriate ways to ask for help from a peer, without cheating on the assignment? What is the best way to develop a relationship with a professor, and for what reasons?

As I think more about this, the more it relates to Eric's research about entrepreneurship. Carving out a market involves networking with potential funders, potential clients, potential workers. Making music involves dealing with audiences, fellow musicians, etc. Even research, that potentially hermetic practice, necessitates interactions with editors, program committees, collaborators. While there are facts and practices, the mysteries of the music discipline, that must be imparted to the students, there are also the joys of interactions that also should be taught, and the ethics that govern those interactions. (The latter could make a nice tie-in to the coming Ethics Center.) Life should not be lived alone.