Dear Aaron, Thank you for clarifying an important problem. I once taught a Music and Technology course which introduced Finale to low level music students. It took me a while, but I realized the students, because they had computers in their homes, were facile with learning aspects of the program - but not of music.
As you said, their work aligned itself with the limitations of the program and computer and thus they never came to understand such basic concepts as to the "why" of transposition, good lay-outs for parts (starting new sections on the left, page turns, etc.), let alone problems with range, balance, dynamics, phrasing, rubato, texture and endurance. Their little MIDI kazoo band could play anything they wrote and they could churn out scores and parts - but it wasn't music. I see a parallel problem in other areas such as ear training - viz.: How can a student hear a major seventh chord if they can't play one? And that inspires another teaching complaint - why are rhythms taught from whole notes down to 32 notes? Violinists [Suzuki was so wise] start with 16th notes in their first lessons and work up to whole notes. Thus, they internalize sub-divisions subconsciously. But that's another story. Cheers, Andrew Homzy - Department of Music Concordia University Montreal, Quebec CANADA H4B 1R6 > From: Aaron Sherber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 10:20:56 -0400 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Playback (was: Re: [Finale] Re: The "S" word again) > First, when I was studying typography in college, I had an instructor who > was very well versed in all of the latest digital typesetting methods. > Nonetheless, he always made his students start with hand-set letterpress > type, so that they would understand what a computer can do in terms of the > physical process it was designed to aid. He said that the pitfall of > learning on a digital system was that students would start by learning > processes which were determined by the idiosyncracies of the computer. > > Second, and apropos of that, I have a friend who has used to teach > composition and orchestration at a college here, with many students using > Finale. He says that it was very common for beginning students to turn in > orchestration excercises which were clearly organized in groups of three > instruments. He soon realized that this was because the old 9-inch Mac > screens could accommodate three staffs in Finale. > > Aaron. > > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
