At 5:25 AM -0400 5/25/07, dhbailey wrote:
It always amazes me that people who have obviously performed a lot
of music and have spent enough hours at it above the average, enough
to be able to pass an audition to get into college music
departments, and who care enough to want to pursue further study of
music are completely unaware of the finer points of the music they
have spent so many hours staring at.
Things like the fact that time signatures aren't at the start of
each staff on the page, but clef signs are, or the sequence in which
sharps and flats are placed in the key signature.
Or the fact that key signatures ARE required on every line. Seems
like most of the old timers who copied Broadway show books missed
that day in theory class, with the result that the key signature
might change 4 times on a given page but there's nothing at the
beginning of the lines to remind you where you are. Which means we
have to write them in, despite the stern warnings not to fold,
spindle or mutilate!
I find it curious, and I am trying to wrack my brains (feeble though
they may be) as to just when I became aware of that sort of stuff.
I definitely was aware of it long before I got to college, and I
don't recall ever having it explained to me. I just was observant of
the printed music, more observant of many who are far better at
their instruments than I am at mine.
Yeah, I never studied it, either. I just learned it along the way.
(Along with my mom getting after me when I didn't spell the chords
properly, but tried to make the individual parts easier to read!)
I definitely think a "Notation and How To Get It On Paper Properly"
module for any/every music theory, harmony, arranging, composing
course should be mandatory.
Susie was a composition major at Indiana, and they did have to take a
notation class (long before computers!!), but the average music major
didn't.
Or simply have a 1-credit course for all music majors, a 1-hour,
once a week for a semester class on notation, including all the
basic clefs,
Depends on what you include in "basic," all nine or just the usual four?
and all done *by hand* without computers, so that people end up with
at least legible manuscript which follows what are the accepted
conventions of notation,
Yes and no. I think it's also important that they learn to get the
most out of their notation programs, as well. I split the
difference, asking for drafts in manuscript but final versions
engraved. But I do warn them that when they have a deadline and the
electricity goes off, they still have that deadline!!
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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