At 7:46 AM -0400 6/2/10, dhbailey wrote:
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
I'm talking about a willing ignorance. Karkoschka's book came out 40 years
ago, and it was encyclopedic -- a summing up of what was already in use.
Dennis: You may have a valid complaint, but at least aim it where it
belongs. I was in college in the '50s, in grad school in the '70s.
I was never exposed to what you're talking about in ANY class at ANY
academic level. Either my teachers weren't aware of it (quite
possible for many of them), they considered it peripheral (much as
they considered early music notation, for the most part), or they
deliberately performed triage on what SHOULD be taught and what COULD
be taught in the time available (the most likely, in my opinion).
There was plenty of contemporary music being performed at Indiana
when I was there in the '70s, but I didn't happen to be involved in
very much of it, and what I was tended to be choral music. And yes,
I DID learn to interpret what was on the page, but nobody ever
suggested that it was anything but individual decisions by individual
composers. But my personal interests were in other directions than
contemporary non-pop, just as others made that their biggest interest.
And those personal interests have remained pretty much the same in my
own teaching career, so I can't teach contemporary notation because I
don't KNOW it, don't use it, and have very little need for it. Some
of our students will, and will go on to join the core of the next
generation that may take it for granted, and indeed some already
have, but I have to say that no matter how long it's been in use,
it's still unknown to a huge percentage of working musicians who have
never had to use it or read it.
There's what seems to be an historical "rule" in music, that it takes
a full generation for anything new to become accepted and "standard."
So *I* at least never made a conscious decision to remain ignorant,
and it's hardly fair to blame performers who, like me, were never
exposed to the music that you love so much and create. My late wife
was a composition major, and did take a required notation course
(required ONLY of composition majors, by the way), but I don't think
that course went into contemporary notation, either. Like everything
else, it's a matter of "learn-by-doing."
And yes, I'm conservative by nature. Many people are.
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:john.how...@vt.edu)
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
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