In article
1gprx3z.144s2at1qveshuN%researchREMOVESPAMKILLER@ chadales.plus.net,
(Dave Howard) wrote:

Happy New Year everyone

If you've ever taught music technology or recording, particularly in a
school or college, I'd welcome your opinions.

Here are two statements.
Do you agree with them?

Do you think it is important to keep focused on creativity in teaching
music technology?

If so, how do you do it?

Statement 1:

"Ask Music Teachers what the greatest challenge inherent in teaching
Music Technology is. The answer isn't the technology! Today's students
have no trouble clicking the mouse, or pressing buttons. The challenge
in Music Technology is the music that students make. The challenge is
creativity."

(Barton Polot, 1999.)

In my experience, you cannot teach creativity. You can teach music
theory and you can teach the mechanics of technology, but creativity is
a function of the particular person and their inherent ability to
envision and create new combinations of musical ideas. This is a
ultimately a function of the nervous system, the development of which
depends very much on the genetic background and early educational
support the student receives. By the time you are teaching this
subject, the biological underpinnings are either there or they're not.
I don't think you can teach creativity, but you can select for it by
structuring the course in such a way as to reward insight and novelty.


Statement 2:

"Most of my reading, and the motivation behind the majority of music
technology courses that I have seen has focused on the 2nd word
(technology), and not on the first (music). Usually [technology] is
described in terms of how it works, rather than what you can do with it
€“ and generally the focus on each course or in books is "what will this
stuff do rather than 'why would you use this?'"

(Student A, 2004)

I try to make the technology fit the use: first asking what the student
wants to do and then presenting the alternative approaches that might be
used to that end. Some students are into hip-hop and want to use loops
and samples, some are into jazz and want to record live to two-track,
and some want to experiment with everything and go wild. I try to
accommodate all of these applications while we discuss the relevant
technologies.

-Jay
--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x---- Jay's Attic Studio ------x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x---------- http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jay/ ------------x

In whose hands?

Sometimes a ii-V-I is totally unsatisfying because of its predictability, or
stale voice-leading, or lack of nuance.

In the hands of masterful composer, ii-V-I will work, but so will #iv-9
flat5 to I. Mahler uses it in his 7th symphony, final two measures of the
last movement. My point is ANY two chords can be made to sound good if the
instrumentation, voice leading, balancing of amplitudes and attacks are all
functioning.

A ii-V-I progession only guarantees that the cadence conforms to musical
tradition, it doesn't in the slightest guarantee expression.

Jerry Gerber
www.jerrygerber.com




"db" wrote in message
oups.com...
Who can explain why II to V to I is so musically satisfying?

Is it a matter of acousic convention or is it hardwired into our minds?
Dissonance to resolution.

Will we make a leap to more intervals in a scale, if so which scale? Or
stay with the chromatic twelve notes which has been the western norm
for more than 4 centuries?

Of course I was speaking in general terms.
But I guess you missed my point so you could
tangentate into the esoteric...

Regardless of nuance.
II V I has a natural resolution to it, that is
musically satisfying.
Because of musical evolution or innately in us was the question.

I didn't mention anything about inversions or leading tones...
such as making the I a second inversion that still wants to topple
over.

never mind....

My error, for those interested enough to check.

There is not a #IV flat9 flat5 to I in the last two chords of the last
movement of Mahler's seventh symphony.

The progression is Iaug 2nd inversion to I.

I regret the error.

Jerry Gerber
www.jerrygerber.com






"Jerry Gerber" wrote in message news:...
In whose hands?

Sometimes a ii-V-I is totally unsatisfying because of its predictability,
or
stale voice-leading, or lack of nuance.

In the hands of masterful composer, ii-V-I will work, but so will #iv-9
flat5 to I. Mahler uses it in his 7th symphony, final two measures of the
last movement. My point is ANY two chords can be made to sound good if
the
instrumentation, voice leading, balancing of amplitudes and attacks are
all
functioning.

A ii-V-I progession only guarantees that the cadence conforms to musical
tradition, it doesn't in the slightest guarantee expression.

Jerry Gerber
www.jerrygerber.com




"db" wrote in message
oups.com...
Who can explain why II to V to I is so musically satisfying?

Is it a matter of acousic convention or is it hardwired into our minds?
Dissonance to resolution.

Will we make a leap to more intervals in a scale, if so which scale? Or
stay with the chromatic twelve notes which has been the western norm
for more than 4 centuries?

Jay Kadis wrote:
In article


In my experience, you cannot teach creativity. You can teach music
theory and you can teach the mechanics of technology, but creativity
is
a function of the particular person and their inherent ability to
envision and create new combinations of musical ideas. This is a
ultimately a function of the nervous system, the development of which

depends very much on the genetic background and early educational
support the student receives. By the time you are teaching this
subject, the biological underpinnings are either there or they're
not.
I don't think you can teach creativity, but you can select for it by
structuring the course in such a way as to reward insight and
novelty.


I disagree. I think you can teach creativity, or at least creative
process.

I htink there are also lots of barrier to creativity and if you beleive
that all people are inheriently creative, it's just a matter of
uncovering it. I've seen varying degress of creativity in people and it
certaitnly seems that most people make no creative efforts in life. I
htink a lot of those people would be really difficult to teach to be
creative, but they'd have to be intrinsically motivate, and the nature
of modern life prevents that in a lot of people.

I think the assumption that creativity can't be taugh makes it a
self-fulfilling prophecy.

I am a strong believer in encouraging creativity in my students (I
teach Digital Audio Theory, MIDI, Synthesis, DAW/ProTools, Live Sound,
and Mastering in Chicago).

But - your question referred specifically to "Music Technology
Training".

If us tech teachers are being hired to teach tech, well then that's
what we teach.

If the kids wanted to learn crativity, they could take jazz lessons or
something. That's not what we (music tech teachers) are there for.
We're there to talk about 1s and 0s, and how they translate into
'french beets' - ooops, 'fresh beats'.

But I certinaly inject my $0.02 whenever possible about things like
(random examples) the importance of listening to many genres of music,
the influence of Bach on all current western music, and creating your
own drum loops as opposed to sampling them.

But a class like Digital Audio Basics doesn't have creativity mentioned
anywhere in the cirriculum.

Now... I wish it did.

75% of my students aspire to create hip hop or what passes for R and B
these days, and most of them see the process of making music as a
burden that they have to overcome on their way to being on MTV. The
less effort they have to make to get their beats onto disc, the happier
they are.

Sad but true.

James T.

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 16:39:47 -0800, "Brandon J. Van Every"
wrote:

That's true, because that's something you really can't teach. You
can show how other people have used something, and you can show how
it really works inside, but teaching people how to be creative is not
possible.

Many of us fondly remember a teacher who somehow made things all "slot
into place" for us. Did he teach us to be creative? Or remove an
obstacle that was preventing us from being creative? Or teach us a
technique that somehow liberated us from the mundane?

Mine was called Dr. Douglas Mews. He taught me in Colchester, a town
50 miles from London. He ended up running a university department in
New Zealand. He showed me how musical intervals create and resolve
tensions. Hence how harmonic and melodic sequences work. I expect
someone else would have told me the same stuff a little later. But I
wonder if I'd have worked it out for myself?

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 16:39:47 -0800, "Brandon J. Van Every"
wrote:

That's true, because that's something you really can't teach. You
can show how other people have used something, and you can show how
it really works inside, but teaching people how to be creative is
not possible.

Many of us fondly remember a teacher who somehow made things all "slot
into place" for us.

You have misattributed me. I'm the one who wrote, at some length, that
creativity *is* possible to teach.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.

db wrote:
Of course I was speaking in general terms.
But I guess you missed my point so you could
tangentate into the esoteric...

Regardless of nuance.
II V I has a natural resolution to it, that is
musically satisfying.
Because of musical evolution or innately in us was the question.

I didn't mention anything about inversions or leading tones...
such as making the I a second inversion that still wants to topple
over.

never mind....

Well, what about the cultures that do not subscribe to Western
tonality? The Islamic cultures have an entirely different idea of
tonality, as do the Asians. While we can appreciate this music, we
don't seem to get the psychological satisfaction that we do from
traditional chord progressions. Yet, if you were to ask a native of
one of these cultures which is more satisfying, which is more beautiful
and artistic, you would find that our appreciate of melodic and
harmonic paradigms is almost completely nurture, not nature.

Mike