[Smt-talk] Keyboards for theory classes?

[Stephen Soderberg]

While I fully understand this was brought up as a pedagogical practices issue, I can't help but point out that there is an important (but apparently unexamined) underlying issue here.

Why would anyone want to make Freshman theory ++more++ explicitly piano-centered?? At the college/university level, why would one want to focus ever more on the "usual diatonic" as a sine qua non model and reference point for a student's future creative efforts and studies in music? (Certainly the answer isn't "We've always done it that way.") I assume that undergrad music programs still have a "keyboard requirement" - but even if not, is a theory course, which ideally ought to be fully "branchable" as in Freshman physics, the place to require it? 

This appears to be a praxis-theoria rock-and-a-hard-place problem with no easy solution. On the one hand, I certainly recognize the pragmatic/survival need for most of my colleagues and their students to make theory relevant to the "real world." On the other hand, to continue to maintain the "usual keyboard" in its various guises as the center of music's pedagogic universe is circular and has, to me, the odor of bias about it.

Stephen Soderberg
Keswick, VA

On May 05, 2014, at 07:15 AM, Jonathan Santore <jsantore at mail.plymouth.edu> wrote:

Seth, I've contemplated it, but have never gone ahead and DONE it. I think it's a marvelous idea, personally, and the costs now compare favorably with those for most textbooks.

Jonathan Santore
Plymouth State University (NH)


Dear friends,

While revising my Freshman theory course more to make it more explicitly piano-centered, I’ve had to contend with the possibility that the resulting spike in usage might well strain our campus resources. ....
-----------------------------------------------------------
Seth Monahan
Assistant Professor of Music Theory
Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester
Reviews Editor, Music Theory Spectrum
(585) 274-1556
www.sethmonahan.com


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