[Smt-talk] Keyboards for theory classes?

[Donna Doyle]

I agree with points raised by Deborah and David. Time and again, I find that the best ET students are the pianists (and the others are wistfully jealous of them). Only the keyboard gives one a physical grasp of the total range of orchestral sound and places it on the grand staff. Guitarists with MM degrees (e. g., Leo McFadden, NEC/Amanda Monaco, Berklee) have studied with me privately to further their keyboard skills/score reading. All music students should be afforded the opportunity to learn kybd from the beginning.   

Donna Doyle


Adjunct Assistant Professor
Aaron Copeland School of Music
Queens College
Flushing, New York 11367

> On May 5, 2014, at 11:04 AM, Deborah Stein <dstein36 at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> I disagree with Stephen's assumption that using keyboard in basic theory courses is biased or just a "tradition."  I am in favor of developing our students' ears, for which the keyboard is helpful.  Writing progressions without hearing them is an exercise with limited usefulness.  Students do part writing to learn a language that must be heard , just like we learn verbal languages through speaking and listening and not just writing sentences
> Certainly the keyboard can be of great help in a conservatory, where students learn harmony and form through listening.
> 
> After learning the theory core, I can understand not relying on keyboard, though in my electives we certainly listen to music (including the piano) as much or even more than during the core. 
> 
> Deborah
> 
> From: Stephen Soderberg <hyperchord at me.com>
> Date: Monday, May 5, 2014 9:35 AM
> To: <smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org>
> Subject: [Smt-talk] Keyboards for theory classes?
> 
> 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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