[Smt-talk] Keyboards for theory classes?

[Donna Doyle]

It seems to me that the ability to read the grand staff fluently and realize it in sound with one's own two hands is a sine qua non not only for Schenkerian analysis professors but also for BM music degree holders. But perhaps I'm being too hard on our poor darlings? ("What American education gives its students these days is low standards coupled with high self-esteem.")

Donna Doyle

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

> On May 5, 2014, at 11:26 PM, Stephen Jablonsky <jablonsky at optimum.net> wrote:
> 
> It is all about terrain. Depending on what instrument you play, your understanding of harmony comes from the field in which you play. Guitarists have a terrain that involves six strings tuned in a strangely wonderful way, bass players have four strings tuned in fourths, trumpet players go up and down on three pistons, and piano players have that field of blacks and whites. Jazz and rock drummers play no pitches and travel through a time continuum bathed in harmony coming from the nearby amps.
> 
> Many guitarists have difficulty converting from tablature to piano notation. A few of them succeed and become college professors of Schenkerian analysis or post-tonal note counting for reasons no one can explain!
> 
> 
> 
> Dr. Stephen Jablonsky, Ph.D.
> Music Department Chair
> The City College of New York
> Shepard Hall Room 72
> New York NY 10031
> (212) 650-7663
> music at ccny.cuny.edu
> 
> America's Greatest Chair 
> in the low-priced field
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On May 5, 2014, at 11:06 PM, Zachary Cairns <zacharycairns at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> >Guitarists are just ahead of drummers in their inability to comfortably deal with the challenges of traditional music theory. There is no way around it—you have to have keyboard chops
>> 
>> I understand that this is tongue-in-cheek, but as a former teenage percussionist/metal-guitarist-wannabe, I can say from experience that there *is* a way around it. I recall class after class of my undergrad theory experience thinking, "Oh, *that's* what Yngwie/Vai/Satriani was doing..."
>> 
>> Best,
>> Zac
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________
>> Zachary Cairns, Ph.D.
>> Assistant Professor of Music Theory
>> Associate Music Department Chair
>> University of Missouri - St. Louis
>> cairnsz at umsl.edu
> 
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