[Smt-talk] Keyboards for theory classes?

[Donna Doyle]

To respond to some private inquiries: I did not mean to include other professionals in my "poor darlings" remark. 
My reference was to students about whom I care alot ("darlings") and for whom theory is an irksome distraction ("poor"). 

Re "darlings": "If you would be good, as much as you love your subject, you must love your students more." (former mentor)
		       "Work is love made visible." (poster in the window of Columbia Univ Teachers College bookstore)
Re "poor": "My teacher sings at the Met and tells me he almost never knows what key something's in, so I shouldn't worry 
			about it, either."


Best regards,
Donna Doyle

Adjunct Assistant Professor
Aaron Copland School of Music
Queens College
65-30 Kissena Blvd.
Flushing, NY  11367
 
tele: 718-997-3819
fax:  718-997-3849
email: donna.doyle at qc.cuny.edu
email: donnadoyle at att.net

On May 6, 2014, at 6:07 AM, Donna Doyle <donnadoyle at att.net> wrote:

> 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
>>> 
>> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.societymusictheory.org/pipermail/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org/attachments/20140508/5f6b27a9/attachment-0003.htm>