[Smt-talk] Keyboards for theory classes?

[Michael Gogins]

I would like to point out that not all music composition involves hearing
music in the first place, whether in the inner ear, or at the keyboard, or
at the computer. Some composition involves imagining a process or procedure
that the composer thinks will produce musical results. This can involve
chance, transcribing natural phenomena into music (like John Cage's Atlas
Eclipticalis), or using mathematics and/or computers to produce forms that
have musical interest or structure. Or it can simply involve setting
ordinary musical materials, which can be imagined with perfect clarity by
themselves, into relations that are not so easy to imagine in advance of
hearing, like some of the polytonal sequences in Ives, or in Conlon
Nancarrow's music, or some "looping" varieties of minimalism.

-----------------------------------------------------
Michael Gogins
Irreducible Productions
http://michaelgogins.tumblr.com
Michael dot Gogins at gmail dot com


On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Victor grauer <victorag at verizon.net> wrote:

> I can't resist adding a few comments to this very stimulating
> conversation.
> First of all, it’s interesting to note that Schoenberg himself felt so
> inadequate at the keyboard that he insisted on having an assistant play
> over examples and student work at the piano for him. Hard to believe that
> the author of Pierrot Lunaire wasn’t a pianist, but maybe he had a pianist
> assist him in the scoring of that work (and so many others as well).
> It’s also interesting to note that Stravinsky always worked at the
> keyboard – while Hindemith insisted that “real composers” should always
> work away from it. Did Hindemith have a “better ear” than Stravinksy. Well,
> imo, nobody had a better ear than Stravinsky when it came to hearing
> complex tonal relationships – but yes, by the usual standards of
> “musicianship,” Hindemith probably did have a “better” ear. So did
> Schoenberg, who often composed while taking a walk in the park. Or Wagner
> who composed standing in front of a lectern.
> As far as Beethoven is concerned, yes he had an amazing inner ear, which
> enabled him to compose music of the most extraordinary subtlety even while
> deaf. Yet, as far as I’ve been able to determine from various biographical
> reports, he always worked at the piano anyhow, pounding away even after the
> strings broke under his assault – which didn’t matter, of course, since he
> couldn’t hear them anyhow.
> As for me, if I may be so bold as to place myself in such high powered
> company, I must confess that I’m not one of those musicians who can look at
> a new score and immediately hear the music with crystal clarity. My “inner
> ear” is useful when I’m writing something relatively simple, but not
> completely trustworthy under all circumstances – so for years I too, like
> Stravinsky, would usually write while at the keyboard – or at least check
> things out at the keyboard to make sure all was kosher. But I also used the
> keyboard for another reason – and that was the sheer excitement of actually
> hearing my music, rather than simply contemplating it.
>
> Which brings me to the computer, and the scoring software, such as Finale
> or Sibelius, now available to composers, which currently provides an array
> of fairly realistic sampled sounds. For me, this resource has come as a
> revelation. And a liberation. I think of it, very literally, as a
> prosthetic device, a kind of “hearing aid” that enables me to compose with
> complete assurance, hearing perfectly all the tonal relations, and even the
> final result, as I’m composing. Just like Beethoven himself!!!! In fact I
> find it quite thrilling that a program like Finale enables me to have that
> same sense of actually living “in the music” that Beethoven must have had
> while hearing it so clearly via his remarkable inner ear. What this means,
> ultimately, is that I no longer have any excuse. If I can’t compose as
> freely as Beethoven, and with as much mastery, I can no longer blame it on
> my “ear.” -- Must be some other reason. :-( --
>
> Victor Grauer
> victorag at verizon.net
> Pittsburgh, PA, USA
>
>   On Thursday, May 8, 2014 8:39 AM, David Feurzeig <mozojo at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> On May 7, 2014, at 6:31 PM, Peter Schubert, Prof. wrote:
> > I sympathize with Hali's worry about the student's distance from the
> production of sound, which is why I am a fanatic about "play'n'sing."
> Listening to recordings and composing at the computer are mostly useless
> for my students.
>
> Way back before computer notation was the norm, and digital music labs
> barely existed, David Lewin was advising a counterpoint class on the
> importance of *singing* the repertoire to learn the idom. He said,
> "'Listening'? I don't know what 'listening' is."
>
> Composition and theory are already the most disembodied forms of musical
> engagement, and I feel a need to reinforce the physical. To paraphrase
> Lewin, I don't know what 'virtual' is.
>
> I recognize that the world has changed. I tell my students that if they're
> writing electronic music, the computer may be the logical home base. I also
> say there's no right answer:John Adams, for ex., composes drafts on his
> sequencer, then writes a full score by hand, then gives it to his copyist
> (because he doesn't do computer notation!). Even Thomas Ades is using a
> computer now to audition complex layerings. But that in my class they have
> to spend a substantial amount of time composing (respectively) with only
> their voice, with only their instrument, and with only the piano (and I
> tell them the purist types used to regard the *keyboard as a crutch).
>
>
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