<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear all,<div><br></div><div>My remark to Nicholas was in the context of a small discussion we had after his reference to his old teacher who had taught him that in a 9-8 suspension there should always be at least one octave between the 9 and the tone of resolution. It went as follows:</div><div><br></div><div>CK: But what about bar 6 of Mozart's Hostias?</div><div>NM: <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">It merely shows that what we were supposed to do in the harmony class has little to do with real music… </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Not really worth further discussion on SMT.'</span></div><div>CK: (…) I'm sorry to disagree (…). Your teacher's rule of course still covers more than 90% of the cases. And in the case of the Hostias one could observe that the lower bass is present in the orchestral bass, moreover follows immediately in the vocal bass too. This is also the case in many Bach chorales. It only shows that the rule as formulated by your teacher is too strict (although maybe useful for beginners), and that one should take the context and the instrumentation into account. And if what we prescribe in the theory class has little do do with real music, how will we convince our talented students? A point worth discussing on SMT, I think.<div><br></div><div>I think that it was never Fux's intention to prescribe anything that had 'little to do with real music'. On the contrary, he explicitly referred to Palestrina as his great example. But he had a very practical approach to teaching composition and believed in a well-considered pedagogical build-up, step by step to the Parnassus of 'real music'. And for that purpose he introduced a quite strict method. And a successful one: even Mozart used the method in his lessons to Attwood (he may have learned from it himself, since his father had a copy).</div><div><br></div><div>I don't believe in an opposition of 'strict' harmony/counterpoint vs. 'real' music. I fully agree with Olli Väisälä (see his reaction today), when he talks about the 'fruitfulness of the interaction of analysis and writing, predominantly based on the analysis and emulation of "real music"'.</div><div><br></div><div>Talented music students get really motivated when they see how certain 'rules' only serve to help them to get certain aspects of writing under control. They have no problem understanding that 'rules' are often well-considered simplications, temporary limitations. For them, all of this has <i>everything</i> to do with real music.</div><div><br></div><div>Clemens Kemme</div><div>Conservatory of Amsterdam</div><div><a href="mailto:ckemme@xs4all.nl">ckemme@xs4all.nl</a></div><div><br></div><div><div>Op 8 nov. 2012, om 23:21 heeft Nicolas Meeùs <<a href="mailto:nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr">nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr</a>> het volgende geschreven:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">
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I do not want to reactivate a thread that may be considered
exhausted, but some of the correspondents that I had contacted
privately about it expressed their regret that the discussion was
not pursued in the open.<br>
<br>
Clemens Kemme, in particular, wrote "if what we prescribe in the
theory class has little do do with real music, how will we convince
our talented students?"<br>
<br>
This question, as obvious as it may seem, raises several further
questions:<br>
– in what sense could a class about tonal music have to do with real
music of our time?<br>
– why should we teach "real music", while historical books about
music writing often taught "strict writing", explicitly remote from
"real music" (I am thinking, specifically, of Fux' <i>Gradus</i>).<br>
– what is "strict writing" (<i>enge Satz</i>), what is "free
writing" (<i>freie Satz</i>)?<br>
<br>
I may have learned tonal writing in the last times of "strict
writing". In the Brussels Conservatory where I studied, we worked on
the late-19th and early-20th-century texts given as final exams in
the Paris Conservatoire. I studied them in full consciousness that
they did not correspond to "real music", but that they represented
some form of "strict writing", and that anyone able to cope with
that strict writing would be able to easily perform free composition
(although I realized at the same time that any contemporary free
composition would not be contemporary tonal practice anymore).<br>
<br>
In Paris-Sorbonne University today, one expects from the students
that they write "in styles" – i.e. in the style of this or that
composer, i.e. free composition. Our students know nothing about
what "strict writing" may mean (they don't really have classes in
counterpoint, I am afraid).<br>
<br>
When teaching my Schenker classes, I want my students to realize the
link between strict and free writing that Schenker put at the basis
of his approach. But I realize that they are not at all aware of
what that might mean.<br>
<br>
To sum up: what is the point, today, of teaching tonal music as if
it where "real music"? Shouldn't we teach our students what the
difference between strict and free ("real"?) writing meant in former
times?<br>
<br>
Yours,<br>
<br>
Nicolas Meeùs<br>
Université Paris-Sorbonne<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://nicolas.meeus.free.fr/">http://nicolas.meeus.free.fr</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://heinrichschenker.wordpress.com/">http://heinrichschenker.wordpress.com</a><br>
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