source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 08:17:13 -0800 Subject: Re: Tail Wagging the Dog? From: Daniel Wolf Gary Morrison wrote: '' Traditional Music Theory qualifies as theory in contrast to Music '' Application. At a university, an "Applied" music major is one who majors '' in performance on a particular instrument. A Theory major is one who '' studies the underlying patterns in music rather than the process of '' actually making music. '' This is an excellent example how compartmentalization has been so damaging. The ''applied'' music student (presumably in a conservatory and not a liberal arts institution) reading the notes without any analysis is - to my ears - not making music as much as someone pushing notes around on a piece of paper without regard for how they might sound. Too, I would contend that your ''theory major'' is certainly not studying anything having to do with music unless the processes of ''actually making (and listening to) music'' are always in consideration. My experience of ''music theory'' in US undergraduate training is also that the patterns learned are not ''underlying'' but rather superficial surface aspects of existing repertoire (I mentioned the mechanical extraction of ''schenkergrams'' is an earlier posting; I fear that the algorithmic approaches not in use will have similar results), Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 28 Mar 1997 23:56 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA20828; Fri, 28 Mar 1997 23:56:22 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA20833 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id OAA08627; Fri, 28 Mar 1997 14:53:29 -0800 Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 14:53:29 -0800 Message-Id: <333BBF57@fsdsmtpgw.fsd.jhuapl.edu> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu