source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 10:14:19 -0700 Subject: Re: Post from McLaren From: alves@osiris.ac.hmc.edu (Bill Alves) Enrique Moreno wrote: > I am under the impression that the main reason for our usual >higher-education music curricula to devote 4 semesters to >tonal harmony is the bulk of the greatest music ever composed can be described > in terms of tonal functions or modal relations. ... > It would seem equally natural, then, that there is no interest for a >generalized practice of educating music students in >the *how-to*s of some "exotic" intonation systems for which there is no >significant corpus of real masterpieces. I disagree strongly with these statements. First, I don't believe that "the bulk of the greatest music ever composed" lies within the last 300 years or so of Western European culture. When the world's music is viewed as a whole, certainly ideas such as tonal harmony, 12TET, and counterpoint are the "exotic" concepts. Even within this tradition, harmony is only one aspect of theory, and yet it absolutely dominates our curricula. (Certainly one reason for this dominance is that it has nice, objective rules that can be taught in a textbook and graded.) I try to teach my students that THERE IS NO "corpus of real masterpieces." I teach certain pieces because I happen to like them and because they provide good illustrations of the concepts I need to get across. I encourage all students to make their own decisions about the "masterpieces" that they like. My job is to get the students to understand pieces, and perhaps come away turned onto a piece or type of music that they were previously unaware of, or to see an old favorite in a new light. Finally, I don't teach tuning systems so that students will understand Harry Partch, for example, or other composers who use "exotic" intonation systems. I teach them because they are a fundamental part of all pitch-based music. I much prefer to teach the "whys" that lie behind even common-practice theory (as far as is known) than to have students memorize chord spellings and rules. For example: Why is singing in parallel octaves not considered polyphony? Why is an augmented chord dissonant, if all its component intervals are consonant? What is the meaning of the title The Well-Tempered Clavier? Why does a string quartet suddenly have to adjust in a common-tone modulation to some foreign keys? Each of these questions, perhaps trivial in themselves and easily ignored by a theory instructor, betrays a lack of understanding of the harmonic series and tuning systems. Bill ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^ Bill Alves email: alves@hmc.edu ^ ^ Harvey Mudd College URL: http://www2.hmc.edu/~alves/ ^ ^ 301 E. Twelfth St. (909)607-4170 (office) ^ ^ Claremont CA 91711 USA (909)621-8360 (fax) ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 19:50 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id KAA13590; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 10:50:23 -0700 Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 10:50:23 -0700 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu