HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: downs@helios.nevada.edu (Lamont Downs)
Subject: Re: Problem with Finale (PC) and Deskjet ! Help !
Organization: UNLV
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 02:30:04 GMT

>As to the next version of Finale, Coda has been pretty tight-lipped about
>it.  The last I talked to them (about 2 mo. ago) they wouldn't even give
>me an idea of a release date, and wouldn't say if the Win 3.1 multimedia
>specs would be supported for the MIDI stuff (please, oh please...)
>
But _maybe_ big news! Last week Coda announced (on their support forum on 
CI$) that version 2.2 of Finale for the PC is at the duplicator, and more 
or less in their words will include support for the MME. Now what exactly 
this means (i.e., 1) that Finale MIDI features will now work with any MIDI 
board installed in Windows, or 2) that Finale's MIDI features will work in 
386 Enhanced Mode, or 3) both, they hadn't clarified as of today (12/28). 
Still no word on 3.0 yet...
Lamont Downs
downs@helios.nevada.edu
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: gds@york.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner)
Subject: Re: Carping and Per Diem
Originator: gds@york.cs.ucla.edu
Reply-To: gds@cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner)
Organization: in your face!
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 01:53:31 GMT

In article <1992Dec28.145752.19437@zip.eecs.umich.edu> fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields) writes:
>In article <8XVawB1w165w@dorsai.com> idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington) writes:
>>a professor by the way, not a student...  To repeat, I know a lot of 
>>people who write dull, complex, grey music but who get off on Beethoven.  
>>This is tragic.  I'm not saying go write like Beethoven, I'm just saying 
>>bang out a piece that gets you off.  Not a piece which pleases your 
>>mentors.  
>Or if you prefer, when a mentor can no longer help you work out the ideas
>you want to work out, fire them and get another mentor.  You are the consumer;
>the professors are the service-providers.  Grades and degrees just confuse the
>matter (I tend to think of them as compressed shorthand versions of letters
>of recommendation, timesavers both for the author and the reader, things which
>can easily be abused).

It seems to me that the instructor ought not use their own taste to
determine the "worth" of the assignment, above and beyond that it
meets the specifications set forth by the assignment.  If the
instructor is doing that the student is within his or her rights to
find a new instructor.

One downside of this is that if you're a graduate student, this may
imply you need to find another university.  That may not be possible,
or may not be practical (e.g. would cost too much money, or would
unnecessarily set the student too far back).  It can be a difficult
decision.  I think many graduate students, not just in music, face
this situation, and how they deal with it depends upon how much they
want a doctorate (and why).  If someone compromises their principles
it may be because they do not feel they have any alternatives.  In
this case the best thing to do is to make the student aware of any
alternatives available to them.

--gregbo
From: alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves)
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Subject: Re: academia, power, priveledge...
Date: 31 Dec 1992 14:21:30 -0800
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: calvin.usc.edu

In article <1hb0hbINNkru@agate.berkeley.edu> maverick@cork.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes:

>His name is "Conlon" Nancarrow.  He moved to Mexico long before gaining
>any recognition -- the US government hassled him on political grounds.

Yeah, for fighting against Facism in the Spanish Civil War.

>All the awards etc. date from since his rediscovery in the 70's, thanks
>to Charles Amirkhanian and 1750 Arch Records.  Privilege?  Belated
>recognition.

>Scanning the Wergo booklet, I can't figure out how he supported himself
>between 1940 and 1980 -- not that it matters.

I've wondered about this myself. In my readings I've found that he made
money through translation, but that's all I've found. Mexico does have
a low cost of living, of course.

Bill

Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington)
Subject: Re: Carping and Per Diem
Organization: The Dorsai Embassy, New York's Computer Consulate. +1.718.729.5018
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 19:20:10 GMT

mangoe@cs.umd.edu (Charley Wingate) writes:

> Jeff Harrington writes:
> 
> >So live.  CARPE F**KIN' DEUM!  I can't f**kin' believe someone who calls 
> >himself an artist is worried about the rent.  
> 
> Ever heard the Schickele "Bach Portrait"?........
> 
> I'm not all that impressed with the Suffering theory of art.  Maybe I'll
> settle for a Yearning theory instead.
> -- 
> C. Wingate        + "The peace of God, it is no peace,
>                   +    but strife closed in the sod.
> mangoe@cs.umd.edu +  Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing:
> tove!mangoe       +    the marv'lous peace of God."

Excuse me, but this is utterly ridiculous.  The concept of an artist 
wishing suffering on herself is a product of pop culture.  (A mis-guided
caricature attempting to poke holes in the artifice of self-importance so 
hated by the popular media).  
 
My point, (one more time, please turn up the volume for the hard of 
hearing) is simple and concrete -> real artists do what they have to do.  
They don't compromise; they are truthful to themselves.  If this means 
leaving the university community and getting a job (as it did in my case) 
then so be it.  If it means being laid off and losing your apartment then
so be it.  But no artist that cares for her work looks for disappointment 
or failure.  Please, that is so condescending and insular.  

My attack at Mr. Schottstaedt's less than witty response to my comments 
about living _was_ in anger.  Our culture is in serious trouble because 
we all make too many compromises.  Know thyself and write the music which 
you must.  Let nothing interfere with this process.  These are simple 
suggestions which imply risk-taking.  
 
 

Jeff Harrington      
IdEAL ORDER               
idealord@dorsai.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: academia, power, priveledge...
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 17:56:09 GMT

In article <9DyHwB2w165w@dorsai.com> idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington) writes:
>david@roth-music.com (David A. Roth) writes:
>> I don't think anybody should be teaching composition period because
>> it can't be taught to begin with, imho. 

>This is an argument you hear often which has absolutely no evidence to 
>support it.  All of the great composers of the past presented their music 
>to other composers for analysis/comment.

And to reopen a flamefest from months ago, outside of Mr. Roth, the only other
individuals I've ever heard say that composition can't be taught were all
tenured professors of composition who were trying to weasle out of teaching
to devote more time to other things.  If you get one of these as your teacher
of composition, you may want to take your business elsewhere.

Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: williams@yosemite.eid.anl.gov 
Subject: Re: // 5ths & 8ves
Reply-To: nbw1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Argonne Natl Labs 
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 07:01:06 GMT

In article <1992Dec19.130505.12073@cucs5.cs.cuhk.hk> bmtong@cs.cuhk.hk (Tong Bo-Ming) writes:
>Hi,
>
>        I have a question on consecutive fifths and octaves.  Suppose I
>have a bass, and an appegiated treble, and my melody is in the inner
>part.  The appegio occasionally have some consecutive octaves with the
>melody.  This is quite difficult to avoid, because it is not good to
>break the appegio pattern, nor to modify the melody.  Any suggestions ?
>
>                    A
>                  F   F
>                C       C
>treble        A           A
>            F               F
>          C                   C
>        A                       A
>
>              F     F     F
>
>
>tenor   C
>
>bass    F
>
Yes, I know...nasty problem.  What you need to do is anylize the arpeggio and
the melody on top of each other. Create a pattern with the arpeggio so that
oo, every 2 measures or whatever fits is different...different enough so that
when placed with the melody, will create a more perfect harmony.

-Benjamin I. Williams
 williams@yosemite.eid.anl.gov

enjoy writing it


Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: Academia again
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 14:11:51 GMT

Uh, yes.  But I was fortunate at the University of Michigan to have
a faculty of 5 true "poets" of music.  If you don't have this, you
may want to switch schools until you find it.  I did.

Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: Charter for r.m.compose?
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 18:25:31 GMT

In article <411@ittc.wec.com> simmons@ittc.wec.com (Garry Simmons) writes:
>After a long wait for my sys admin to add this group to our site's Internet feed,
>I'm confused by the content of the postings. Isn't this group supposed to be a
>forum for songwriters and composers? All I've seen for the past week is a lot
>of ranting about academia and high level music theory. I have a limited grasp
>of music theory and write primarily rock songs. I beat on my guitar and when I
>get something that catches my ear or strikes some emotional chord with me, I
>try to develop the idea. Perhaps this is too simplistic a pastime for the
>particpants in this group, but I like it, like it, yes I do :-)
>
>I was hoping for a group that discussed pop/rock/country/etc songwriting (from 
>both the musical, lyrical and rhythmic points of view), lists of contact, 
>information (who is looking for material), publishers with open ears, etc.
>Did I just catch the group during a composing cycle or is/has this been the
>primary focus of this newsgroup?
>
>Garry Simmons
>simmons@ittc.pgh.wec.com

YES! this group is about composing.  All kinds of composing.
Composing with a tape recorder.  Composing works for full symphony
orchestra through long winter nights alone in a studio.  Composing
pop, classical, baroque, country & western, rhythm & blues, you name
it.  (BTW there hasn't been any really high-level theory here in the
last two weeks---just a lot of folks saying "to avoid X that your
preconceptions force you into but that you don't like, loosen your
preconceptions a little bit").  It's inevitable that a bit of
metadiscussion should arise, as it is that discussion of the ins,
outs, pros, and cons of various technologies should.  Welcome along.

Would somebody please get a copy from Josh@tekelec.com of the original
manifesto for this newsgroup, and make an effort to post it periodically?
Thanks.
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: gds@york.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner)
Subject: Re: Carping and Per Diem
Originator: gds@york.cs.ucla.edu
Reply-To: gds@cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner)
Organization: in your face!
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 22:20:42 GMT

fullerto@tortoise.cis.ohio-state.edu writes:
>The only insincerity that I have found is from the record companies
>and the way they market hits; for example, the Grammys, based solely
>on record sales and not on any qualitative level. It is justifiable,
>disgusting as it is.  Record companies profit from less than two
>percent of what they release. They have to make a killing with it. It
>has to support the other 98% of loss.  !

Some record companies have to make a killing with the remaining 2% in
order to keep the salaries of certain high-level music industry
executives high, while the people who actually go out and discover and
develop the talent, or who are the talent, are paid little or nothing.

Read _Hit Men_ by Fredric Dannen for more information on this.

--gregbo
From: mangoe@cs.umd.edu (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Subject: Re: Regarding the Questionable use of the Word -> Advance
Date: 22 Dec 92 03:48:54 GMT

Vance Maverick writes:
>I haven't heard too many relativists in music departments, or too much
>explicitly listener-oriented talk about music.

In the days when I was a university choral member, we sang stuff all over
the map, including some stuff which could be characterized as agressively
modern.  I have since come to understand that a lot of this stuff was
written to be performed rather than to be heard.

Most of my composition is for church use; in this context it is rarely
appropriate to perform this sort of epater-le-bourgeous music.  And it in
fact makes composition more difficult-- especially when your powers of
performance (such as your local church choir) are limited.  And thus, it
requires discipline which must at the same time interact with creativity.
When the third ingredient is added-- when the music forces itself upon you--
than is when you can compose.  After that point, it may require a lot of
surgery, but at least it lives.
-- 
C. Wingate        + "The peace of God, it is no peace,
                  +    but strife closed in the sod.
mangoe@cs.umd.edu +  Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing:
tove!mangoe       +    the marv'lous peace of God."
From: david@roth-music.com (David A. Roth)
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Subject: Re: academia, power, priveledge...
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 06:00:05 EST
Organization: DAVID A. ROTH MUSIC
Reply-To: david@roth-music.com (David A. Roth)
X-Mailer: uAccess - Macintosh Release: 1.5v4


In article <9DyHwB2w165w@dorsai.com> (rec.music.compose), idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington) writes:
> 
> david@roth-music.com (David A. Roth) writes:
> 
> > I don't think anybody should be teaching composition period because
> > it can't be taught to begin with, imho. 
> > 
> > David
> > david@roth-music.com
> 
> This is an argument you hear often which has absolutely no evidence to 
> support it.

You say this and then change the subject in the next line?  If you
could teach someone how to write a great melody then everyone would
be able to do it.  

>  All of the great composers of the past presented their music 
> to other composers for analysis/comment. 

This is review not teaching.  You don't need a teacher to listen to music
and read a score.  

David
david@roth-music.com
From: james@astro.as.utexas.edu (James McCartney)
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Subject: Re: How does one compose?
Date: 28 Dec 92 21:24:07 GMT
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

In article <1992Dec25.041211.27936@dogface.austin.tx.us> joe@dogface.austin.tx.us (Joe Zitt) writes:
>But remember that a lot of good music can come from a continual quest
>for new hammers. I find that a lot of my best stuff comes from coming
>across new compositional procedures (and , pace idealord, I find that

    I'm saying that one should have a sense of balance between finding
hammers and expressing ones self. I can't think of anything I've done
that didn't exploit something in a new way (at least new for me).

  --- james mccartney


Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: sherman@ecadsr.enet.dec.com (My name is...)
Subject: Re: FINALE questions
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 22:20:04 GMT


In article <C01Hz0.Gou@icon.rose.hp.com>, tak@core.rose.hp.com (Tom Keaveny) writes...
> 
>	2) How do you enter verse numbers into lyric lines?  I've received
>	   one suggestion to link both the verse number and first lyric
>	   symbol with the same note.  I would prefer to have the verse
>	   numbers left justified (in a stack) and the syllabi centered under
>	   the note.

Good questions.  Can't answer much of it.  (I'm a Music Prose user.)  But, I've
solved this problem in a (sometimes) elegant fashion.  What I do is attach the
note numbers to a rest that precedes the first note of the section.  Of course,
you have to have a rest available to do this.  I often do.

Steve
From: maverick@mahogany.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick)
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Subject: Re: Advances in composition
Date: 21 Dec 1992 23:50:07 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: mahogany.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <1h3v8vINN516@mozz.unh.edu>, dvf@kepler.unh.edu (David V Feldman) writes:
|>
|> I know that arguing by way of analogies will always raise suspicions,
|> but while there is no "single goal" that all scientists can agree on,
|> there can be no reasonable objection to the vocabulary of "developments",
|> "advances", or even "experiments" and "research" in that discipline,
|> and I believe that these words can be applied to the arts with no
|> connotation of monism.  Basically time goes on, the corpus of music
|> grows, the matrix of previously existing musical ideas available to
|> a composer constantly grows richer.  Some of these ideas may play themselves
|> out in a single phrase or maybe a piece, but others will resonate across
|> many pieces, perhaps across the work of many composers and musicians,
|> perhaps even across the work of composers and musicians with widely
|> divergent goals.

How can one tell what ideas are in a piece?

I'd say, by listening; in which case the "ideas" derive
as much from the listening as from the composition.  So
the "ideas" embodied in the corpus (or canon), and the
"contribution" of an individual piece, are not fixed, and
"progress" or "advancement", if they happen, are not
matters of identifiable qualities.

[Look at reception history.  I happen to know more about
this in literature, but it's true in music too: the
properties of pieces change over time.  Yeats responded
to qualities in Ben Jonson's verse which weren't there
during the previous century.  Mozart's late G minor
symphony has changed affect more than once.]

My point?  You started this thread by asking for news of
technical advances -- disavowing interest in good/bad
beautiful/ugly aesthetic judgments.  I don't think these
things can be separated....

	Vance
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: will@ogre.cica.indiana.edu (William Sadler)
Subject: Re: academia, power, priveledge...
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 16:29:31 GMT

In <1992Dec28.160411.7811@engage.pko.dec.com> sherman@ecadsr.enet.dec.com (My name is...) writes:

>You know, this might be an invalid assertion.  In looking over some info
>about many of the great recent composers, the name of Nadia Boulanger comes
>up quite often.  Yet, my wife and I don't recall having heard *any* of her
>compositions or that she composed much.  Rather, we have consistently heard
>(my wife heard from Copland himself in a private conversation with him) of
>how *wonderful* an instructor she was.

Nadia Boulanger was evidently able to instruct without hampering the stylistic
tendencies of her students.  She also believed that American music would
be undergoing an explosion similar to that in Russia after the 1920s.  (She
was correct, but the explosion wasn't in euro-centric music ;-) Because of
this many Americans studied with her.  It is surprising, however, that many of
the first pieces of her students after they returned to America sound
a lot like Stravinsky of that period or even any French composer of the day.
Aaron Copland is a good example of this tendency.

She also held up the music of her sister, Lili Boulanger, as a sort of 
aesthetic goal, through yearly concerts. 

Will
--
***************************************************************************
*   _______________\|/_      Will Sadler     will@cica.indiana.edu        * 
*   Laser 44888    /|\                       sadler@iubacs.bitnet         *     
***************************************************************************
From: silver.e@zooid.guild.org (Eric Silver)
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Subject: Concert pitch frequencies
Date:  1 Jan 93 07:56:32 GMT

I'm in the middle of moving, and all my books are stored off site.
Would any readers out there have a listing in Hz from concert
middle C to C in the G clef.
Thanks,

Eric Silver - York, Upper Canada.
"Legitimize dissent in Canada!"

Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: academia, power, priveledge...
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 13:46:20 GMT

In article <0105009A.m82a58@david.roth-music.com> david@roth-music.com (David A. Roth) writes:
>
>In article <1992Dec26.173521.4709@zip.eecs.umich.edu> (rec.music.compose), fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields) writes:
>> 
>> In article <1992Dec25.190909.25191@zip.eecs.umich.edu> I write:
>> >In article <gXecwB1w165w@dorsai.com> idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington) writes:
>> >>  Bach and Mozart wrote music which was judged by 
>> >>intelligent, cultured music lovers.  I'm sorry, this ain't the case no 
>> >>more.  
>> >
>> >Intelligent, cultured music lovers don't grow on trees! Hence modern
>> >academia.
>> 
>> But I've oversimplified and failed to explain why I love to teach
>> composition.  This cuts right to the heart of the joy of teaching.
>> You hand out seeds of ideas that you don't even have to make up
>> because your own teachers handed them to you, and each student finds a
>> niche for that seed in her or his own fertile mind---and week in, week
>> out, you get to see instantiations of ideas blossoming back at you in
>> ways you couldn't ever have imagined.  This is fun.
>> 
>> But nobody should be teaching composition who doesn't complete at least
>> one new symphony or 3 new sonatas and quartets or one scene of an opera
>> fully orchestrated per year, consistently, imho.
>> 
>I don't think anybody should be teaching composition period because
>it can't be taught to begin with, imho. 

Two comments here.  First, I believe strongly that composition CAN be
taught, but the cultural category of "greatness" can't be taught.  If
there were nothing that could be taught about composition then it
would be kind of funny to have this newsgroup, unless every posting
announced composers' contests.  Composition can be taught because so
many nifty ideas have already been worked out by composers of the
past, and so many of these ideas are fluid enough to be adaptable to
individual types of expression.  Raw creativity is very tricky to
elicit, although sometimes you encounter a student who is fairly
bristling with creativity but just lacks the confidence or nerve to
try it out, and instead keeps trying to stick to straight-arrow
rule-based systems or whatever---and in that case a teacher CAN
encourage the student to take advantage of their innate creativity,
which still doesn't say that creativity can be taught.  Compositional
craft and technique can be taught.  The situation is similar in
painting, creative writing, or even mathematics.

Secondly, when I listed what I think a professor of composition should be
doing regularly, I intended to be inclusive of all truly compositional
activities, but not to include administrative work, computer support for
other composers, abstract research with no work of entertainment as its
end goal, or political maneuvering.

Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: Carping and Per Diem
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 13:14:43 GMT

Missing attribution time.

In article <1992Dec28.202607.4039@zip.eecs.umich.edu> fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields) writes:
>by itself is sort of like formula-driven 4-part harmony: it brings to
>mind the famous question, "So what?"
                            ^^ ^^^^
Imagine this famous question being asked in an extremely-reedy high tenor,
with "So" drawn out almost like a drawl, and the vowels stretched into a
wry exaggeration of Detroit Twang.  Now we can attribute it to Leslie Bassett.
:-)



From: rhm@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Bob Miller)
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 21:33:05 GMT
Subject: Re: Brother, Can You Spare a Tone
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA