From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: academia, power, priveledge...
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 13:17:33 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.225344.569@sinus.stgt.sub.org> stefan@sinus.stgt.sub.org (Stefan Bechtold) writes:
>fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields) writes:
>
>>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
>	    ^^^^^^^
>I don't think that composition can be taught, but *something* about
>composition can be taught.

We are playing language games here.

>>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
>
>But is that all ? You learn, e.g., how to write a Bach-style fugue
>and then you can composer and are a composer ? 

How to write a bach-style fugue is a theory topic.  How to make it groove
is a composition topic.  Either one requires motivation from the student,
and the latter particularly requires the most important element necessary
to being a composer: motivation to learn to make things groove, not just
assume they groove because you believe you've been granted the divine
composing gift. 

>>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
>Yes.
>>craft and technique can be taught.  The situation is similar in

>Yes, composition technique can be taught, but not composition !

As a professor of computer science pointed out to me just now, if we allow this
distinction, it is natural to suppose that really NOTHING can be taught.
Certainly programming can't be taught, nor operating systems programming, but
only techniques which pre-exist... But actually, to be consistent, either
a person GETs them when they see them, or they don't---they can't be taught.
Only theory about techniques for programming can be taught.  But no, that
can't be taught either: only vague perceptions about theory about techniques
about programming can be taught. (etc. ad infinitum)

If only composition technique can be taught, then it follows logically that
composition technique can't be taught, it can only be presented, and either
the student just GETS it or they don't, so what can be taught is theory
about technique for composition, but wait, either the student just gets that
or they don't...so what can be taught is theory about theory about technique
about composition (etc. ad infinitum).

The distinction where we say X cannot be taught, where X is any cultural
artifact, begins to work if your concept of the word "teach" is something
akin to pouring an ability out of a bottle into the brain of a passive
receiver.  This has nothing to do with the way any real teaching gets done.
Think of the last time you used the text from the unix "man" (short for
"read the manual") command to figure something out.  If that text wasn't
there, you could have learned to use that feature of Unix by randomly
and exhaustively experimenting with it.  If the feature was, e.g., SED or
GNU EMACS, your experiment would probably run about 200 years.  But somebody
sat down and composed the MANual pages for you, to help you learn more quickly.
They taught (through a text medium) you to use it.

>If you have learned only the techniques you are not a composer 
>(similar in other arts, as you said).

In order to learn the techniques you must be motivated and produce.
Anybody who composes is a composer.  Not necessarily a good composer,
but definitely a composer.  If you are talented for composition, you
are not a composer, but if you start writing notes down, you are one...
though probably not as good of one as you could be if you study with
somebody who has abilities at composition you would like to acquire.

IN ALL THE ARTS, teaching at every university I've been to includes
not just specific assignments, which only apply to beginners, but
years of developing whatever project the student wishes to be working
on--so long as the student IS working on a project (exceptions are
limited to practical limits on completion of projects and specific
kinds of projects which are needed for Theses and Dissertations).

If you haven't had such teaching, that's no reason to claim it doesn't
exist.


Newsgroups: rec.music.compose