HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose

In rec.music.compose, mangoe@cs.umd.edu (Charley Wingate) writes:

> Interestingly, the situation ...[i.e. aversion to tonality] ...in choral 
> music improved much more quickly,
> simply because the patron for most works (namely, the church) for the most
> part had and has little use for stuff that is "too wierd".

Yes, for the composer who doesn't share the Church's purpose, the relationship
must needs be uneasy at best. The Church has little use for music which is so
culturally or stylistically obtuse to the hearers that they cannot get any good
through it. And, particularly in this century, the church views art from a
functional, utilitarian perspective, at the expense of art for it's own sake,
i.e. the joy of co-creation. Not that she is always hostile to it, mind you.

> On the other
> hand, we are beset with John Rutter on one side and "praise songs" on the
> other.  Oh, and text bowdlerizers.  
                  ^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hmmmmm. Leaving out the right wing extreme, I see very little active censership
of text. But if a text has nothing to do with her mission, or is at cross 
purposes to it, why should it be surprising that she passes on it? Somehow, I
can see little reason for "Carmina Burana" at a high mass...

And should she have no regard for text at all??? Hmmmmm.

And as for the "one hand/other hand", funny, but I find material in the middle
and actively seek it out. Some of a work by American composer Steve Fry "Thy
Kingdom Come" (which I am anticipating preparing) is highly colored; though 
tonal, the orchestra is sometimes bit reminiscent of Stravinsky and the choral 
parts of Orff himself...

And the text, e.g.

	When men are in bondage,
	When they are sick and afflicted,
	When you speak My deliverance...
	...Know the Kingdom has come upon you.

or

	Father of lies, you would wear out the Saints...
	Piper of Peace, you would lull us to sleep,
	Wolf in the night, who would prey on the sheep...	
	...We would shout, 'the Lord rebuke you'...

is quite a bit stouter than the average "praise song"...

Bob (I love to push the limits of art in the Church) Miller

Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington)
Subject: Re: academia, power, priveledge...
Organization: The Dorsai Embassy, New York's Computer Consulate. +1.718.729.5018
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 19:29:19 GMT

david@roth-music.com (David A. Roth) writes:

> 
> In article <9DyHwB2w165w@dorsai.com> (rec.music.compose), idealord@dorsai.com
> > 
> > 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
> >  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

Waitaminute -> Do you think that someone "taught" Einstein to produce 
elegant equations?  Give me a break!  You're confusing genius with craft. 
Anyone - anyone can learn the craft of music - but - not everyone is a 
Mozart.  
 
And waitaminute about that's review - not teaching.  Review is teaching.  
When a good composition teacher tells a student that she jumped into a 
section with new material too suddenly - that's a pivotal moment - one 
which even a genius might profit from.  Pacing is something which is part 
of a craft - good melodies are not produced from mediocre musicians - 
that's obvious - but taste - taste is a part of craft and can be
developed in a student.  
 
The comment about no one being able to teach composition is symptomatic 
of a culture which enshrines its great artists as gods - Mozart -> Apollo 
Beethoven-> Dionysus (pick your own combos). It's often used as a callow
attempt to justify personal mediocrity -> (no flame intended - Dave ;-)
or to justify contemporary mediocrity.  

I would love it if everyone was a mediocre composer!  Bad melodies, no 
form.  The more music we get written the bigger the chance that someone 
great will come along.  I mean music for music's sake, of course, not 
meant to impress a tenure committee or the Perspectives of New Music 
editorial staff ;-).  
 

Jeff Harrington      
IdEAL ORDER               
idealord@dorsai.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: sherman@ecadsr.enet.dec.com (My name is...)
Subject: Re: academia, power, priveledge...
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 15:55:30 GMT

>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.
> 

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.

By the way, if anyone has any recommendations of books or articles written
by her I'd appreciate leads.  One of these days I'm going to head into the
library and see what I can find.  Right now, I'm studying from a book on
the great composers (that includes examples of their work) writtin in the
1940's and apparently last checked out in 1958 (a year after I was born).
Great book, way overdue and in physically sad shape.  I'm going to see if
the library will sell it to me -- after I pay my fine.

Steve (who wishes he would have been permitted to take *real* music classes
in school rather than the classes "reserved" for music majors only)
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: joe@dogface.austin.tx.us (Joe Zitt)
Subject: Re: Regarding the Questionable use of the Word -> Advance
Organization: The Fortress of Ultimate Dorkiness
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 01:40:21 GMT

In article <RMC.92Dec21150551@miyazaki.wang.com> rmc@wang.com (rmc) writes:
>4)  Go talk to Gunter Schuller some day about the problem of academic
>support for composers - he has some ideas on alternate funding.  As
>does Milton Babbit for that matter.

Hmm... can you point us to some of these ideas?

Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fullerto@tortoise.cis.ohio-state.edu (timothy dwight fullerton)
Subject: Re: Carping and Per Diem
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 19:35:03 GMT



	I am finding the threads about bashing academia really kind of 
disgusting and immature. I look at it this way: Everyone is making their 
own contributions to art. "Academics," whatever that means, are making 
theirs; people who sit in their room with a sequencer and/or a four 
track and recreate are making theirs; Pop musicians are making theirs. 
Why waste your energy expressing prejudice and self righteousness to 
each other. If you don't like a genre of music, then IT IS NOT FOR YOU. 
That does not mean that it cannot have important contributions.

	It is kind of a silly assumption, too, that everyone in academia 
is a sycophant. Some people actually LIKE what they write, like where 
they study, and respect what their teachers have to offer. Some can 
still find the courage to take terrible stylistic risks and assert their 
individuality wherever appropriate (and inappropriate). If they are 
going to be failed for that or lose tenure then it is likely that they 
aren't going to be happy there, that the political environment is 
corrupt, and that they would really be better off elsewhere.

	Don't think that schools don't suffer for their corruption, too. I 
have been shopping for grad schools and I have been very attentive to 
what people on the Internet have had to say about where they go to 
school. 

	From my own experience, I once noticed that the stuff that I wrote 
when I knew no music theory and was just creating arrangements with a 
guitar, a four track, and the right side of my brain, sounded better 
than the left brained contrivances that came out of my music theory 
training. It was a simple matter, though, of suspending that training 
and writing right brained again, only with a larger vocabulary of 
strategies to fall back on.

	I, myself, have also been prejudiced against academia because of 
Serialism and 12 tone practices. What I have found though, is that 
NOBODY that I have run across really likes serialsm by itself. If it was 
hip fifteen years ago, it is given minimal attention now IN MY ACADEMIC 
EXPERIENCE. Certainly it might still be emphasized someplace. 

	In my grad school shopping, I have expressed the fear that 
studying composition could ruin me, that I could become this 
intellectual that creates aural math projects that nobody wants to 
listen to. Keeping the above arguments in mind, that is prejudiced and 
ridiculous. If I don't want that, I won't get that. If I research my 
grad schools well, I'll find someplace enriching where I will happy and 
free, and there will not be a corrupt machine that will try to squeeze 
me into that mold. If I research poorly, I deserve what I get.

	Basically my message is if you don't like academic music (again, 
whatever that means), don't go to school, but don't take a militant, 
self righteous stance against academia. What purpose does that serve?

	Happy Holidays;

		Tim.
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington)
Subject: Re: Advances in composition
Organization: The Dorsai Embassy, New York's Computer Consulate. +1.718.729.5018
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 14:22:35 GMT

maverick@mahogany.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes:

> In article <1h3v8vINN516@mozz.unh.edu>, dvf@kepler.unh.edu (David V Feldman) 
> |>
> |> 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 themselv
> |> 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.
 
Absolutely!  Time advances.  Musical expression changes.  Who wants to 
write a piece that sounds like someone else's music.  Only a hack and it 
produces only parody.  
> 
> [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.]
> 
We must be careful about expressing our limited understanding of another 
person's perceptions.  Wittgenstein?  How do we know what someone else 
thinks about a piece of music?  
 
> 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

Listening is the only way to understand music.  Whether it is in silence 
with a score or at a performance, listening is music.  Personal opinions 
may help our own understanding of pieces new to us but it often taints 
our ability to appreciate new music.  
 

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 17:45:52 GMT

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

Two miscelanies here: Anybody know (of) any of her works? and
on the other hand, I've met a couple of folks still living who studied
with her (no names today but the initials WB and JC come to mind) who said
that she was a meticulous teacher of theoretical exercises, but that they
left her and went elsewhere to master composition.  I'm not entirely clear
on the details, but then it seems to me that a composer like Copland could
probably draw compositional nourishment from even a bad teacher... Same
goes for Mr. Rorem.  So where does that leave us?  I'm going to teach you to
go fishing.  I've never been fishing, I don't even like fishing, I'm a
vegetarian, but if you pay me enough I'll teach you fishing...naw, I don't
think you could pay me enough.  That'd take too much time away from composing.



Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington)
Subject: Re: // 5ths & 8ves
Organization: The Dorsai Embassy, New York's Computer Consulate. +1.718.729.5018
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 14:13:55 GMT

maverick@cork.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Vance Maverick) writes:

> In article <1992Dec22.140454.16744@zip.eecs.umich.edu>, fields@zip.eecs.umich
> |> In article <1992Dec19.130505.12073@cucs5.cs.cuhk.hk> bmtong@cs.cuhk.hk (To
> |> > [how to avoid nasty parallels between Alberti and melodic voices?]
> |> 
> |> Many solutions.
> 
> Actually, in the style I think he had in mind,
> the parallels were not always considered a flaw.
> Mozart commits them all over the place.  Examples
> abound in the piano sonatas; in the symphonies,
> I can think of at least the clarinet duet from the
> trio of the minuet in the Eb symphony (#39).
> So I don't think he needs to worry greatly.
> 
> 	Vance

Wait a minute, you're talking orchestration, whether by the use of 
octaves in the piano or in the orchestra.  That's a totally different 
thing from voice leading.  
 
Matt's got some good points.  Ultimately, anyone who thinks an Alberti 
bass never bends with the melody doesn't know the literature :-).  
 

Jeff Harrington      
IdEAL ORDER               
idealord@dorsai.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington)
Subject: Re: Hey!  Cool it.
Organization: The Dorsai Embassy, New York's Computer Consulate. +1.718.729.5018
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 13:49:55 GMT

fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields) writes:

> Jeff, buddy!  Haven't we been around and around these bits before?  Most of
> rec.music.compose's readership has never taken an academic music course at
> all.
> 
> Bill was just joking, for gosh sakes.
> 
> And besides, one of my favorite composers and yours did his best work when
> he was on salary to write a new oratorio every week.  And when he was instead
> at Koethen, where chamber music presided, he made chamber music, and was happ
> So? So some folks write well when well paid (jsb), some folks write well no
> matter what---and fritter away what ever money they get (wam), and some folks
> can only write well after they're dead :-)
> Nyah, let's get back to composing.  Decide what you like to hear and see how
> to make it happen.  Deeper philosophizing ties up your precious neurons. :-)
> 
> Matt

Matt, good buddy, I wondered where you were in this.  Still hoping for a 
university job I see.  

I'm sorry, but we haven't been around this bush a few times and this is 
not just idle philosophizing and there are lots of young composers who 
are planning (as you have) on enjoying the benefits (and burdens) of a 
career in academia (even as the jobs dry up).
 
I didn't start this thread.  I agreed with someone about the way in which 
life itself influences our composition.  Bill's comment about the rent 
was a joke, yes, but one aimed from an ivory tower.  I'm sorry, let's 
call a spade a spade.  Privilege is the issue.  Who has it and why.
 
It's hard for someone who has lost his apartment and who is attempting to 
justify risk-taking to see the humor in a "pay the rent or stop composing 
comment."  Really.  

You know me, I'm a hot head when it comes to issues of privilege in the
arts.  My whole family has suffered because of the privileges of the
tenured.  I'm not going to waste more bandwidth justifying my flames as I 
think you're right about getting back to the music, but remember, buddy, 
that the new music world is controlled by university hacks.  I'm not just 
talking people who write mediocre music, I'm talking about people who 
don't believe in excellence, who believe it is a threat to their 
privilege.  It's really very sad.  Flame off.

I apologize to Bill if I seemed to be attacking him personally. I wasn't.

May I recommend "The Grace of Great Things" by Robert Grudin.  An 
interesting book about our culture and how it has been warped by the 
university system.  Slightly un-pc, but with some good points...
 

Jeff Harrington      
IdEAL ORDER               
idealord@dorsai.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: lm011@aix370.rrz.Uni-Koeln.DE (Alexander Tuchacek)
Subject: VRship Hamburg: Call for Participation
Reply-To: lm011@aix370.rrz.Uni-Koeln.DE (Alexander Tuchacek)
Organization: Regional Computing Center, University of Cologne, F. R. Germany
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 17:47:29 GMT



Call for international participation in new art/science project.
KNOWBOTIC RESEARCH
Simulation Room -Mosaic of Mobile Sound Data
We are a group of artists and scientists at the Academy of Media
Arts Cologne,  and will be showing a VR installation in February at
the MEDIALE93 - Festival for Media Arts and Media Future - in
Hamburg, Germany. The installation, housed in the freight ship Cap
San Diego in Hamburg - harbour, has three main areas.
Section one is a sophisticated, walk - in data - base  utilising a
collection of sound samples from around the world, which will be
used to produce a virtual 'sound room'.  The sound data will
correspond to the second section,  a physical room, where visitors
will be able to navigate through the space with the aid of a mobile
ultrasonic sensor and an artificial eye display and activate the data 
to a realtime-concert.
The action of the visitors, within  this 'virtual organism,' will be
displayedon a video screen shown in a control room area (the third
area).
We welcome your participation for the international sound - data -
base: To participate in this international project we need from you a
6 second long sound sample, a cultural statement, reflecting
your personal attitude towards the "world". Please send this via
email or ftp. (aiff, wave, next formats)
All participants and institutions will be credited in a publicly
displayed database during the exhibition.
For more information by email from: kr+cf@khm.uni-koeln.de
Thank you for your support - KNOWBOTIC RESEARCH

Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: idealord@dorsai.com (Jeff Harrington)
Subject: Academia again
Organization: The Dorsai Embassy, New York's Computer Consulate. +1.718.729.5018
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 19:17:28 GMT

Mr. Field's personal comments were well-considered, as usual, and I would 
actually like to strengthen them a little.  
 
If someone wants to write good music, you really have to go to a 
university music school.  There's just no other way (in the U.S.) to 
learn all the techniques.  I learned a lot of technique at all of the 
music schools I attended.  But I learned about _music_ by studying with a 
composer, now unfortunately dropped off of the face of the earth - James 
Drew.  He was a fantastic person and a fantastic composer.  Pianist with 
John Coltraine, studied with Varese taught at Yale for 10 years in the 
'60s.  Friends with Cage, the whole radical bunch.  Left Yale when they 
told him that writing music wasn't enough, he had to write articles.  At 
that time he was just beginning (late '60s) to experiment with tonality 
again.  He and Rochberg were close friends and I always have thought that 
they probably inspired each other to dip their toes back into the sweet 
waters of tonality.  He came to LSU where I met him and studied with him 
privately.  He had just resigned from LSU.  The head of the composition 
department had told the dean that Mr. Drew was writing "too much music."  
He insisted that he slow down!  (I still can't believe this today even 
though I've heard the story from several people).  This didn't provoke 
the resignation, but when the Dean asked him to change a "F" to a "D" as 
a personal favor - that did it.  
 
Mr. Drew would sit at the piano and improvise in any style imaginable; he 
would combine styles, left hand playing a Chopin accompaniment, the right 
playing polytonal chords - maybe Ivesian - of a jazz standard.  I was in 
awe.  When we had a lesson and I brought my piece, he would sit there for 
20 minutes, thinking about it in silence and then go to the piano and 
say, this is nice - playing a bit - but watch this - and then improvise a 
radically different but stylistically similar new transition.  It wasn't 
the music technique which impressed me (although it was awesome) but the 
playfulness, the way it was funny to play two styles at once; the way in 
which you felt that music to him was a real living language, not a game.  

People like Mr. Drew just don't grow on vines and just don't fit in in 
our music school factories.  Music is not learning that after II and V 
comes I or how to build the IR row form.  Music is a language for
poetry.  This is not a romantic ideal as some would have you believe.  
The musicians who aren't poets can fool a few people for now.  I give 
them another decade of pretension; of pretending to "advance" our 
language.  
 

Jeff Harrington      
IdEAL ORDER               
idealord@dorsai.com
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 21:17:05 GMT

There was reference here to genuine musics from cultures of Africa as
being both interesting in themselves and perhaps more inspiring to
some composers than cuisinarted "African-influenced" music (which
appeared in classical circles in the '20s, I think...).

Over time I've heard and been fascinated by traditional musics from Tibet,
Japan, Bulgaria, and many other places, including my own indigineous Jewish
culture.  I highly recommend the Balinese "Kecak" as a listening experience
which modifies one's usual image of Indonesian music when all one has heard
is the melifluous tones of the gamelan.  Kecak is now available as a 55-minute
CD.

Newsgroups: rec.music.compose