From: davet@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Dave Tutelman)
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.synth
Subject: Re: Defending the Slugs (was: Winter NAMM 1983)
Summary: one for the elitists
Date: 24 Jan 93 16:17:46 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs - Lincroft, NJ

I'd like to thank Laird Nelson and Guy Finney for reminding me why I come
out of this debate on the side of Laird and the elitists.  ("Laird and the
Elitists."  Now THERE'S a name for a band. :-)

I'm going to include a couple of quotes from their exchange, then share a
couple of anecdotes from my past that those quotes triggered.  Laird and
Guy may feel I'm quoting them out of context, but those ARE the quotes that
reminded me of these attitute-shaping incidents.

In article <1993Jan23.185202.4734@anasazi.com> gaf@anasazi.com (Guy Finney) writes:
>
>I feel I must leap to the front here and defend all that is Good and True
>from this wholly savage and unjustified attack on us Slugs....
>
>ljnelson@unix.amherst.edu (LAiRD j. NeLSoN) writes:
>>
>>I hope it's just me, but I'm noticing a trend in music in general: people just
>>aren't spending the time anymore to learn how to play an instrument well--or
>>even passably.
>[....]
>>An *instrument* is meant to be studied, played and performed
>>*on*; it is not supposed to do that on its own.
>
>Maybe the paragraph quoted below refines who you mean by "people", but
>speaking as what I call a "music hobbyist", I constantly wrestle with
>many competing desires.  One is to have a job that pays well enough to
>feed my other desires, which include music, ...
>
>Okay, now for my tirade.  Naww, it's sunny and 70 here - too hard to get
>worked up over anything right now - I'll have to settle for being just
>insecure and slightly paranoid instead....

ANECDOTE #1:
	Late 70s.  A friend who has taught EE at the University of Hawaii
is telling us why there's such a small body of engineers on the island,
particularly home-grown.  "Hawaiians [meant as a growing-up geography, not
as a racial comment; he was including his own blonde kids] grow up with
everything they need right there.  The climate nourishes them, and they
have no need to expend effort to get what they want.

"So when they hit the freshman year in engineering, their almost universal
reaction is, 'What, ME learn calculus?  Wrong!', and transfer into a field
that doesn't take as much discipline.  It's usually the out-of-state
students that finish EE."

Whether or not his generalization was true, or is true today, I respect him
and can think of nobody better qualified to make the observation, and it
stuck in my memory.

ANECDOTE #2:
	Early 80s.  An acquaintance who is a head-hunter by trade specializes
in placing middle-level execs in high-tech firms.  She remarks that in all
her years in the field, the single most reliable indicator of success in that
kind of job is skill on a musical instrument (hobby level, but skillful). She
had no such skills, nor any clue as to why that should be; she just knew that
it WAS.  Knowing I played an instrument or two, she asked for my insight.
We kicked around various theories about where musical and technological skills
share a common base, but came to no conclusion that we really believed.

The next day, I was listening to my older son (then 10 years old) practice
piano.  He was struggling with a hard part, almost to the point of tears,
but he refused to take a break and come back to it later.  "I CAN play this,
and I WILL!"  It was one of the few times I had seen him so adamant about
avoiding the easy way.  And all of a sudden it hit me what musical and
technological skills had in common: the discipline to do it well even
when it isn't easy, and when it requires great effort before any reward is
seen.

Epilogue to anecdote #2: 
	My son entered engineering school and had a rough freshman year,
especially in calculus.  But he did master it eventually, with a good grade.
Several times during that year, when he was reminded he could drop calculus
and take it with a light course load next term, his reaction was, "No. I
CAN do this; I can beat this subject."  I don't think he even knew where
he learned that reaction, but I do.  And, unlike most of the entering EE
class, he has gotten to the senior year.

ADDITIONAL COMMENT:
	Recently (geologically speaking -- after all, I haven't had a gig
in 30 years), I have mated my music hobby with my technology hobbies, and
gotten into using MIDI and computers to make music.  My music is most
polished when I play 16 bars of one track into Cakewalk, then edit the
result.  But when I want to let out frustration, or when I want to just
FEEL the music, I play it at the [acoustic] piano.  I'm the only one that
will ever hear it, and that's fine.  My chops aren't up to giving a paid
performance live any more.  But I'm awfully glad I do have some chops,
because the MIDI hobby is too cerebral and inadequately visceral for some
purposes of music in my life.

Just one more subjective opinion...

Dave
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.synth