HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: Components of creativity
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 01:46:46 GMT

In article <1993Jan07.202646.10553@gecko.uucp> josh@Tekelec.gecko.uucp (Josh Barinstein) writes:
>In any case, add to all this the occasional theory-related questions
>posted to this goup and the proposed solutions provided by the more ex-
>perienced composers.  (This brings to mind Matt's GEMS series).  So, you

Ah, but I know of no theory class which covers the topics I tried to touch
on there...except Gems 3 (shortcuts for theory homework), which was a
snoozer according to my e-mail.

>dies, is the interplay between them.  For those of you who have received
>a formal education in music, at what point did the theory and "teachings"
>in composition (if you belong to that school of thought) become second
>nature?

I spent a lot of time my last year of undergraduate trying to
improvise in the style of Bach.  Got the 4-part harmony down, but
my rhythmic and textural ideas didn't blossom until I was well on the
way to my doctorate.  I remember a carefully-placed hint from
Alfred Lerdahl, on the order of "Try making an interesting composite
rhythm out of the RESTS in your texture, and thus out of the interplay
of parts coming in and out..." and experienced a sort of quantum expansion
of my abilities.  And I experienced another such quantum expansion when
a certain Vermont composer grabbed me by the lapels...(see GEMS 1).

>  Did this come from continuously puting these tools to use?

A combination of continuously trying, and continuously struggling to build
without tools.   I like the idea of a technique as a hammer, from the
previous discussion---in particular, a ball-peen hammer being used to sculpt
a rough expression into a refined rhetoric.  I remember my education sort of
like this.

The artist Gail Freed once said to me, years ago at Oberlin, "All these
years my paintings have been shouting, and now they're beginning to sing..."

-Matt
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Another random voice heard from
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 21:29:28 GMT


Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human.  At best he
is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe anthe house.
                -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"

Consider that LL is a creation of Robert Heinlein, one of the most
pro-military pro-short-term-gain writers of all sci-fi.  Consider also
that LL is supposed to have supernatural genes that allow him to live
forever, and that he's a pervert to boot...  But elsewhere he says
that a human being should be able to (insert a long list of diverse
human activities, including changing diapers and writing symphonies).
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: // 5ths & 8ves
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 16:33:27 GMT

In article <1992Dec29.143543.8265@zip.eecs.umich.edu> fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields) writes:
>In article <1992Dec29.142923.8042@zip.eecs.umich.edu> fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields) writes:
>...
>>are moving along more or less independently, but suddenly in the middle
>>they just slip into one isolated instance of parallel octaves, you might
>>consider adjusting one of them so this doesn't happen.  In the case of the
>
>The general compositional lesson from this: subtlety is very tricky to
>use.  Consider being assertive and clear, rather than wishy-washy.
>-Matt

Just for the record, would somebody please tell me where this idea is presented
in a theory text?
From: gpg@astrix.Eng.Sun.COM (GP Grewal)
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Subject: Re: Music Theory?
Date: 7 Jan 93 22:06:02 GMT
Reply-To: gpg@astrix.Eng.Sun.COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: astrix


I would like to thank all those who responded. I did go out and buy
Music Theory - G. T. Jones. Looks like it does start with the very
basics.  I find the ongoing discussion very helpful and it has given me
a lot of ideas on what to read next.

Thanks

---

GP Grewal
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fullerto@mostaccioli.cis.ohio-state.edu (timothy dwight fullerton)
Subject: Re: Music Copying
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science
Distribution: rec
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 02:24:56 GMT

In article <1463@fozzy.UUCP> dvanslyk@aud.alcatel.com writes:
>Does anyone know of any good books on the subject of music
>copying (music notation rules)? 
>

	The foremost authority for copying in calligraphy pen and ink for 
most styles is Clinton Roemer. He has two books that a copyist cannot do 
without, whether (s)he does it by hand or by computer.

	_The Art of Music Copying_ 
	and 
	_Standardized Chord Symbol Notation_.


	Tim
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: extanv@spirea.fiol.uib.no (Anders Vinjar)
Subject: Click-tracks
Summary: Do you know much about click-tracks
Organization: University of Oslo - Norway, dep. of Musicology
Distribution: rec.music.compose
Date: 12 Jan 93 15:40:18

I'm currently writing a piece for piano and tape, and want to use
click-tracks for synchronisation during the performance. 

I've never used these before, and need hints onto how they are
constructed efficiently. If you have any suggestions for reading
about click-tracks, or for persons to get in touch with about the
issue, i would be happy.


Anders
--
Anders Vinjar

Snail-mail: Anders Vinjar   T: + 47-5-234037
            Nykirkealm.5
            5005 Bergen
            NORWAY

Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: Music Theory?
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 17:41:34 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.113718.11525@cs.ruu.nl> cwquak@cs.ruu.nl (Wilko Quak) writes:
>In <1993Jan7.161239.6379@gserv1.dl.ac.uk> w.purvis@daresbury.ac.uk (Bill Purvis, ext 3357) writes:
>>David Cottle wrote:
>>> There is a chapter on voice leading that you may want to skip.  We have
>>> very heated debates about the validity of teaching voice leading here.
>>> Some instructors never mention it (!).  I think it's still valid for
>>I haven't come across the term `voice leading' before. Could someone give
>>me a brief explanation?? 
>To give a definition of voice leading is rather difficult.I can give an example:

In the US we use "Voice Leading" approximately the way others use "Part
Writing", and both are more or less synonymous with "Counterpoint", the
art of writing several melodies to be sounded simultanously such that
standard chords and series of chords arrise among them, each melody is
well-shaped according to some criteriae, and the melodies avoid interfering
with each other according to some criteria.  Hence the title of
the standard conservatory theory book, "Harmony and Voice-Leading"
(Aldwell and Schacter, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovitch...).  The
FLAVOR or scent or connotation of the term is more or less one that
emphasizes the idea that certain tones tend (in particular contexts
relative to specific style) to lead to certain other tones, an idea
the consequences of which were deeply explored by Heinrich Schenker in
his tome "Der Tonwille" (On the Desires of Tones, pub. uh, about 1905?).
It should come as no surprise that Aldwell and Schacter are explicitly
followers of Schenker.

Anyhow, "voice leading" is nothing new, and is taught in great detail
as a major part of core studies in certain schools.  A mastery of it is
essential to anyone who wants to borrow tricks from classical composers.
With a little bit of imagination, its basic ideas are easily generalizable
to patterns other than classical tonality.



Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: Music Theory?
Keywords: Music, Text
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 13:55:33 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.041554.12120@cis.ohio-state.edu> fullerto@mostaccioli.cis.ohio-state.edu (timothy dwight fullerton) writes:
>	For the very basic stuff I am partial to Paul O. Harder's books--
>_Basic Materials in Music Theory_ and _Harmonic Materials in Tonal Music_.

I recommend these books.  They're used here in undergraduate courses, and
the folks who come through them seem to have less of the mist of confusion
that other folks bring with them to advanced studies.  I especially like the
fact that they present material explicitly in a question/answer/short-quiz
fashion, a style known in the 1970's as "programmed frames", and before that
as "Socratic dialogue"---the book gives a short lesson, then spends a lot
of time quizing you on it until you're a master of it.

Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: Advances in composition
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 17:58:08 GMT

In article <1i5kbfINN9qs@mozz.unh.edu> dvf@kepler.unh.edu (David V Feldman) writes:
>In article <1hvr6oINNkf@calvin.usc.edu> alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) writes:
>>David V. Feldman writes:
>>>(William Alves) writes:
>>
>>is some extra-musical notion (e.g. a serial use of cells that has inter-
>>esting properties and hasn't been tried before) that the composer is trying
>
>Perhaps we really have no disagreement, but I am vexed by your use of the
>term ``extra-musical'' as though there were some a priori notion of the
>music in the music.

This is one of those tricky notions.  If I work out a 4-part
harmonization by the drudgery of deafly following rules, but have no
idea how it will sound, or if I choose some pitches based on a
symmetry that I discussed with an algebraicist when we met in the
hall--with no concept of sound in my mind, in either of these cases
the concept of something "outside" the music might be appropriate.
However, when Bach or Schoenberg chooses a tune like the Art of Fugue
theme or the theme of the latter's op.31 variations, and takes
advantage of intellectually-describable properties of these materials, it's
not at all clear to me that there's any place for talking about "extra-musical"
parts of the process.
From: fullerto@tortoise.cis.ohio-state.edu (timothy dwight fullerton)
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Subject: Re: Music Copying
Date: 10 Jan 93 16:22:16 GMT
Article-I.D.: cis.1993Jan10.162216.8722
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science





	After having posted my copywork bibles, the Clinton Roemer books,
a generous contributor to this group, Dr. Fields, replied to me privately
and recommended a book that he uses.

	That is _Duckles: Music Bibliography_.

	I thought it should be passed along :-)

		Tim
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: cottle@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu (David M. Cottle)
Subject: Re: Music Theory?
Organization: University of Illinois School of Music
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 14:51:06 GMT
Keywords: Music, Text

In article <1993Jan6.210650.24386@zip.eecs.umich.edu> fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields) writes:
>
>Uh, yeah, guys, but does anyone out there have a programmed tutorial
>on scales, modes, time signatures, etc.?  The original inquiry
>was about the BASICS, so let's cover the BASIC BASICS before getting
>to the plain ordinary basics.

The Turek starts from ground zero.  Most of our students skip the first
four chapters (rhythm, keys, scales, intervals, etc.).  It does cover
modes, but later on, since it's not a common system (underline common)
anymore.  There are two volumes: _The Elements of Music_, Ralph Turek.
I believe the publisher is McGraw Hill.  If you are an educator you
might be able to talk them into a desk copy.  1-800-338-3987

There is a chapter on voice leading that you may want to skip.  We have
very heated debates about the validity of teaching voice leading here.
Some instructors never mention it (!).  I think it's still valid for
most styles today (particularly jazz), but it may not help you
*understand* most tonal systems.  It will just make you a better
composer/arranger.  

-- 
David Cottle            CERL Sound Group                     
Software Consultant     103 S Mathews, Urbana, IL 61801
                        (217) 244-6686 Lime@uiuc.edu      
Ballo ergo sum.
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: icking@gmd.de (Werner Icking)
Subject: Re: Music TeX preprocessor
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 11:41:03 GMT


The only MusicTeX preprocessor I've heard of is  midi2tex.

It's available by anonymous ftp from here:
  
   ftp.gmd.de   music/midi2tex/...

On the other hand MusicTeX's basis is TeX which allows you to write
your own macros using the MusicTeX-macros.

Werner
--
Werner Icking        Werner.Icking@gmd.de        (+49 2241) 14-2443     __o
GMD - Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung mbH          _`\<,_
Schloss Birlinghoven, P.O.Box 1316, D-5205 Sankt Augustin, Germany   (_)/ (_)
                             "Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod." ~~~~~~~~~~~
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: picasso@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marcus A Picasso)
Subject: Music TeX preprocessor
Organization: University of Helsinki
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 23:36:05 GMT

  When I checked out the FAQ about the Music TeX-macro package, it
leaved a question unanswered (at least to me):

  Are there any "preprocessors" available that simplifies the use of
Music TeX ?

Marcus Picasso.
--
e-mail: picasso@cc.Helsinki.FI
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: dixon@r2d2.eng.hou.compaq.com (Dixon Dick)
Subject: Re: Music Copying
Organization: Compaq Computer Corporation
Distribution: rec
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 20:49:15 GMT

In article <C0p4o4.AEv@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, cottle@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu (David M. Cottle) writes:
|> In article <1463@fozzy.UUCP> dvanslyk@aud.alcatel.com writes:
|> >Does anyone know of any good books on the subject of music
|> >copying (music notation rules)? 
|> >
|> >Don Van Slyke 
|> >dvanslyk@rdxsun78.aud.alcatel.com
|> 
|> I also swear by the Roemer text for hand copy.  But that text is more
|> for learning how to do it, and it doesn't cover engraving standards,
|> nor does it get into 20th Century stuff.  I more often (now that I've
|> learned *how* from the Roemer) turn to _Music Notation in the Twentieth
|> Century_ by Stone working as a copyist and/or consultant for music
|> related software.  It is IMHO *the* last word in copy standards (i.e.
|> how it's done).
|> 
|> 
|> -- 
|> David Cottle            CERL Sound Group                     
|> Software Consultant     103 S Mathews, Urbana, IL 61801
|>                         (217) 244-6686 Lime@uiuc.edu      
|> Ballo ergo sum.

I agree with your notions about learning from the Roemer texts. However, I
was recently in Hollywood and had a chance to talk to Clint (his health is
not great either) and he has stopped publishing the book. If there is 
enough interest from folks out there, I'm interested in picking up the text
and re-publishing it, if Clint will agree. He just doesn't feel like it's
worth the effort for him anymore, but I beg to differ on behalf of all
the people who are about to wander _uneducated_ into the landscape of
computer-based music copying.

dcd
-- 
%  Dixon Chan Dick  (dixon@compaq.com)   	 Compaq Computer Corp.	 %
%									 %
% "All dumb opinions expressed here are mine and not Compaq's etc. etc." %
From: elkies@ramanujan.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies)
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Subject: Re: Music Theory?
Date: 13 Jan 93 04:42:45 GMT
Organization: Harvard Math Department

In article <C0p4BK.A7t@news.cso.uiuc.edu>
cottle@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu (David M. Cottle) writes:

>1.	Keep all voices within their respective ranges.
>2.	Avoid large melodic leaps, nondiatonic intervals, augmented
>	seconds and fourths, and consecutive leaps in the same direction
>	(except for arpeggiations).
>3.	Use common doubling procedures [double the root mostly] when
>	possible.
>4.	Avoid doubling tendency tones.
>5. 	Use homogeneous spacing, changing from open to close structure (or
>	vica versa) for variety, to produce more fluent voice leading, or to
>	keep the voices within their respective ranges.
>6. 	Strive for independent contour (predominantly contrary and oblique
>	motion) between the outer voices.
>7. 	Resolve all tendency tones that appear in the outer voices.
>8. 	Avoid consecutive perfect fifths, octaves, or unisons between the
>	same two voices.  
>9. 	Avoid voice crossing and overlap.

10) Find and explain many exceptions to most of these rules in the complete
Bach Chorales...  (Brahms already gave you a head start with #8)

[This is meant to complement, not mock, guidelines #1-9 above; seeing/hearing
how and why Bach flaunts these will give a better sense of their scope and
context.]

--Noam D. Elkies (elkies@zariski.harvard.edu)
  Dept. of Mathematics, Harvard University
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: cottle@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu (David M. Cottle)
Subject: Re: Music Theory?
Organization: University of Illinois School of Music
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 18:32:11 GMT
Keywords: Music, Text

In article <lkk09uINNcc@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> gpg@astrix.Eng.Sun.COM writes:
>I know a little bit about music but have never read a text
>on music theory. I tried reading a translation of Fux's book
>on counterpoint and realized that I need to know more about
>basics.
>
>Could someone recommend a book on music theory that explains 
>all the basic concepts. 

The problem with Fux's theory text is that it is several hundred years
old.  Most musicians read it only in a historical context.  There are 
many styles of music, and a theory governing each.  To get a basic 
understanding of how most music (that I am guessing you are familiar 
with--tonal; 1700-1800) works you should read a recent author.  I've used
Kotska and Payne's text, as well as one by Ralph Turek.  They are both
very good, and I think it will show you what you want.  (The Turek, I
believe, even covers counterpoint -- what you would see in the Fux, but
a little more accessible.)

-- 
David Cottle            CERL Sound Group                     
Software Consultant     103 S Mathews, Urbana, IL 61801
                        (217) 244-6686 Lime@uiuc.edu      
Ballo ergo sum.
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
From: fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: Advances in composition
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 16:28:45 GMT

In article <1iajv4INN5qq@mozz.unh.edu> dvf@kepler.unh.edu (David V Feldman) writes:
>In article <1993Jan4.175808.13140@zip.eecs.umich.edu> fields@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Matthew Fields) writes:
>>This is one of those tricky notions.  If I work out a 4-part
>>harmonization by the drudgery of deafly following rules, but have no
>>idea how it will sound, or if I choose some pitches based on a
>>symmetry that I discussed with an algebraicist when we met in the
>>hall--with no concept of sound in my mind, in either of these cases
>>the concept of something "outside" the music might be appropriate.
>
>Here is my view:  Perhaps what the algebraist had in mind was
>``extra-musical'' because it simply wasn't music at all *in her mind*.
>But as soon as you start organizing musical materials by means of
>those algebraic ideas, those algebraic ideas become musical ideas.

uh, how about at the moment I translate them into corresponding
musical structures...
>(Indeed they may be the sole determininant of the sound structure
>you produce.)  The point revolves around your phrase ``concept of sound
>in my mind.''  In the narrow sense, this would me that the music you
>are producing has been preaudited - this would exclude much indeterminate
>music from the category *music*, and that seems unacceptable.

Not at all so.  Everybody knows that each live performance of their
"narrowly-defined" piece will be different, so in that sense the parameters
bounded by a "concept of sound" define a CLASS of performances/realizations,
and that CLASS is a composition, and embodies musical ideas.  This is
equally true of works by, e.g. K Penderecki as of works by Bach.  But
more interesting things are possible.  I personally tried to VISUALIZE
qualities of groups, monoids, rings, etc. when I took algebra, but I
don't see why someone couldn't try to "audit" them in the same context.
The ancient Greeks, of course, described the world with music at or near
the center of all areas of thought...we've come a long way since then.
From: dvf@kepler.unh.edu (David V Feldman)
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Subject: Re: Advances in composition
Date: 3 Jan 1993 02:51:27 GMT
Organization: University of New Hampshire  -  Durham, NH
NNTP-Posting-Host: kepler.unh.edu

In article <1hvr6oINNkf@calvin.usc.edu> alves@calvin.usc.edu (William Alves) writes:
>David V. Feldman writes:
>>(William Alves) writes:
>
>is some extra-musical notion (e.g. a serial use of cells that has inter-
>esting properties and hasn't been tried before) that the composer is trying

Perhaps we really have no disagreement, but I am vexed by your use of the
term ``extra-musical'' as though there were some a priori notion of the
music in the music.  If a composer is exploring some property of pitches
and rhythms which is ultimately expressed in her or his composition, then
to me the notion is music, not ``extra-musical.''  Now you may want to
argue that if these notions are inaudible from the final product, then
they are extramusical, but the question becomes ``Inaudible to whom?''
Beginners at a foreign language may find certain sounds indistinguishable,
but that does not make them extra-linguistic.  You might feel that someone
how is hearing music, and noting correlations between between tone patterns
is doing something other that ``listening to music'' per se, but I am
open-minded about what sort of cognitive activity music listening is
or might be.  In particular, I reject the dogma that priviliges the
gestalt over all other perceptions of the listener.  (I believe that
this dogma is so pervasive that not only is it rarely challenge, but it
isn't often explicitly formulated, except in slogans like ``If it don't
swing, it don't mean a thing.'')

David
From: koreth@spud.Hyperion.COM (Steven Grimm)
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Subject: Re: Matt's GEMs?
Date: 9 Jan 1993 12:29:45 -0800
Organization: Hyperion, Mountain View, CA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: spud.hyperion.com

You can find the GEMS series on ftp.hyperion.com in the directory "pub/gems".

-Steve
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose