NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/rec/music/compose/594

Text File | 1992-12-28 | 2.6 KB | 57 lines

Newsgroups: rec.music.compose
Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!umeecs!zip.eecs.umich.edu!fields
From: [e-mail] (Matthew Fields)
Subject: Re: Carping and Per Diem
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Mr. News)
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 20:26:07 GMT
Lines: 45

Tim Fullterton...

In article <[e-mail]> you write:
...
>    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.

Theory ain't composition.  But composers can gain from mastering theory.
Right 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.

Two things happened: the folks who hated pseudointellectual pseudoserialism
became the next bunch of faculty, and Pierre Boulez led a move away from
theory back to sensual sound from within the "serialists".
Another case of THEORY AIN'T COMPOSITION.  I was very surprised to
meet Chris Rolfe when r.m.c. started up: I thought I was the only person
in my generation doing serial work.

I like your wording: "nobody likes serialism by itself." No, for instance
I like specific serial compositions by imaginative composers. Serialism
by itself is sort of like formula-driven 4-part harmony: it brings to
mind the famous question, "So what?"  But, say, the Schoenberg piano
concerto, or, say, the Brahms D-minor piano concerto---now, we're talking
compositions, not technique.  Schoenberg writes: "There's altogether too much
talk about methods of composition with twelve tones.  I want my compositions
to be received as living, breathing beings, with sinews and pounding veins,
which come to us with something urgent to eloquently express." (I'll look
for a source if needed, but I bet it's buried somewhere in 'Style and Idea')

Good luck!

-Matt