over this break i have been doing lesson plans for my spring eartraining and theory classes. as i sketched my classes out i realized that my goals were becoming much different than in the past. i wasn't worried about what i am supposed to teach, but really concentrated to what skills i think our students should know.
take music dictation, its still a big part of the high school ap music theory exam*** and its featured prominently in the eartraining textbooks, but is it really needed? i can imagine a time before recorded music, that it would be a very good skill to have. the ability to sketch down large amounts of melody, harmony and bass line for future study during or right after a live performance. i have taught it, and with smaller classes of high school students 4-5 days a week most students can be successful. but the real question is; how useful is this? the idea that we have to limit the repetitions and timing seems short-sighted because of current technology. what would bach do? (wwbd?) of course he would have a digital recorder and headphones to transcribe buxtehude into his G5 powerbook. although i still think he would make his kids tune the harpsichords with tuning forks until their hands bled.
with this being said, i have started moving into teaching transcription as an alternative to harmonic dictation. some of my best insights into music, where my transcription study sketches of music before i got hold of a score. (einstein on the beach, coronation of poppea) i still do some melodic dictation, but have a little different focus of audiation and/or singing and playing on the primary instrument, combined with paper and pencil.
with computers and cd players as the dominant technology, it only makes sense to teach our students how to best use the current technology. its been the staple of jazz musicians (including myself) for years. since consumer recording technology has been available since the 1950's why are we still using such an old pedagogy?
the other thing is that why do we still put any value into teaching 4-part writing? it still seems to be
the teaching staple in most theory classes, and it is used to introduce "tonal counterpoint" but why waste the time on it? its not a pure counterpoint and its "rules" are arbritrary and confusing to many students. as a composer i cannot really think when i use this fake "keyboard harmony" for any use. i prefer to focus on the old school (fux/jeppesen/swindale) when dealing with any tonal harmonization. starting with 1st and 2nd species, 2 and 3-part writing gets them to focused on the outer voice writing first. by introducing 4-part writing before 2-part counterpoint, students are introduced to the tail (fleas) before the dog. there is no fundamental understanding of the difference between line and harmony. i love bach's music, but using it as a teaching tool is insane.
the main reason i write this is that i am very surprised why we are still teaching this way?
i know many great colleagues who grumble, but feel pressure to please their peers and chairs.
i hear students (at csuf and other schools) complain bitterly about how they aren't learning anything practical.
how long are we going to keep beating this dead horse?
counterpoint and ear-training
do matterbut can we refocus the content to teach practical and useful skills for the students we are teaching today, not 50-100 years ago?
also....
fellow west coast blogger devin hurd has a great
post on cornelius cardew's newly remastered cd,
the great learning.*** this "test" is a whole other problem. i get the feeling that all of this is a classic example where the test pushes artifical demand for a whole range of new and improved "educational" methods and materials. i'm not suggesting that i have a "better" method, i just feel that primary source materials by fux, zarlino, rameau, and heinichen(and many others) do a pretty good job laying out the fundamentals. its my job to translate them into useful information for my students.
