Sunday, January 2, 2011

new ideas in a new year

If I were made dictator of the universe for a minute or two I'd like to change some aspects of conservatory training. These would be the additions/changes:

One semester (at least) of music writing and improvising. NOT taught by a "composer", especially not by an academic one. Here the goal is to reveal to musicians that if they can play an instrument they can improvise on that instrument. And also they can write music of very diverse styles for that instrument of any other.

One semester of "pop music" performance. Here we would, for example, play Let It Be. But the pianists would be given the chart on a cocktail napkin and NOT (I repeat NOT) permitted to write out any parts. The performance would have to be convincing, etc. Real world.

Basics of recording, multi-tracking, etc. Are there any musicians, anywhere, who at this point don't need recordings of their playing? Might as well be armed with some knowledge of how it's done...maybe even enough knowledge to do it one's self.

I would certainly toy with the idea of getting rid of music history. Maybe a course that contains the basic bullet points. Maybe in theory situate the concepts historically. There seem to be lots of musicians in the world who function just fine without knowing thing one about clausulae -- just as there are millions of musicians worldwide who know nothing of set theory and would much prefer to stab themselves repeatedly with rusty implements than learn anything about said subject.