IES Music Blog

A few disparate readings to sum up in this blog post. Mullin on the subject of IMSLP was well written and thorough, but not timely. The article is from 2010, so many things have changed since then. I was surprised that the author went into such great detail about how to search and find things on the site when feature was being updated even at the time of writing. I was also interested to hear that IMSLP is, at heart, a Wiki. Though it seems some librarians and libraries are adding content, and perhaps the site’s robots, individual users can also contribute. Watt’s presentation about informational literacy is well taken from my perspective. Students, and in fact everyone, need to learn how to be skeptical of things in life. There are more specific issues of primary and secondary sources and scholarly vs popular that should be covered in a more formal setting. However, every person needs to learn how to be skeptical of what they see online, on tv, advertising, etc so that they can t...

It seems that all of these readings, the Early Music movement, and the idea of an Urtext revolve around the thought that music can be distilled to a perfect quintessence. I disagree. And it seems that Slonimsky, Kozinn, and Taruskin disagree too. Slonimsky describes the urtext as “magical” right out of the gates and I think that is an excellent descriptor for the kind of paradox it represents. There is no perfect edition of a score, each one is aiming towards something different, and the performer must do with it what he thinks best. I think Slonimsky also gives a good description of what can go wrong when editors are too literal, or too overzealous. There is a continuum, and you must be aware of where on it you lie. The Early Music article from Oxford I found rather hard to follow given all the names, places, dates listed but it does give a sense of the history to the Early Music Movement. It seems that there has always been a mix of opinions, as I’m sure there are now. Some fo...

In this set of sources I found the “urtext” idea to be most interesting. It seemed to come up in almost all of the readings but the Oxford article didn’t seem to be impressed with the concept of an urtext. At least not in the way that some people in the music community are. The whole concept of an urtext being the “most original” or somehow the “best” in it’s “originalness” is a strange one. We know that composers, especially in the Baroque, reworked music all the time and expected performers to embellish and vary their music. So in that way, an “urtext” is not really relevant. As preferences changed the concept has more merit, but I think is still flawed. No matter how hard we try, and edition issued now will have bias on the part of the editors. That’s just how it is. We’re not the composer and we can’t ask what they meant. Nor can we know if they would actually have preferred an option that didn’t come up, or wasn’t possible in their lifetime. Now all that to say, perhaps I did ...

Plagiarism is something that I feel like I’ve heard about constantly since getting writing assignments in school. I would think probably in sixth grade english class it was discussed for the first time and then every year following after that. Maybe more than once a year. The Sampsel, Sands, and IC test all relate to this sort of academic plagiarism. All three of those make reference to plagiarism as being intentional or unintentional, which I think is an interesting distinction. We may copy something without meaning to, but the results, and punishments can be the same. The example about George Harrison I found was especially interesting. How do we navigate this problem in music? If we hear a melody 100 times as a child, which then finds its way into our writing as an adult, but we don’t recognize it, what sort of punishment does that warrant? On the other hand there are myriad examples of sampling in popular music culture where plagiarism is not only tolerated, but celebrated. Is ...

Going through these readings has reaffirmed, but also clarified, my strategy for approaching articles. Both the Weir text and the Western Libraries video give concise strategies. Read the abstract, introduction, and conclusion first. If it still is relevant proceed with the full text. The Western Libraries video also makes a good point about re-reading the entire thing if it has turned out to be a good source for you. In the past I have done something similar, though not so purposefully. Typically I read some of the introduction and conclusion first before skimming the article. Rarely in the past have I read the abstract, so having been through these materials, as well as some of our previous readings about preparing annotations, I will be sure to pay attention to them. It will also be helpful I think, in knowing when to stop. I imagine that for a great many articles I will not get to the “re-read” step, I won’t be including them in my bibliography anyway. A Weir quote that really ...

The first two readings giving us context for “The Elements of Style” certainly make it sound like a profound, almost sacred text. I would never have thought a book on such a seemingly dry topic – concise and error free prose – would arouse such strong emotion. However, after reading the foreword and introduction, I must confess that my curiosity is piqued and I would like to delve a little deeper into “The Elements of Style.” In my schooling thus far I have not had much direct instruction that I can recall on the nitty-gritty how of writing well. For my bachelors degree certain courses were designated as “writing intensive” but this merely meant we were expected to write a great deal. There was no expectation for writing lessons. To this point I have certainly learned from my mistakes, but more than that, I think the majority of my writing knowledge stems from my reading. Unconsciously I am stealing from other authors. I imagine that this is typical. The sentences, phrases, words, ...

There are two areas that I am thinking about engaging for the purposes of this project. Within those two areas the first option has two sub-ideas that I am playing with. Idea 1A: Modern Band Programs. By modern band program I mean a class, or set of classes, that allows students to study guitar/bass/drums/keyboards, ukulele, computer music, music recording, songwriting, popular music genres or some combination of these subjects. My current position does not include any of these specific duties but I have always been passionate about popular music and would like to familiarize myself with this landscape. I taught myself to play guitar, bass, drums, ukulele, banjo, and some piano on my own while playing in various rock bands but never had an opportunity to study this at school, or participate in a meaningful way using what I had learned on my own. I am interested in sharing this musical tradition with students, but in a setting that would hopefully be more authentic than concert band, o...