Archive for the 'university' Category

Big Shoes to Phil

Published
by
michael lee
on 15 April 2008
in technology and university
. 26 Comments

As of yesterday, I am the new Phil.

In a tense, embittered, deeply sectarian 30 second meeting with the Dean, I was officially made the Director of Music Technology for the APU School of Music. The position comes with, among other things, new business cards, and the long-sought respect of my peers that I so deeply crave. Well, for sure the business cards, at least.

It’s easy to forget, now, what a visionary Phil was when he started building this program. In the early 1990’s, Phil was insisting that facility with music software was going to be an essential skill for musicians, regardless of their particular emphasis. He fought the uphill battle of getting all of our faculty teaching theory, arranging, and orchestration using notation software, which gave us the ability to hear, analyze, and modify student projects live in class. Because of his efforts, we were one of the first programs in the country to make musical technology a required part of the curriculum for all music majors. He pushed hard to make laptop leases mandatory for the school of music, so that we are still one of the few programs in the country where every music student has an identical setup, and uses music software as an integral part of their
writing and arranging.

Those of us who teach here take all of these things for granted - we just assume that any student who has a question about brass voicings for big band can simply email us the file they are working on, and we can both have copies open to modify and change, that we can be hearing exactly the same thing while we are working. We take for granted that we can ask our jazz piano students to sequence their own rehearsal combo to practice 12 bar blues solos. We assume that our education students can create and print technical exercises to help the community children who are part of the youth music academy that we run. We don’t even pause when suggested that our composition students email a copy of the file they are working on to the string section leader, to get suggestions for bowings - we know they are using the same laptop and software, and will be able to view each other’s work without difficulty.

None of these things happened by accident. They are all the result of Phil’s visionary efforts to make music technology a core part of our curriculum, so that when our students graduate, no matter what their degree or emphasis within music, they find themselves unexpectedly equipped for the present state of the industry. I was the beneficiary of that foresight as a student, and I am the beneficiary of that effort as a faculty member.

Thank you, Phil, for building this program, and for trusting me to carry it forward.

How Michael Got His Groove Back

Published
by
michael lee
on 12 April 2008
in art and culture and university
. 3 Comments

Thank god for the Yellowjackets. I was just barely hanging on until then.

The APU “A” Big Band played a gig last night for a few thousand people in the events center, and the pianist had a conflict, so I sat in. 30 tunes, all sight reading, with everything from thick-fisted George Shearing voicings to awkward non-pianist attempts at writing quartal stacks, with insane rhythmic jumps. A few standards thrown in for taste.

Fun stuff to play, really fun. Not fun stuff to read through with no rehearsals.

I was really anxious leading up to the gig. I don’t do this kind of playing anymore, and haven’t for quite a while. I’m a pop guy, all about tone and time, the small tasty part in the bridge, that kind of thing. It’s been probably 10 years since I’ve had to sight-read big band charts, and that skill fades very quickly with time. I was talking with Doug about it the night before, and he said, “Oh, you’ll do great - it’s just like riding a bicycle.” It’s not. It’s almost exactly the opposite of that.

I wasn’t anxious about the crowd, or about the director, I was anxious because it was a band full of students, and they are all really, really good. Really good. Missing class to sit in on recording sessions good. Monteray Jazz Festival kind of good. On the regular sub list for Les Brown kind of good. Publishing and playing their own charts kind of good. I was anxious because I felt like I needed to prove something.

For musicians, there is a kind of currency, of legitimacy, that comes from what you can do with your instrument. It’s how you prove you belong in the club. More than arranging, composing, pedagogy, conducting, the thing that defines you as a musician is what you do when you pick up your axe. That carries over to how they view those of us in the faculty as well - the profs who can still swing rank higher in the students’ eyes than those who “just teach.” The Dean of the school has huge credibility because “he plays.”

So, I felt like I had to prove that teaching wasn’t an escape from having to play hard, that I could still handle my business, that I belonged in the club. It some way, I felt like I was proving my right to stand up in front of them and talk about wave physics, binary conversion, software and hardware, studio production techniques, ethics, everything that I teach that is tangential to the act of playing. I needed to back up my credibility, so that when I tell them that being a musicians includes all of these things, I am speaking as a musician, and not just as someone who used to play, and now teaches. For them, that means being able to handle unison be-bop runs at 200 BPM with the trombones hitting ostenato stabs.

I did … well, OK. I handled my business pretty well, hit the hits, played some tasty 8 bar solos that arrangers like to drop in as palate cleansers between horn rips. I missed a few difficult reads, at least one of them really exposed.

Then, we pulled up an arrangement of a Bob Mintzer tune, New Rochelle off “Blue Hats” by the Yellowjackets. Medium fusion shuffle, right in my wheelhouse. There was an extended piano solo in the middle of tune. I killed it, absolutely killed it. It felt great, sounded great, and everybody was into it. Started slowly, built the themes, stacked the voicings, went way outside, twisted the subdivisions up, got bigger and bigger until it just exploded into the horn hits, and then it was done. It felt … fantastic.

So, I’m hanging my hat on that moment. My raging insecurities were quelled, at least for now, and I can go back to teaching about MIDI data bytes and how to build a velocity-switching sample instrument. Only now, I get to do it as “a player”.

A Short Survey of Interesting Topics

Published
by
michael lee
on 29 March 2008
in faith and theology, groupthink, philosophy and university
. 35 Comments

I have 7 students in my Music and Ethics class this semester. They’re just about cresting the first difficult climb in writing their thesis papers. They’ve done the bulk of the research, and had to turn in a full footnoted outline of their argument. All that’s left for most of them is to spill the actual ink, and turn it into something readable. And then, of course, the editing.

They’ve picked some pretty interesting topics, so I thought I’d throw them out here for you folks to peruse. These are their thesis statements, roughly, along with some background.

  1. Sacredness is an ascribed quality, not an objective quality, therefore music that is sacred is always sacred to some person, or group of people. It is sacred because it serves the function of producing desired internal states, considered spiritually significant by people who call the music sacred. This means that 1) people outside of that group have no obligation to the “sacredness” of the music, and 2) it is inappropriately limiting to the creative process to force composers to work within a certain genre of music because of its “sacredness”.
  2. The emphasis on competition within High School music programs is detrimental to the education process. A music educator has an obligation to select repertoire for their ensemble based on artistic merit and educational value, and not competitive value.
  3. A film composer’s evaluation of a potential project should be based on the over-arching primary theme of the film, rather than content that serves that theme. She may choose to work on a film with a strong positive primary message, even if the film also contains graphic sexuality and violence. If the strength of the primary theme outweighs the presence of objectionable content, the project as a whole can be considered good, and worthwhile.
  4. There are three categories of repertoire that are frequently controversial in music education: music with sexual themes (sensual and explicit operatic works), music with overt religious themes (everything written between 600 and 1600 C.E. in Western Music), and music by controversial composers (Wagner’s pro-genocide stance, for example). A music educator has an obligation to perform these works, in spite of the controversy. To avoid them both limits that artistic experience of the students, and presents a skewed perspective on the scope and history of musical literature.
  5. A composer’s original intent is the fundamental guiding principle for the interpretation of a work. Contemporary performers and conductors have an obligation not to deviate from the best understanding of the composer’s intent in their interpretation and execution of a work.
  6. A musician has an obligation to only create works that best express their aesthetic judgment. It is a violation of the purpose of music, and the nature of the musician, to make choices based on values of broad appeal or commercial viability. There are strong parallels between a musician using their craft for less-than-art purposes, and prostitution, in that both treat the person as a means to an end, in violation of the second formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative. (This is going to be a helluva paper - this student is incredibly bright, and is making some very, very strong arguments in support of this thesis. Once he’s finished, I’ll give more of my thoughts on this topic).
  7. The lyrical content of music is capable of making moral claims, even in poetic and non-propositional formats. Songwriters have an obligation to produce works whose moral claims contribute to social unity. Songwriters may not plead ignorance in their understanding of these moral claims, and must take responsibility for their social impact as contributing factors to social change. To claim that songs are not sufficient causes for any particular social change is not an argument against their contributory power to those changes. The two primary case studies will be the identification by Klebold and Harris with the music of Marilyn Manson prior to the Columbine High School shootings, and the release of the song F*ck Tha Police by NWA prior to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. (I think this student is going to argue that the moral claims of F*ck Tha Police actually fulfill the obligation toward social unity, by exposing an underlying reality that then prompted broader attention and calls for change.)

It’s fun to sit in conferences with these students and read through their arguments, to see the evidence of their critical thinking. I love the fact that I don’t have to prod any of them to find the value in this process - they all seem to understand that spending time thinking deeply about these themes will be beneficial to their development as musicians, and as people.

To Listen, and Not To Speak

Published
by
michael lee
on 20 March 2008
in emerging church and university
. 25 Comments

This week is Spring Break at APU. I know some of you went to heathen and ungodly places for your education, where Spring Break was nothing more than a week-long episode of “Girls Gone Wild”. At APU, our students spend the week either in prayer and fasting for the peace of the world, in Mexico helping homeless children knit foot warmers for stray dogs, or practicing viola for their Senior Recitals.

A handful of students stick around on campus, usually working to finish up projects or prepare for recitals. It’s another one of those weeks between, those egalitarian times when I’m not “The Professor”, and I can have conversations with students that aren’t transactional. Everyone has a little more time, and breathes a bit easier.

In talking with students, I’m trying to practice the habit of just listening. To listen, and not to speak, until they are done speaking. To allow them room to develop their ideas while I provide simply an attentive silence. To demonstrate restraint when I want to advise, correct, cajole, or critique.

I’ve found myself in a few conversations recently where a student is working through some problem that is miles outside of my experience or knowledge. I think sometimes they believe that I have some secret fountain of wisdom that I can draw on to pour into their lives and situations. The only secret fountain I have access to is the faculty bathroom, and the only wisdom to be found there is on the sign warning you not to poop, because their is no ventilation fan. And, while that is some very valuable wisdom, I just don’t find it widely applicable.

“I got a call to play a 4 month tour, but I’ll have to miss finals and probably come back for another semester to finish school. Should I do it?”

Does the tour bus have poop-ventilating technology?

“My boyfriend is really pressuring me to get cranked on meth with him, and go killing hobos. I really prefer smack. What should I do?”

Well, don’t use the faculty bathroom to get your junk on, because there’s no fan to cover the noise.

So, as you can see, the options for application are rather narrow.

It’s intoxicating to feel like you have this secret well of wisdom to draw on, but I don’t, and so I’m left with two other things of value that I can give them. First, I can share with them my own doubts and fears, when applicable. I get to draw them further in to adulthood, and show them that striving for success in music, and in life, is not a process of silencing doubt and fear, but of overcoming it, of progressing in spite of it. That’s a valuable perspective that I get to share with them.

But, I think the more valuable thing I can give them is a few minutes of attentive silence. Not silence while I wait for them to finish so I can jump in with my own thoughts, not silence while I formulate counterarguments, or plan my day, or fidget anxiously. Simple, attentive, silence. The kind of attentive silence you give to someone when they are communicating important ideas. And, of course, to treat someone’s ideas as important is to treat that person as important.

I know this is a simple idea, and most of you have probably nodded off, or headed off to more interesting blogs. But for me, it is a very difficult thing to remember, and to do. I live in an academic world that has such clearly drawn lines of respect and authority, and the impulse to raise up a student (in their eyes) to “my level” by respecting their ideas, it doesn’t come easily. It takes a measure of humility that I’m still struggling to grow into.

So, in conclusion, shame on you all for clicking on the “Girls Gone Wild” link, and don’t poop in the faculty bathroom.

Special Guest

Published
by
michael lee
on 27 February 2008
in art and culture, audio and university
. 9 Comments

So, guess who is coming to talk to my Production Techniques class about how to write and record a song? Charlie Peacock.

You know, the guy who produced albums for Switchfoot, Isaac Slade (The Fray), Nichole Nordeman, Leigh Nash, Amy Grant, David Crowder Band, Audio Adrenaline, Sara Groves, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Al Green, CeCe Winans, Brent Bourgeois, Twila Paris, Sarah Masen, Susan Ashton, Avalon, Philip Bailey, Margaret Becker, Michael Card, Bob Carlisle, Eric Champion, Steven Curtis Chapman, The Choir, Michael English, Béla Fleck, Steve Green, Cheri Keaggy, Phil Keaggy, Scott Krippayne, Kevin Max, Cindy Morgan, Out of the Grey, Ginny Owens, Chris Rice, the 77s, Sixpence None The Richer, Michael Tait, Steve Taylor, and about 2 dozen more.

I think we might need to erect police barricades to keep kids from stuffing his pocket full of demos.