Harvard drops Music Theory requirement

**rintincop** · 05-06-2017, 04:58 PM

How about ADDING what's missing to their courses instead of assuming diverse classrooms can't achieve the basics?

Music Theory is a marvelous tool to enable understanding:

**docbop** · 05-06-2017, 05:37 PM

Need to look at the results for types of universities. I've very familiar with this from the CompSci and Computer Engineering POV some the music POV.

Look at how well prepared graduates are for the workplace after graduation. Most have tons of theoretical knowledge and can solve complex problems on paper. They get on the job and discover most of what they learned doesn't work the same way in the real world and now they have to learn how the real world works. Then you get the grads that went to schools like MIT, CalTech, and other tech focused school and they get hired get a job and hit the ground running. Different in those tech schools they did a lot of hands on application of the theory they were studying and discovering how it works in real world.

Music you have the same situation of traditional university with highly codified curriculum, even for performance majors from what I understand. Then you have the Berklee's and MI type schools more hands on, real world playing situations and many of the instructors are working professionals. I say you see similar results with the graduates whether they can hit the ground running or not upon graduation. Remember the old saying "if you graduated Berklee you weren't that good", most who became name Jazz musicians only stayed at Berklee two-years and left because they were getting good job offer already.

So is all this highly codified curriculum producing musicians, arrangers, composers, that can hit the ground running. Harvard opening things up so student can mold and I would imagine add more practical aspect to their education going to produce more productive grad's.

I know Harvard has been experimenting a lot with how they teach CompSci and opening things up more and from what I have heard it's having positive results.

**snailspace** · 05-07-2017, 01:23 AM

Probably planning to convert the music theory classrooms into "safe spaces" for students who can't handle opinions contrary to their own.

Oh, Harvard -- how the mighty have fallen. Once, not long ago, you used to be a real university.

**ragman1** · 05-07-2017, 03:26 AM

My feeling is they're doing the right thing. They're recognising that people have diverse skills and talents, like discovering a kid whose spelling and grammar's not very good but who writes with immense power and creativity. The meaning of education is to draw out, not stifle with insistence on rigid traditional methods.

That said, it's quite a difficult problem because all the various capacities in some form are necessary for excellence.

TH · 05-07-2017, 06:14 AM

Originally Posted by snailspace

Probably planning to convert the music theory classrooms into "safe spaces" for students who can't handle opinions contrary to their own.

Oh, Harvard -- how the mighty have fallen. Once, not long ago, you used to be a real university.

When they remove the mandate for theory requirement it doesn't mean they're getting rid of theory classes, it just means you take what theory you need when and where you need it to serve a better understanding.

I should hope it's the school's entire purpose to create a "safe space" for a student's growing creative mind, and give them the resources to combine their own initiative and desire to learn and find out what it is to be an adult about it.

People learn by great example and people believe through great respect and responsibility. It doesn't come from merely being required to recite some pledge of allegiance to a set of rules.

Harvard has hardly fallen. Their halls have turned out the minds that have and continue to shape the world. I anything has fallen, it's the administrative powers that see critical thought and substance as a threat to power.
But that's one opinion
David

**MarkRhodes** · 05-07-2017, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by ragman1

My feeling is they're doing the right thing. They're recognizing that people have diverse skills and talents, like discovering a kid whose spelling and grammar's not very good but who writes with immense power and creativity. The meaning of education is to draw out, not stifle with insistence on rigid traditional methods.

The Latin behind the English word "education" is two-fold: educare AND educere. One means to lead out; the other means to train or mold. People often use the same word ("education" ) while meaning only one of those things. Some preserve both meanings, depending on the subject. Arithmetic and poetry are not taught the same way.

Playing a musical instrument well involves training; composing good music may entail some "leading out."

Paradoxically, creative writing seems harmed by the "leading out" process. Flannery O'Connor said, "Everywhere I go I am asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."

**Stevebol** · 05-07-2017, 11:36 AM

Originally Posted by TruthHertz

One of the first things you do when one culture occupies another people's land and cultural identity is require a new set of rules for language. (The English and Gaelic) and one of the purposes of theory requirement is to superimpose a set of ordering that EVERYONE must be indoctrinated into. While that defines institutional learning, it also represents a stasis in an evolving theoretical basis.

When the theory requirements in many schools were established, they were current. Requirements were the state of the art -to one particular dialect. But theory is being seen now as only ONE way to order the musical language. There is a search for a larger definition of theory that is as loose, yet as dynamic and rigorous as the world the students will graduate into.

At the time Eric Dolphy was alive, he was shunned for not obeying rules of the day. He had to go to Europe to survive. Music schools would have failed him. And they would have failed those who "got" him and practiced thinking that way. Yet as his music became more undeniable, what he was doing crept into curriculae. Now they teach that.

It's a problematic one. Institutions are notoriously conservative and extremely slow moving. The world of music that influences the actual music is much faster and more dynamic. So some kid hears the cats like Binney or Monder and thinks "What ARE they doing? I love it!" and they go to school to learn. How do they learn when the theory they teach and the teachers who teach it don't even know of those philosophies between heaven and earth?

Who at Berklee teaches Eliot Carter? Xenakis? How is indoctrination into a one sided required curriculum keeping the next direction in music from happening?
An interesting question.

David

This seems to apply to only classical music majors at Harvard. They're consolidating two theory courses into one and two history courses into one. They're reasoning is that so many people are already prepared through pre-education.
It frees up time for majors to take something else.
There may be a trickle down effect to other music institutions and programs because, Harvard, but people will still go to college to learn to make tenny-bopper music.

I'm not hating. it's a fun song but it's still bubble-gum music.

**destinytot** · 05-07-2017, 11:40 AM

From the article:

"Do these changes make the concentration more accessible for someone who wanted to pursue music at Harvard from a non-Western classical standpoint? Will it be possible to be a Harvard music major who is a singer-songwriter or a hip-hop beat maker?
SHREFFLER: Absolutely, yes. A lot of the social media discussion unfortunately devolved around the concept of standards, which is a very amorphous and ideology-laden concept. I like to think of it in terms of access. In the past, we have essentially relied on an enormous amount – up to 10 years worth – of pre-education before they came to Harvard. We relied on students showing up on our doorstep having had piano lessons since the age of six, perhaps visiting one of the excellent precollege divisions in big cities around the country, and perhaps having theory courses there in addition to their instrumental training, orchestra training, chamber music training. And, in fact, we got such students. And we still have such students: Harvard has many such students. And they are welcome in our department, and they come and take our courses, and they can play in our orchestras, etc.

But there are many other students who did not have that kind of childhood. And our old curriculum was saying to those students, “You cannot major in music because your parents did not give you 12 years of this kind of education that we implicitly require.” Although it says nowhere on our website that that is required, that’s essentially what we’re requiring. We’ve gotten rid of this whole notion of this implicit – and it is, ultimately, a class-based implicit requirement. And students come with a variety of backgrounds and musical interests. For example, a highly skilled singer-songwriter can become a music concentrator."

'Access' for those 'many other students who did not have that kind of childhood' sounds like platitude to me. Surely there are other choices for those students than 'Brand Harvard'?

(Imagining a re-working of 'Hip to be Square'.

)

**destinytot** · 05-07-2017, 12:08 PM

Originally Posted by MarkRhodes

I found this remark from a Harvard music professor telling.
" It’s an organic move for the times, from both where the field is going generally, but also where we are as faculty. It was really about brainstorming ways to reflect ourselves in the curriculum."

Fingers down throat (lucky I play without nails).

**MarkRhodes** · 05-07-2017, 01:37 PM

Originally Posted by destinytot

Fingers down throat (lucky I play without nails).

That was my response too.

**destinytot** · 05-07-2017, 02:08 PM

T

Originally Posted by destinytot

(Imagining a re-working of 'Hip to be Square'.

)

Then again, there's that scene in the movie of American Psycho...

**ragman1** · 05-07-2017, 06:44 PM

Originally Posted by MarkRhodes

The Latin behind the English word "education" is two-fold: educare AND educere. One means to lead out; the other means to train or mold. People often use the same word ("education" ) while meaning only one of those things. Some preserve both meanings, depending on the subject. Arithmetic and poetry are not taught the same way.

You're right. I'd always heard that it meant to draw out but there's apparently no authority for that. It seems to come from educere, as you say, which means moulding and training.

In which case I'm highly suspicious of it. I don't like the idea of human beings being moulded. Perhaps the more 'educated' we are the more unnatural we become.

Playing a musical instrument well involves training; composing good music may entail some "leading out."

I'd agree with that. On the other hand, music is a skill, an art, which does require a certain training, as does any skill. It's necessary to train the hand and mind whether it's music, carpentry, surgery, sport, or anything else. If one wants to be any good, that is.

Paradoxically, creative writing seems harmed by the "leading out" process. Flannery O'Connor said, "Everywhere I go I am asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher".

Well, there may be some confusing of drawing out and letting it all hang out :-)

**cosmic gumbo** · 05-08-2017, 12:04 AM

I think that what Harvard is really saying is that they are such a stupidly expensive school, and music is such an unpractical major, that come on down folks, you'll get more fun/enjoyable courses to take than theory if we eliminate it's requirement. aka more fun for your dollar, and still get that Harvard degree.

It's not like studying medicine.

**docbop** · 05-08-2017, 02:50 AM

Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo

I think that what Harvard is really saying is that they are such a stupidly expensive school, and music is such an unpractical major, that come on down folks, you'll get more fun/enjoyable courses to take than theory if we eliminate it's requirement. aka more fun for your dollar, and still get that Harvard degree.

It's not like studying medicine.

Especially with Berklee and New England Conservatory of Music across town.

Also after living in Boston you go hang out in bars in Cambridge and hear the Harvard students talk, what a bunch of a-holes especially ones from Harvard Law and Business schools. More fun going to MIT and hanging with the nerds. You can throw a rock any direction and you bound to hit a Berklee student or grad the first thing they'll say "hey you want to take lessons, I teach?".

**MarkRhodes** · 05-08-2017, 09:45 AM

Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo

I think that what Harvard is really saying is that they are such a stupidly expensive school, and music is such an unpractical major, that come on down folks, you'll get more fun/enjoyable courses to take than theory if we eliminate it's requirement. aka more fun for your dollar, and still get that Harvard degree.

It's not like studying medicine.

I hesitated to say this but I think there's a lot to it. If one studies medicine or law or engineering, one (usually) wants to work in those fields OUTSIDE of academia. The only gig you can get with most university degrees is one INSIDE academia. (And there are not as many of those gigs available as there are students coming out of grad schools.) I don't think any job other than teaching music requires a degree in music, and teaching music at the university level requires advanced degrees in music. And you probably won't be teaching at Harvard, even if you went there, so you'll be teaching the curriculum assigned you by the university that hires you.

There is value in studying things even if they don't lead to a good job, but taking on massive debt to get a degree in something that has little of chance of landing one any sort of job will make it harder to pay off that massive debt. Plus there is the time lost that might have been spent studying something else.

TH · 05-08-2017, 11:07 AM

Originally Posted by docbop

Especially with Berklee and New England Conservatory of Music across town.

Also after living in Boston you go hang out in bars in Cambridge and hear the Harvard students talk, what a bunch of a-holes especially ones from Harvard Law and Business schools.

AMEN!

Originally Posted by docbop

More fun going to MIT and hanging with the nerds. You can throw a rock any direction and you bound to hit a Berklee student or grad the first thing they'll say "hey you want to take lessons, I teach?".

The MIT music department has some SERIOUS talent. John Harbison teaches there. The students who study and learn there are some of the most remarkable musicians I've met. I judged a musical competition there recently and I heard more original heartfelt honest and joyous music than I'd heard from the Berklee end of Mass Ave in a long time. I could hear something individual in each competitor and not the sound of "Am I going to lose points in the eyes of my teachers for using this note...?" that infuses the Berklee sound.
Something about putting music in the perspective of the study of time, space and the universe... you have to figure out what's important and then be ready to defend your conviction.

David

**ragman1** · 05-08-2017, 11:41 AM

The other point about education meaning to 'draw out' or 'put in', although both those have their place, is that I'd think education is much more about enlightenment.

I'm not using the word in the Eastern sense but simply that education should enlighten us about things. To enlighten the pupil about prejudice or bigotry, say, or the dangers of nationalistic zeal, is far more important than exam passing. And I'm quite sure that without such enlightenment one is not really educated at all, however much knowledge or skill one has accumulated.

**docbop** · 05-08-2017, 12:03 PM

Originally Posted by ragman1

The other point about education meaning to 'draw out' or 'put in', although both those have their place, is that I'd think education is much more about enlightenment.

I'm not using the word in the Eastern sense but simply that education should enlighten us about things. To enlighten the pupil about prejudice or bigotry, say, or the dangers of nationalistic zeal, is far more important than exam passing. And I'm quite sure that without such enlightenment one is not really educated at all, however much knowledge or skill one has accumulated.

I've got on my soapbox about music schools in past and not going to write it up again. Briefly music school isn't about the school or it's curriculum. Music school create an environment where a student can live music 24/7, have access good/great teachers and guest seminars to talk to and play with, opportunities to play and a resources like a music library. The real teaching isn't in the classroom that won't get you too far. It all the student searching out answers in teacher office hours, hangs with others, and playing.

If you go to any music school and do all the required course work and graduate you'll only come out a little better than you went in. Those that come out vastly improved are the ones that seek out answers beyond the course work and take advantage of being able to live and breath music for their time in school.

You can do it too without the school by moving to a music city like NYC, getting a good teacher, and start playing and hanging with like minded others. That's an another way to accomplish the same thing, but requires a lot of self-discipline.

**ragman1** · 05-08-2017, 01:52 PM

Originally Posted by docbop

Those that come out vastly improved are the ones that seek out answers beyond the course work

Quite so. Some of them, of course, may do that naturally but it should also be encouraged amongst those less inclined.

But, more importantly, such an attitude should really begin young with all education, not just when we reach a higher level. I would say that was education, otherwise schools just become knowledge machines.

**docbop** · 05-08-2017, 03:30 PM

Originally Posted by ragman1

Quite so. Some of them, of course, may do that naturally but it should also be encouraged amongst those less inclined.

But, more importantly, such an attitude should really begin young with all education, not just when we reach a higher level. I would say that was education, otherwise schools just become knowledge machines.

Problem I see with students and schools today is students only want answers and teacher teaching answers so test scores are up. Neither are learning why something is the answer, their not working the process of finding the answer that teach more than just the answer. To me that's part of the dark side of the internet and smart devices, people think they are smart because they have answers to anything in their pocket. The smart people are the few that did the research and wrote the answer everyone else is parroting.