> Hmm...so are you perhaps implying that my colleagues in the Performing Arts
> Department should stop giving courses in Music Theory, because all of that
> old chord progression and chord structure stuff that's been with us for
> centuries is going to go away now that anyone can put together something in
> GarageBand? Are you suggesting that books that help teach piano and guitar
> are out of date because the kids will either figure it out anyway or move
> on to the new digital instruments and make their own music?
>
to which he replied:
> I don't know the answer.....I just don't think that we should not ask the
> questions even if we do not like the answers?
But in the case of music, you're asking a question that no one really seems
to care about. People all over the world still see value in taking music
lessons, learning how to read music, and learning music theory. Just because
GarageBand makes it easy for a kid to make something from someone else's
tracks (but from what little annoying experience I've had with it,
incredibly hard to do the "normal" way) doesn't mean that music as we've
known it for the past 1000 or so years since Guido D'Arezzo is going to bite
the dust in 20 years.
Indeed, with music, as with everything else, change has been incremental and
additive as style met style, culture met culture, and needs changed. Some
African-Americans might claim that the Anglos stole the blues, jazz, and
rock & roll from us, but I maintain that we *borrowed* the chord
progressions used to create those forms from them. And let us make no
mistake here, to this day, popular music is based on some of the same chord
progressions that Bach used 300 years ago. Rock did not replace jazz. Jazz
did not replace classical. Country and bluegrass still exist as viable forms
of their own, and will for a long time. Indeed, they all not only remain
viable forms of their own, but continue to draw from each other and from our
old friend Guido. For the most part even the kids who play with GarageBand
are emulating Guido in one way or another.
But going back to the basics, you still need to know basic music theory
before you can start to do anything in Deluxe Music Construction Set (anyone
remember that program?). And once you've learned your way around DMCS,
moving on to Cakewalk, GenieSoft Composer, or Finale is that much easier.
I often think that geek-technologists are pushing people into high-speed
technological dead ends just because the ability to go there exists. We're
only looking at our little neighborhood on the map, and not the rest of the
county, country, or world.
Verily, I say again, change is incremental. Someone once said that compared
to 1969 the year 2000 looked a lot more like that of "The Brady Bunch" than
of "The Jetsons." Everything I see in my house right now and use in my
everyday life is but a variation or improvement on the same things that were
in my house as a kid 40 years ago.
Change is incremental.
--
keg
========================================
Keith E Gatling
mailto:keith@gatling.us
http://www.gatling.us/keith
The fact that I'm open-minded doesn't mean that I have to agree with you.
========================================
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