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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=728085503-07112007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Isn't it lovely how we can hold contrary opinions and yet
the whole group seems always so pleasant. Interesting, by a strange
series of catastrophes, I ended up in an accredited Master of Music program
after only 1.5 years of musical training. My original intent was in the
mechanical and aviation. I had no particular talent, and when I found
myself up to my neck in things about which I new nothing, I feared every day
that they would discover me and kick me out. I ended up with a 3.5 gpa- so
one cannot say I was an academic failure, but I can say with some authority that
I exactly regurgitated a whole lot of stuff on exams, much of it being way
beyond my comprehension. I can say Jeff is right........ The only
thing that saved me is that instead of the requisite 12 or so recitals required
each semester, I attended 40-50, and I leanred a great deal of music by
osmosis. I will further say, that I felt before taking RPT
exams that one could pass those and know virtually nothing about a piano, and
having passed them with high scores, felt the same way afterwards, and 15 years
in the business has not changed my mind a bit. If I am a musician I
am so because I spent years and years afterwards attending everything I could to
help me along, as I do with PTG conventions, still studying fundamentals to
shore up weak places. I have had a successful career in both church music
and in piano work. Oh, I have a fairly long list of literal monotones, who
I turned into soloists- so one absolutely can take a nobody right off the street
and make said person musical. I've proven it at least half a dozen
times. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=728085503-07112007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Sorry, I have to speak up, because I am one of those "off
the street" people myself. When, a couple years ago i told my (now retired)
major professor my story, he, the quintessential southern aristocratic DMA, and
a brilliant one, said to me, "There is absolutely no way you should ever have
been able to complete that degree course. It seems totally impossible in every
way." I am perhaps one of the exceptions which proves
the rule, but I have indeed done what couldn't be done, and did the same
by completing a two year piano tech program in one year because they were being
closed down, having no more intelligence about the innards of a piano than the
local butcher. Mr. Sturm, check my website, please, and see if it
"stacks up". <A
href="http://www.bartlettpianoservice.com">www.bartlettpianoservice.com</A>
.......... Tuning for a highly
reputed school district, and having teachers with "music degrees" who have
actually told me they can't tell if a piano is in tune or
not---------------- well, certainly that speaks of little talent
with a piece of paper to prove it..........</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=728085503-07112007><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>les bartlett</FONT></SPAN></DIV><BR>
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<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> caut-bounces@ptg.org
[mailto:caut-bounces@ptg.org] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Fred Sturm<BR><B>Sent:</B>
Tuesday, November 06, 2007 9:08 PM<BR><B>To:</B> caut<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re:
[CAUT] CAUT credential vs. academic program?<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV><FONT face=Verdana>On 11/5/07 3:00 PM, "Jeff Tanner"
<jtanner@mozart.sc.edu> wrote:<BR><BR></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT face=Verdana>Someone who holds a music degree has merely
demonstrated that they can absorb material long enough to regurgitate it on an
exam, and that they have shown some degree of incremental improvement in
musical ability over a 2 or 4 year period, that they have attended a certain
number of performances per term and have been present and accounted for in at
least one performing ensemble each term. It has not made them musical if
they were not already. <BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT face=Verdana><BR>Hi
Jeff,<BR> I was planning to sit this discussion out and
let it die a merciful death, but your ever more outrageous and ludicrous claims
have finally got to me. The above statement is mostly pure and simple crap. I’ll
grant the point that a person has to have a degree of innate “talent,” or
however you want to put that, to become a musician. I would describe it as a
combination of a good sense of rhythm and melody, an emotional connection to
musical sounds and phrases, with a necessary admixture of physical dexterity
(ability to learn complex and subtle physical actions of a number of kinds) and
an ability to concentrate and focus. In addition to this “talent” mix, a future
musician needs “desire,” which includes the obsessive wish to be able to make
music, and the persistence and self-discipline to pursue it. “Talent” without
“desire” doesn’t get very far. And there is another equally important element:
training. You cannot become a classical musician (I’ll leave aside other genres,
as most of our institutions concentrate on “classical”) without a very fine
training background. Period.<BR> Now a music department
can’t take just anyone off the street and make that person into a musician. Nor
can a math department do the same and create a mathematician. You have to have
talent, desire, and training even to get in the door. Once you are in the door,
you are subjected to a rigorous four years of very hard and tightly directed
work (speaking only of a bachelors degree). To give a small example, our basic
two year theory program (freshman and sophomore for all music majors) consists
of five days a week for the entire two years. Two days of written theory and
analysis; one day each of sight-singing/solfeggio, ear training/dictation, and
piano skills/harmony. Everyone goes through this. And let me tell you it is not
a walk in the park. You have to work your butt off to get through, and at the
end you have definitely learned a lot.<BR> That is one
small element of our four year program, which includes a fair amount of music
history, additional theory and analysis, performance in both solo and ensemble,
etc. etc. Along the way, the student is repeatedly tested and required to
produce. Juries each semester. Degree recitals. Ensemble performances. Papers.
Quizzes and exams.<BR> As far as I am concerned, a
bachelors degree in music from UNM means a great, great deal more than your
dismissive statement above implies. I’m sure programs vary, but I believe there
is enough similarity to make that statement for any accredited program. Are all
graduates fine musicians? That is arguable, depending on taste and definitions.
But they have done far more than the “merely” you claim.<BR><BR>Regards,<BR>Fred
Sturm<BR>University of New Mexico <BR><BR><BR> </FONT>
<BR>
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