William J. Mitchell
Contemporary Music Project for Creativity in Music Education: A Report on the CMP Workshop at Eastman June 10-20, 1969
Below, the reader will find information concerning the most recent developments in the Contemporary Music Project. The College Music Society has been vitally interested in this project since its inception. A detailed description of the Project's Institutes for Music in Contemporary Education was given in volume seven (1967) of SYMPOSIUM. Last year a CMP Progress Report appeared in this journal. Now, SYMPOSIUM is pleased to report in some detail on the recent Workshop which was held at the Eastman School.
The editor of SYMPOSIUM, the faculty of the CMP Workshop at Eastman, and the members of the CMP Policy Committee solicit your comments concerning the Contemporary Music Project for Creativity in Music Education.
THE BACKGROUND
The recent C M P Workshop at Eastman1 grew out of an accumulation of ten years of chastening experience with musical life in many Public Schools and Colleges. Because of this it should prove helpful for the purposes of presenting a Workshop Report2 to summarize the careers of Y C P (the Young Composers Project) and C M P (the Contemporary Music Project).
Y C P was established in 1959 through a $200,000 grant from the Ford Foundation. It was administered jointly by the Foundation and the National Music Council through a committee of selection under the chairmanship of Norman Dello Joio, the originator of a brave and groundbreaking project designed "to place composers (in general, no more than three years beyond their training period) in secondary public school systems throughout the United States," over a period of three years. The novelty of the idea lay in putting young composers to work, not in carrying out a commission, but in writing for specific performing groups in a specific locale. It was hoped, and the hope was largely fulfilled, that the many splendid performing ensembles in secondary schools would be provided by this means with a repertoire worthy of their talents.
On the temporal and financial expiration of the project, its continuation was assured by another grant from the Ford Foundation in the amount of $1,380,000 to the Music Educators National Conference. The two bodies formed a joint committee again under the chairmanship of Norman Dello Joio. The aims of the project, renamed the C M P (the Contemporary Music Project), were now expanded to combine: 1. The selecting of young composers to write music for various available ensembles in public secondary school systems to which they would be assigned as residents; 2. The conducting of many varied activities designed to increase the understanding of contemporary music and to reinforce its role in public education.
The first aim was clearly a continuation of Y C P, but with different initials, C P S (Composers in Public Schools). The second aim, however, was new and, for our present purposes, of critical importance. It was concerned with proselytizing by teaching and talking about contemporary music. The prime mover in defining this aim was a recognition that with very few exceptions public schools and their communities were not ready to cope with representative styles of contemporary music.
Although Y C P / C P S and educational proselytizing enjoyed at least reasonable success, it soon became apparent that it was not solely contemporary music that was far too often baffling to performers and audiences; it was in fact all music, aside from a standardized, conveniently packaged pablum. The questions that arose in the directorate of C M P turned to the teaching of music in the public schools and the collegiate preparation of those engaged in it. More and more the emphasis fell on the latter point, the preparation of teachers. Was it adequate to the task of teaching on all levels? Did it encourage the development of mature views, of unfettered exploration of the literature of musicall music, of independent judgments about music, of a requisite spirit of adventure, inventiveness, of "creativity and innovation"? The answers were clearly negative, and the need to do something about a general condition of institutionally fostered encasement became apparent.
It was with these disturbing thoughts in mind that a C M P Seminar was sponsored at Northwestern University in April, 1965. Its purpose: ". . . to examine the content and orientation of those required college music courses which are designed to develop general musical knowledge as a basis for later specialized studies." The distinguished participants, drawn from many special fields and representing experience on many levels of teaching, did much more than "examine the content . . ."; they made many strong assertions about the aims and content of the collegiate curriculum of music.3
Various committees made recommendations in the areas of: Compositional Processes and Writing Skills; Musical Analysis and Aural Skills; History and Literature and Performance Skills. Underlying all committee reports and repeatedly expressed in five Position Papers prepared in advance of the Seminar, was the conviction that compartmentalized instruction in various disciplines was not an effective way to prepare musicians for their various callings. Instead, it was stressed that preparation should bring together in a new alignment all of the hitherto separate courses and discourses on history, theory, composition, and performance. However viable specialization might become on the upper levels of instruction, it was clear that constant interrelation or cross reference of all subject matters must be the keynote of early collegiate teaching. Envisioned was a constant dialogue among historians, theorists, composers, and performers, the common aim being the development of a musiciana Comprehensive Musician, regardless of his ultimate specialized career.
A direct consequence of the Northwestern Seminar was the setting up in 1966 of five areas, later expanded to six, spread across the country, in which direct implementation might be given to the educational philosophy of Comprehensive Musicianship. Each of the six had a headquarters and a regional director, but each also served a group of schools, colleges, and universities within the specified region. The total of the participating institutions was 36. The project bore the title I M C E (Institutes for Music in Contemporary Education).4 In harmony with the recommendations of the Northwestern Seminar, the common aim was to explore with students ways in which the various skills and subjects of musical instruction might be blended within a single class in order to aid the development of representative contemporary musicians. Teaching procedures were basically open-ended in nature, probing and experimental, often tentative in their conclusions, sometimes wrong, but always bent on discovery, always intent on producing self-reliant, released musicians capable of forming independent critical judgments about all music. To put it in another waystodginess, complacency and didactic methods were no part of the educational philosophy of the I M C Ebut discipline was, as it always has been a vital part of C M P.
It was understood from the start that just as the general educational climate varies from one part of the country to another, so the precise manner of encouraging the development of the comprehensive musician must vary. This acknowledged condition of variation was one of the strongest reasons for avoiding any tightly defined nationally applicable set of teaching procedures. Equally strong, however, was the decision to avoid the creation of a set of teaching stereotypes which, in the end, could only be as unsatisfactory as the dulling stereotypes that brought on the plaguing troubles.
In 1966 application was made to the Ford Foundation for a supplementary grant of $250,000 for additional support of C M P projects, now grown to three. They were: 1. The I M C E Program; 2. The C P S Program; 3. The issuing of periodic reports. The funds were granted.
Most of the supplementary grant was for further support of I M C E activities, a feature of which was the holding of a national meeting designed to review and assess the work, already done, of the regional Institutes. Called the Airlie House Symposium and held in Warrenton, Virginia, May, 1967, its purpose was to determine "to what extent relatively objective criteria and procedures could be agreed upon for evaluation of all I M C E programs." Close to forty participants were in attendance, representing regional directors and instructors in I M C E programs, members of the C M P policy committee, administrators, and specialists in the fields of education, testing, and curriculum design.
Out of prolonged often involved and heated discussions, came a keener sense of the magnitude and import of the work of I M C E, as well as a document, "Procedures for Evaluation of I M C E."5 It contains information about the aims and the nature of assessment procedures in four related areas: Descriptive competence, Performing competence, Creative competence, and Attitude. The last proved to be the most difficult to describe, let alone assess. Nevertheless it resulted in a questionnaire called "Self-evaluation by I M C E Students."
The Procedures for Evaluation also gave a clear and summary statement of the theory of Comprehensive Musicianship, dividing it into four elements. The first two describe the working method: 1. Each component of basic music studies should be directly related to all others; 2. Individual courses should draw materials and techniques equally from all eras. The third affirms the ultimate applicability of the theory and practice of comprehensive musicianship to all levels of education in music and to all types of participating students, regardless of their designs on a professional calling in music. The fourth gives a succinct statement to the basic educational objective of Comprehensive Musicianship: To encourage the student to develop self-direction, exercise his imagination, and sharpen his critical judgment in a broad perspective of music.
Except for this year's and future activities, to be discussed presently, our sketchy narrative has been brought up to date. It is a striking story of initiative, growth, and continuing maturation, essentially pragmatic in nature. Y C P and C P S were initially composer-oriented activities. But it was soon recognized that, as valuable as the idea of a working young composer in residence was, something radical and stimulating had to be done to awaken students, performers, and audiences to the vitality of contemporary music. Such was the additional task assumed by C M P. This brave step, however, led to an acknowledgment, 1. that contemporary music alone can not be coddled, that there exists in wide areas of the nation, a remarkable lack of familiarity with all music; 2. that there is a need to learn more about the collegiate preparation of teachers of music. Out of this study came the recommendations of the Northwestern Seminar toward breaking through compartmentalized instruction to attain a composite known as Comprehensive Musicianship, and the establishment of six experimental Institutes for Music in Contemporary Education. After a year of operation it became apparent that the time had come to assess the work of I M C E and further to probe into the attitudes toward music of students both within and without the Institutes. It was the Airlie House Symposium that was concerned with such matters.
Each step taken through these ten years of activity has been organically related to the preceding step. It would be rash to assert that all steps, or any step by itself has been a spectacular success, but it would be equally uninformed to assert that they, together or individually, have been dismal failures. The growth of interest from its start in the young composer and twentieth century music to the education of all teaching musicians in all music has been an experimental one. None of the steps has ceased to operate without giving way to broader, more clearly defined continuations and expansions, based always on knowledge gained in the field. The remarkable growth and spread of interest in the operation of the various projects suggests that C M P, which in 1963 stood for the Contemporary Music Project, might stand today with justice for the Comprehensive Musicianship Project, in view of its embracing spread of activities.
C M P, regardless of the construction placed on the initials, has not been the sole pioneer in furthering the cause of a more liberal contemporary education in music. In fact, in its background is the common memory of the great teacher, regardless of his special field, music or other subjects, who has achieved greatness at least in part because of the comprehensiveness and contemporaneity of his teaching. Also, within C M P there have been launched twenty-one short term projects. Instituted for a variety of purposesto concentrate on a particular competence, to enlarge the understanding of selected topics, to clarify issues that arose in other C M P activities, to expand to the secondary schools the doctrine of Comprehensive Musicianshipthey have contributed much variety and enrichment to the central activities of C M P.
THE PRESENT
The latest grant, which brings us to the threshold of the Workshop at Eastman, is to extend C M P to 1973, in the amount of $1,340,000, again from the Ford Foundation with a supporting contribution of $50,000 a year for two years from the Music Educators National Conference. As in the past, since 1959, Norman Dello Joio is the guiding spirit of an administrative committee representing both of the donors and a Policy Committee formed of a selected group of musicians, eighteen in number, drawn from many areas of musical activities.
The funds already operative have been designed to continue and expand established activities of C M P. Notably, they are: Program I, consisting of grants to cover two or more years for Professionals-in-Residence. These will be composers, performers, and scholars who will hold themselves available to serve all cultural, artistic, and educational institutions within a selected community; Program II, consisting of grants to individual teachers to carry out experimental work or to develop materials that will serve, constructively in the C M P manner, the music curriculum on all levels.
Short term Workshops, Pilot Projects, and Symposiums are also included in the continuing activities of C M P. The first of these, A Workshop in the Teaching of Comprehensive Musicianship at the College Level, has just been concluded.
THE WORKSHOP
The Eastman Workshop was designed for those engaged in teaching first and second year college courses in basic musicianship, but other college teachers of music were invited to attend, and did. The objectives were: To review and summarize the pedagogy of Comprehensive Musicianship as it has evolved from the activities of the Contemporary Music Project and its Institutes for Music in contemporary Education; To explore a variety of techniques and attitudes toward music which can be useful for a more effective teaching of musicianship. From the very earliest planning stages, however, it was understood that this was to be a first hand working demonstration of the stated objectives, sans carefully worked out "pat" lectures, but stressing exploration, discussion, disagreement, and in fact, dispute. The faculty was not disappointed.
The participants, 218 all told, were the remainder of roughly 500 applicants for a planned maximum enrollment of 260. Although admission was granted primarily on the basis of the order in which applications were received, a most satisfactory variety of callings and a national geographic spread were achieved. Preregistration fears of lopsided representation were dispelled as a reasonably balanced orchestra, wind ensemble, choral group, and a variety of soloists appeared through an apparently casual manner of registration. Similarly, the 218 participants included a wide variety of educational categories: there were degree candidates, instructors, tenured faculty, chairmen, and other administrators. Further, institutions that were represented ranged from the university to the secondary school with the preponderant representation from undergraduate colleges and schools of music. To complete this recital of raw statistics, not without significance, the geographic spread was impressive: 41 States were represented with the largest enrollment coming from the most populous, as might have been expected, but with nationwide locations, as could only have been hoped for: New York had 24 participants and California 18, while Pennsylvania, Texas, and Florida had 14, 13, and 12 respectively.
These are not meaningless facts. For the administrators of C M P and the Workshop they testified to a widespread interest in the work of I M C E. They also underscored an awakening of concern on the part of the college teacher in breaking through established educational stereotypes. As noted earlier, no plea was advanced for pious acceptance by the participants of anything suggestive of an I M C E dogma, but there was a continuous and active stress placed by them and the faculty on the critical need to find surcease from musical encasement, and from teaching procedures, methods, textbooks and the like that produce only boredom and bedridden attitudes toward an art that remains lively, youthful, restless, elusive, eternally challenging, and eternally changing.
The faculty of the Eastman Workshop, listed at the end of this report, consisted of case-hardened veterans of various regional I M C E, along with members of the C M P Policy Committee, and conductor-performers with a large measure of experience in the directing of professional as well as institutionally oriented amateur ensembles. Although each faculty member was a comprehensive musician in his own right and by his own working definition, it is safe to assert that no two were cast from the same mold. Nevertheless, all were united in affirming the underlying premise of Comprehensive Musicianshipthat all hitherto separate disciplines must be combined to produce excellence in any single area. Hence, although the Workshop was divided into three main parts, performance, composition or writing skills, and analysis, there was constant overlapconductors analyzed, composers introduced historical data, analysts performed, each with a view to enlarging by cross reference the scope and cogency of the individual subject areas.
As suggested above, participants were engaged in three stated meetings daily, each with a different central emphasis, but all bent on pursuing the same objective of total enmeshment. Each session lasted an hour and a half, and except for the performance ensembles, each was offered in sections, no one of which had more than 16 to 20 "students" in it. Additionally, evening sessions were given over to a consideration of matters relating to curriculum development and local implementation. Finally, except for several unscheduled and impromptu conferences, three lectures on special topics were held. There were very few idle moments.
It is not easy to plan and execute a Workshop which is based, not on a tightly defined methodology and its neatly categorized implementation, but on the fostering of enthusiastic curiosity, experimental probing, constant assessment, and a reliance on inner musical experience rather than an external, imposed system. Clearly there must be a free-wheeling quality to such an enterprise. And there was. Aside from matters of registration procedures, class schedules and the like, there were only two pre-planned elements: 1. The central topic, rhythm; 2. A list of works to be examined and performed, representative of a variety of styles, eras, and media. The gamut of styles ran from the Renaissance to 1966, covering choral, operatic, keyboard, and instrumental ensemble music, and including music by Josquin, J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Ives, Stravinsky, Copland, Webern, Hindemith, and Penderecki. No instructor was obligated to discuss every piece; in fact, he was encouraged to introduce his own supplementary material. This was not intended to be a Great Works course, although greatness was not a basis for the exclusion of a work. Rather, the compositions were selected because of the desiderata mentioned above, and, most important, because they represented many kinds of creative commitment; in brief, because each piece was a piece of music, good, bad, or indifferent.
It was the analysts' main function to describe the musical content of these works, using rhythmic features as a point of departure. The composing wing set various music-writing tasks for the participants with referral as needed to the appointed list or other pieces. The conductors performed works from the list and several others to be noted later. Each participant received in his portfolio scores of the appointed list, (hereinafter to be called the portfolio list) sometimes in more than one edition.
Perhaps a more intimate knowledge of the sessions can be gained by fashioning an account of them out of the instructors' daily reports and conversations with the participants.
As noted earlier, the central topic was rhythm as a coordinating and organizing factor of musical construction, and as a correlative of all components of composition or, perhaps better, a composition. The three divisions of the Workshop were established on the basis of the kind of emphasis given to the central topic and its branches. In the sections titled Writing Skills, it was "learning by creating," in Performance Skills, it was "learning by playing," and in Analysis, it was "learning by observing." There was a constant overlapping of these emphases.
In the Writing Skills sessions, participants were put through their paces by a series of assignments designed to challenge their abilities to construct various rhythmic relationships starting with unpitched, monophonic tappings derived from prose and verse, rhymed and unrhymed. A typical first assignment: What are the temporal qualities of "Beg your pardon, I interrupted you?"
From this beginning, discussions and exercises led to rhythm and pitch, rhythm and pulse, tempo, meter, cadencing, harmonic rhythm, notation. Assignments in these areas took the form of: Write three and four phrase periods in two-part rhythmic counterpoint. After submission and class criticism of this assignment, the next step was: rewrite the pieces using two pitches for the upper part, three for the lower. Another: write a piece of eleven bars for solo wind instrument, establishing one meter and then changing it and establishing a new one. Use only the following pitch classes:
, C, D, F, and G. Try to establish a definite tonic feeling on one of the pitch classes other than
These assignments, selected by your reporter at random, were not designed to show how free one might be. Quite to the contrary, they aimed to show how a sense of disciplined procedure, tight organization, cognizable design can be achieved without subservient reference to textbook strictures concerning the employment of the major-minor tonal system. Tertian chordal functions were not excluded; they simply took their place as a subcategory of employable sound relationships within the frame of various rhythmic constructs.
An exciting part of the sessions was the performance and evaluation of assignments. Class participation was lively and the individual defenses at times approached stridency and vehemence. The instructor's role was more often that of an arbitrator than a Beckmesser. Tact and patience were paramount values. But instructors had a challenging additional task: to demonstrate the relationship of the deeds of the Workshop to various local curriculums. It was concluded, for example, that materials and methods used with beginners should have a reasonable potential for infinite projection in musical experience; that an attitude like this should be applied to many areas beyond Writing Skills such as, the teaching of brass instrument fingering, and the lessons of the history of music. Similarly, the general curricular implications of the procedure, write perform criticize rewrite, were well amplified.
The rhythmic forms of the plastic arts and architecture were also investigated, but a recurrent musical subtopic was Jazz, in terms of the rhythmic constructions to be found in it and also in its relationship to the curriculum of music. A suggestive relevance to this subtopic can be inferred from a selective list of the works, composers, and performers who rubbed elbows during Workshop sessions without any noticeable fraying of musical attire: the medieval Conductus, the Play of Daniel, works of Lassus, Schütz, a broad representation of 18th, 19th, and established 20th century composers, as well as many protagonists of Jazz: Brubeck, Schuller, Miles Davis, Milt Jackson, Childs, Self, etc. The common bond was the acknowledgement that all of the works, composers, and performers were musical, hence they offered proper loci for study and the assignment of style-imitative exercises, as well as improvisations. The common topic of investigation, rhythm, helped guard against a casual stroll along the highways and byways of musical styles. The determination, via class discussion, of factors of relationship and differentiation among all styles was a paramount consideration.
The ultimate aim of the instructors of the Writing Skills sessions was not to convince the participants that everyone must be a composer. It is safe to assert that no one who was not a committed composer before these sessions of the workshop, decided that this must become his revised mission in life. Further, it was no avowed plan of the Workshop to redirect the creative energies of those who were already composers. Rather, the constant aim was directed toward repeated demonstrations, through class participation, that constructive unity and viable design can be achieved through the unfettered study of abstract rhythmic forms, the study of stylistic or idiosyncratic rhythms, and the assignment of writing tasks based on the findings. Ultimately, the goal was the inciting of a closer, more vibrant affinity to all music in terms, basically, of rhythm. In the views of the participants, the goal was achieved.
As already noted, the aim of the Performance sections, consisting of an orchestra, chorus, and wind ensemble, was "learning by playing." But the sessions were decidedly more than simply "playing." Perhaps a clearer demonstration of the relationship of Comprehensive Musicianship to performances can be gained by a more or less verbatim record of the conductors' reports.
Let us start with: Topic, J.S. Bach, Christ lag in Todesbanden (BWV 4). Rehearsal reading. Discussion of tempo problems with solutions based on analytic and historical observations. Participants desire more talk from conductor along lines of analysis, stylistic discussions, etc. Result: Am holding special sessions.
Or: Wilson Coker, Polyphonic Ode. I (the conductor) gave a brief, analytic, verbal run-through of the piece, stressing the way in which it related to other Workshop topics (Coker's superimposition of canons over a continuing Sarabande rhythm; the relation of harmony to form, of pulse to rhythm; the elements of variation and ornamentation achieved by rhythmic means). In the performance, the importance of an understanding of these matters became self-evident.
Also: Schubert, Mass in G, read with student conductors in charge. After reading of each movement, commented on performance problemstempo management, phrasing, bringing out of subsidiary motives; management of sequences, etc., especially as influenced by certain features of the analytic landscape.
Finally: Our next project was to discuss aleatory music and its relation to chance music, in preparation for a reading of Penderecki's Pittsburgh Overture. We simply read portions of the work in order to "get the feel" of this kind of music. The group was so interested that we decided to spend part of the next rehearsal on itWe resumed our discussion of aleatory and chance music and the repertory thereof, with emphasis on notation and conducting problems inherent in this music. We devised exercises and examples which helped clarify many problems. The discussion was heated and if not broken by the necessities of the schedule would have continued on for a long time.
The lessons of these randomly selected informal reports are clear. Rapport, enthusiasm, and, at times, heat were generated and, maintained by going well beyond downbeats and upbeats, the correcting of individual errors or bowings, the dogged replaying of passages all together or in sections from Rehearsal Number "X plus 3 to Y minus 7." These normal events of a rehearsal certainly took place, but accompanied or preceded by analytic, stylistic, and other explanatory comments. The resultant high morale and spirited discussions were clearly related to structural insights provided by the conductors and, in many instances, the participants. It should be noted that works from the portfolio list were also performed, hence the cogency of analytic findings from other sections of the Workshop was assessable by the direct means of performance. But this is the essence of the pedagogy of Comprehensive Musicianship.
The greatest diversity was to be found in the Analytic section of the Workshop at Eastman. After all, how does one go about "learning by observing"? What are the things to observe? How are they to be observed? The things and the means varied by definition, if you will, from one musician-theorist to the other. Nevertheless, there was a broad enough underlying consensus about open-endedness to make profitable and instructive our piecing together a composite of procedures and discussions.
The initial sessions were uniformly given over to definitions, general orientation in the field of analysis, or the listing of analytic factors. Some of the discussions were philologically and philosophically tinted. Distinctions, for instance, were drawn to separate and classify various kinds of statements that are made about music: stylistic, limited to the nature or structure of the medium; contextual, related to external contributory factors; evaluative, based on assessments of a work or part thereof, or a performance of it. With these distinctions in mind, participants were asked to reveal such assertive inflections in several unidentified statements, such as: "Webern's music reaches the ear as a pattern of geometrical figures in sound, symmetrical at times, assymmetrical at others or, more precisely, asymmetrical with a symmetrical framework. The melodic development customary in tonal music is replaced by an organized succession of rhythmic and melodic combinations clearly differentiated in time."
Other instructors were more directly concerned with the stuff and procedures of analysis, such as the setting up of a proper sequence of events for the analyst, in the form of: 1. The work experienced (performed); 2. The description, by the analyst, of temporal events and relations, from the general to the specific; 3. The synthesis or the relevance of the analysis to the initial experience and the re-experiencing of the work.
Yet others were concerned with the aims of analysis as 1. a self contained musico-intellectual pursuit; 2. a means of sensitizing the performance of a work; 3. a general stimulant for composers irrespective of discrepancies between the style of the work analyzed and that of the analyzing composer.
Although the central topic of the Workshop was rhythm, it was agreed that an exclusively rhythmic dissection or synthesis of the works in the portfolio list would be just as partial, hence feckless, as are the usual exclusively chordal or exclusively formal analyses. Therefore, from the beginning, following certain clarifications of the nature and province of rhythm, much like those arrived at in the Writing Skills section, the analytic procedures aimed at representing a just balance of all compositional factors to be found in and around a work.
A good example of this procedure was observable in the "Sanctus" of Josquin's Missa pange lingua. Several of the classes opened their discussions through performances directed, played, and sung by the participants with the instructor in the role of a carping critic. Problems arose directly: What is the "correct" tempo? Should instruments be allowed to participate? Should the score be sung exactly as notated? What is a Sanctus, anyway? How did Josquin come by his melodic materialwas it his own invention or did he find it somewhere? What is there about the sound of the Sanctus that suggests the major-minor system, yet is differentiated from it? How does Josquin treat consonances and dissonances? Are the paired entries a trait of Josquin's style or of universal Renaissance style? How did he notate his music? Is there an early score available?
Clearly, many of these questions seem infra dig. However, it must be kept in mind that they were not intended to stump the participants, but to demonstrate how the puzzlement of underclassmen can be at least partially removed through recourse to the data of cultural, ecclesiastical, and musical history. Analysis, in this instance, required a frame large enough to contain an abundance of contextual as well as stylistic limnings. The class, after preparing a score with discreet uses of musica ficta, deciding on an "informed" tempo, and performing an "edition by consensus", found it much simpler and more rewarding to offer enlightened criticism of available recordings of the Sanctus. These were not played until all other analytic and performing ceremonies were concluded.
The portfolio list included several works that lay within the limits of the major-minor system. They were: the twelfth of J.S. Bach's Twelve Short Preludes, the Mozart Gigue, K. 574, the Introduction to the Rondo of Beethoven's Waldstein, the Chopin Mazurka in A-flat major, Opus 59, No. 2, and by the slightest extension of the limits, Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. It was a rich harvest.
Initially, in most cases, intensive rhythmic studies were made, coupled with melodic, harmonic, and formal elements. For all participants, these major-minor works were well within their previous analytic studies. Yet, it was significant that, except for a few familiar mouthings about Roman numerals and musical form, very little was provided in the way of insightful probing. The various rhythmic derivatives proved novel, fascinating, and challenging, as did several linear-structural graphs, some provided by instructors, others worked out by participants. Roman numeral analysis was faulted for several reasons: It is incomplete and misleading when employed as a sole analytic device; its applicable limits stylistically are severe; within these limits, it creaks badly when the chromatic idiom dominates; it is introduced to students in too great detail and too exclusively, thus blocking the study of other constructive features of tonal music and other non-tonal or para-tonal styles.
A suggestive feature of these meetings was the relating of dictation and keyboard instruction to the works analyzed. For example, a series of dictation units was devised from a recognizable genesis in counterpoint and shaped, by the graded infusion of unique elements, so as to become spot passages in the works under examination. Similarly, graded keyboard units were presented. Such procedures brought under question the meaning of "common practice" theories. It was suggested that the term has validity when it refers to the basic and underlying vocabulary of composition, but leaves much to be desired when it is applied to masterworks which endure as an "uncommon, or unique gestalt."
Some of the portfolio works were represented in two editions. Comparative study of these and of other works was highly informative, particularly when related to analytic decisions and the evaluation of various performances. Although it was understood that the term, Urtext, has acquired an undeserving and misleading sanctity (how Ur is an Urtext and what makes it Ur?), the participants, nevertheless took a firm stand against editors who, regardless of their motivation, place themselves between composer and performer.
A final group of works in the portfolio list was comprised of styles that lie on or beyond the peripheries of tonal music. These consisted of Ives' The Unanswered Question, the second movement of Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, the second movement of Webern's Variations for Piano, Opus 27, Baba's song from Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, Copland's Piano Variations, and Penderecki's Stabat Mater. It had been pointed out in discussing differences between earlier, pre-seventeenth century styles and baroque and later styles, that there is no totally embracing theory of music. The point was underlined as the participants approached sundry twentieth century styles, notwithstanding Hindemith's field theory in his Craft of Musical Composition. Certainly, from the analyst's point of view there must be available theories of music appropriate to the particular style or work that is being investigated. The implications for the undergraduate curriculum are clearstudies in theory must be pluralistically oriented if we aim at the maturation of musicians who will feel at home with all music, especially the music of our own time.
However, this is not intended to suggest that at the Workshop there were no transferrable procedures of analysis from the music of one stylistic era to another. The connective links were principally rhythmic forces and linear-structural drives, although application was found for all of the components of one instructor's previously compacted list of style-analytical elements: Sound, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, Growth (or more traditionally, form). Yet new emphases and terms made their appearance. Pandiatonicism, sonorities, clusters, pitch-collections, sets, subsets, set-complexes, transformations, invariances, combinatorialityall, along with more traditional terminology formed the daily analytic fare in the description of these and other twentieth century works. As reported by one instructor: "The students were interested in the new procedures introduced, although somewhat dismayed at the prospect of learning these in such a short time. In part this stems, I believe, from the fact that many are insecure even in more traditional analytic 'modes' as well as from the fact that many lack even moderate experience with 'classical' modern music, either atonal or 12-tone. But the morale is good." And indeed it was. More than once, regret was expressed by the participants that only a part of the Workshop was devoted to the twentieth century, that electronic and computer music had been crowded out, as it was, due solely to a lack of time and space. Clearly, our college curriculums must give much more prolonged attention to contemporary music and early music. It was in these styles that a lack of conversance with the music became an evident deterrent to analysis in requisite depth by the participants.
It would be idle and presumptuous to give a note by note account of the analytic procedures with this music which, by the way was not isolated from the music of other periods in the Workshop sessions but took its place under several informally established headings: Music related to the dance; Tempo, rhythm, meter; text related music; chromaticism.
For purposes of illustration, however, let us examine the procedures that were followed in the analysis of the Webern piece, Opus 27. A non-pitched rhythmic schema was derived from it, containing no bars but including all articulation markings. It was assigned to the participants as a drill with the identity of the source withheld, the injunction being to prepare it for communicable performance by barring it, if necessary, in a single or variable meter. The predominant solution turned out to be a variable meter formed out of groups of two, three, and five eighth notes. Considerable surprise was expressed when the source and score were revealed with its uniform two-four meter. Criticism of Webern was forestalled by examining other features of the characteristically brief work. Discussion led to the writing of a new score with variable meters and the hands uncrossed. Performance, which was now a relatively simple matter, betrayed a noticeable and unflattering lilt and in so doing vindicated Webern's scoring decisions which seem to add a sheen of meaning that goes well beyond a "correct" and simplistic notation. A point that was made, additionally, was directed at the relationship between Webern's procedure and his life long interest in Renaissance music where meter and rhythm did not exist in as tight and circumscribed a union as our textbooks like to describe with reference to eighteenth and nineteenth century music.
Beyond this, the underlying set was derived (with help from the first movement) and a set-complex worked out. The point was to reveal certain precompositional choices made by the composer as his notions about the repeated axis tone, A, and specific dyads and tryads took shape. Webern's musical wit, following on these decisions, did not escape the participants.
The sections on Writing Skills, Performance, and Analysis, as well as the evening sessions and informal conversations, drew out of the material on hand the broad curricular implications of Workshop pedagogy. Suggestions were made not on the basis of any presumably deathless remarks or dazzling insights of the faculty, but more wholesomely on the basis of the working conditions that have prevailed at various I M C E and were demonstrated at the Workshop at Eastman. In summary form, advice to the participants became: Make conversance with music of all times and places the goal of instruction; shed obsolescence and partiality; do not discard the disciplines of music, but enlarge them to establish a more vital relevance to the art; bring all facets of information to bear on the balanced maturation of the student; break down the artificial barriers of compartmented courses; encourage the development of informed critical attitudes, of free open-ended discussion. If this sounds hortatory, so be it. Behind it lies a sturdy substance and experience that lift it well above and beyond the salesman's pitch.
The participants' comments, queries, and concerns formed a syndrome suggestive of the conditions of instruction that characterize institutionalism and the desire to preserve coveted, but time worn, or shoddy values. A recurrent concern was the difficulty of introducing "newfangled" ideas into a prescribed classroom situation in which textbooks, methods, and emphases are determined not by the instructor, but by the Establishment. Others expressed the fear that friendly contact with unconvinced or unconverted colleagues might be broken by an attempt to introduce the C M P doctrine of total commitment. Almost all pleaded for the setting up in the C M P of consulting or advisory services designed, not to preserve friendships, but to suggest in tactful conference ways whereby appropriate curriculum revisions might be undertaken. There was a notable uneasiness about introducing Jazz as a coequal with other musics. Few reservations, however, were directed at the use of American and non-American popular music, in general, and Folk music, in particular. Discussions were requested of the introduction of programmed material into theory courses, and of the nature and purpose of integrated theory courses. At least one participant called for a probing into the weaknesses or shortcomings of Comprehensive Musicianship. More important than the answers or advice proffered, are the questions themselves, for they revealed a fear of the hazards that might follow from any attempt to modify entrenched modes of instruction. But, as recognized by all participants, it is precisely these tightly established procedures that have bred the woeful "incompleat angler" in music.
CONCLUSION
By all candid and objective measurements, the Workshop at Eastman can be declared successful. Its avowed purposesto review and summarize the pedagogy of Comprehensive Musicianship, to explore a variety of techniques and attitudes toward musicwere fulfilled. The participants, without subscribing to everything that was done, to all fine points that were drawn, responded with growing interest and enthusiasm to the principles of C M P and their detailed, daily implementation. If there are readers of this Report who are inclined to object that there is nothing new in Comprehensive Musicianship, the response must be, "If only this were universally true, if only the pedagogy of Comprehensive Musicianship were established enough to be passé."
It is not, despite spontaneous and sporadic appearances of it here and there. In fact, to insure the preservation of gains previously won and reaffirmed in the Workshop, C M P has already made it part of future plans to consider seriously the instituting of similar Workshops and the providing of consultant and advisory services much like those requested by many of the participants.
It must be recorded in closing that a vital part of the successful aspects of C M P is due to the patience and unstinting generosity of the Ford Foundation and also to the continuing selfless co-operation of the Music Educators National Conference, both of which recognized early the vitality and geniality of the ideas of Norman Dello Joio.
WILLIAM J. MITCHELL
State University of New York at Binghamton
(Reporter for the Workshop at Eastman)
CONTEMPORARY MUSIC PROJECT
NORMAN DELLO JOIO, Chairman
ROBERT J. WERNER, DirectorPolicy Committee, 1969-1970
Samuel Adler Beth Landis Stefan Bauer-Mengelberg Jan LaRue Grant Beglarian Charles Leonhard Edward F. D'Arms William J. Mitchell John Davies Arrand Parsons Richard Felciano Vincent Persichetti Sydney Foster Russell Sanjek Charles Gary Gail Sperry Wiley Housewright Robert Trotter Robert Klotman Louis G. Wersen
Faculty of the Workshop at Eastman
Grant Beglarian, General Chairman Martin Mailman,
Samuel Adler, Workshop Chairman North Texas State University
Stefan Bauer-Mengelberg, Donal Michalsky,
Mannes College of Music California State College, Fullerton
Warren Benson, William J. Mitchell,
Eastman School of Music S U N Y, Binghamton
Calvin Bower, Arrand Parsons,
University of Tennessee Northwestern University
Ingolf Dahl, William Thomson,
University of Southern California Indiana University
Allen Forte, Robert Trotter,
Yale University University of Oregon
Robert Gauldin, Monte Tubb,
Eastman School of Music University of Oregon
Vernon Kliewer, David Ward-Steinman,
Indiana University San Diego State College
Jan LaRue,
New York University
1The full title was, A Workshop in the Teaching of Comprehensive Musicianship at the College Level, held at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester.
2Condensed, prior to a complete report to be published early in 1970. In its present form, the material presented will serve as a basis for discussion at the forthcoming Annual Meeting of CMS for 1969.
3They are detailed in, Comprehensive Musicianship, A report of the Seminar sponsored by the C M P at Northwestern University, April 1965 (321-10198) N E A Publications Sales, 1201 Sixteenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C.
4For a detailed description of the I M C E programs, the reader is referred to volume seven (1967) of SYMPOSIUM.
5Copies are available at the office of C M P, 1156 Fifteenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.