[Af_List] Spiral Control

[Damian Stewart]

stephen clover wrote:

> Would be interesting to hear damian/frey's opinion., as a grad (?) of VUW music school.

nah, not a grad. when i went they just had one stream of papers, Electronic 
Composition 2/3 plus basic 'Computer Music' skills in first year. now 
there's a whole Sonic Arts degree programme which, I think, requires you to 
learn to notate.

however the lecturers are all open to variations on the theme of 'musical 
knowledge' - i got on fantastically with Lissa Meridan and Dougal MacKinnon 
and, although Michael Norris and I had sometimes conflicting ideas of what 
good music was, i didn't feel for a moment like my ideas weren't being 
acknowledged as valid and worthy of study.

in conversation with Dugal once his claim was that the only reason 
non-academic electronic music isn't studied is simply because no-one's 
written about it yet, and that if a significant body of academic-style 
footnoted etc. papers on say minimal techno were to be published in a bunch 
of journals, the world of academia would pay attention. Mark Butler's: 
Unlocking the Groove: Rhythm, Meter and  Musical Design in Electronic Dance 
Music 
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=22576 
is a really good example of this kind of work.

-- 
damian stewart | +44 7854 493 796 | damian at frey.co.nz
frey | live art with machines | http://www.frey.co.nz