[ot: tape music]

[Harry Bissell]

Hey MC:
Whats wrong with you. This is totally normal behavior for "Music" students.
(my degree).  In my music history class, I suffered through 2 years of the
dark ages, the baroque, the romantic... all with listening tests... guess the
composer tests... etc. I did lousy. So we get to the LAST WEEK of class and
now we're going to cover the entire history of music from STRAVINSKY to the
present... including electronic music... cage... babbit... everyone.
So... come the listening test I ACE it... because I'm the only one who
actually listened to the assignments at all... (and can tell one synth from
another by the sound...)
The rest of the class (Boring...ho-hum....) fails. I get a 99, the next
highest grade is a 70. Then some B!tch tell the professor "You really aught to
throw this test out because nobody did well" (Picture flames of Hell) I said
"You @#$!^@$#(*&^$%#^@!&^% I had to suffer with those Bvllsh!t madrigals
etc... while you guys Hvmped me and I got the lousy grades... now I got 99 and
you got D!CK. So you are IDIOTS and the test grade stands... NO CURVE !!! And
Y'know... I got my way and they all flunked! Synthesizer revenge  !!!
    But its an illustration of the contempt most "musicians" hold for "modern"
music.
    I won't even tell the story about Pink Floyd's "Echoes" being denounced as
"Drug-culture music" (which David Gilmore assures us "its not") and "Program
Music for Euphoria". I hope all my classmates are unemployed !!!!!  :-) Harry


Martin Czech <martin.czech at intermetall.de> wrote:
On Wednesday I went to a tape music concert, tapes/pieces by Eimert,
Stockhausen, Reich, Xenakis and Beria.  Mostly 6 or 8 channel audio.

I think this was really something. You don't have the possibility to
listen to the original recordings very often.

And a very moderate price, too: only 6 Euro.

And it was in the concert hall of the Freiburg college of music, where
people from all over the world come and study music.  (the tramways are
full of beautiful japanese violonist girls ...).


... but only 40 people came to listen, a couple of them were also occupied
with the performance, installing speakers etc, so we can't count them in,
and also not some friends of the organising people etc. so there were
only 20 strangers remaining. And: only one music professor attended,
he's got the chair for new music, so I guess he had to.
Where were his colleagues? Certainly not in vacation, since there were
also exams before the concert on the very same day, just a few hours before.


Now my question:

Is this normal?

Or what kind of oldfashioned city do I live in?

What kind of music college is this where most students are not interested
in contemporary compositions?


m.c.





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