[sdiy] Introduction and a question

[Ethan Zer0]

--- Peter Grenader <petergrenader at mksound.com> wrote:
> > Evergreen State College in Olympia,
> 
> I've been very impressed with that place!  Their
> studios seem terrific and they didn't do what Cal 
> Arts did:  sell off all the old stuff when the new 
> technologies arose  (Buchla and tape equipment 
> included)

I agree that their studios are terrific and I
understand they have been completely rebuilt since I
was there, though, I believe the legacy of equipment
is more a function of budget than by design.  The only
shift I saw while there was from Atari to Mac. 

> What is their composition program like?  

Evergreen is a DIY education if you will.  Students
have the freedom to design their own curriculum and
choose exactly how they plan to spend their time. 
Students decide how much or how little direct
instruction they require.  That said, while I was
there they did offer a formal composition program
every couple of years, however, they did not have a
formal composition department or curriculum.  When you
participate in their "pre-patched" programs you are
exposed to wide variety of information with a strong
multicultural/interdisciplinary slant. Not only would
you study, say, Hindi film music, but, you would study
Indian politics, religion, society, etc and how it all
relates to and affects art, culture, and music.

> Cal Art's
> was ecellent in some
> areas, but kind of wierd.  A lot of theory, a lot of
> basic skill stuff like
> solfeggio (three freaking years of it), but for

Evergreen would teach solfege in the context of
different cultures.  I learned it through India Raga
via sa ri ga ma pa da ni sa. Which has a 1:1 mapping
to do re mi...  However, the karnataka sangita method
has no tonal center like A440.  Instead, all musicians
decide at the moment of performance on their tonal
center and tune accordingly then simply apply the
intervals.  This is probably why I don't mind the
tracking characteristics of the low end Doepfer VCO ;)

> instance they never really
> covered orchestration, ever.  They just make you
> switch from electronics to
> acoustic writing in the third year by saying:  Write
> a string quartet.  Now,
> write a piece for orchestra and electronics.  

Evergreen nutures electro-acoustic musicians from the
start.  To this day when people ask what my music is I
can only answer: electro-acoustic.

> It was
> quite stressful for me
> in that I knew none of the tricks of doing that
> correctly, but they did not
> account for that lack of knowledge (i.e. learning)
> in their appraisal of the
> works which came from my efforts!

At Evergreen there was no concept of the "wrong" way
to make music.  In fact, we did that Fluxus Yoko Ono
piece where you scratch bark to challange the notion
of what music is.  You could, however, write a
classical or romantic piece if you chose to do so,
but, most people were really going off the wall there
especially when good sampling became available in the
early 90's.

> again., welcome aboard.

Thanks!

> Peter Grenader

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