Re: [microsound] Re: Music Presentation/ Whining about my teacher

[Jesse Kudler <jkudler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 'wait, sir, you mean i can't write about two people who have recently
> won, & one of them juried the ars electronica awards?'
>
> ~ david

Oh, of course.  But I didn't even get to that point because it seemed so
clear that he was gonna refuse to let me write about it no matter what and
that his ego was somehow closely tied up in it.  Any more defense of this
"popular" music was clearly just going to upset him more, and I'd like to
get a good grade in the class.  He actually refused to even listen to the
CD's.  I asked if he was familiar with Pita or Fennesz or the Mego label and
offered to lend him CD's when he said no, but he wasn't even interested no
matter how much I explained that they were relevant to a computer-music
class (!).  That's why I brought this up with reference to music
presentation.  It seemed like he was dismissing the music solely because he
hadn't heard of it, and he wasn't even interested in borrowing the CD's,
which I would think anyone who professed an interest in new music and
especially computer stuff would do just to hear some new records and "see
what's being done" if nothing else.  But this guy seemed to have gotten his
ego really tied up in the whole thing, probably because he was offended that
a stupid undergrad could possibly have heard of any kind of experimental
computer music that he hadn't.  Oh wait, it must be "popular music."  Ego
saved!  I know that sounds a little silly, but it's really the impression I
got, and other people I've talked to confirm that it makes sense for this
guy.  It's just so ridiculous that someone wouldn't even want to hear the
records, but I'm sure if I said, "Oh, they're faculty at CalArts and doing
fascinating stuff with [insert obscure program/process here]," things would
have been peachy.

The ironic thing being that this is some silly grad. student, and actual
professors here aren't like that at all.  At least not our two famous
faculty, Anthony Braxton and Alvin Lucier.  They're into everything and
don't really seem to care how it's presented, other than obviously knowing a
lot more about music in their respective fields.  I was pretty impressed
when Braxton made a reference to Borbetomagus in class, and Lucier said he
had looked into booking Masonna!

Heh, liberal arts college is silly.

-Jesse