Apologies to Listers also on Orchestralist. I am in need of help, an have sent this message to both lists.
I've been a teacher, as well as a composer, most of my life, and have taught music at every level from Kindergarten to College, and lots of private students of composition, and even piano from time to time. And if I may brag, I've had a fairly high degree of success... mostly as a result of picking the brains of people smarter than me, so here I go again. I have an adult student, in his 50s, who long ago taught himself to play by ear, who got one summer of "music reading" instruction from his Grandmother when he was a teenager, and now he wants to be a composer. So he bought a bunch of synthesizers, a computer, and Encore. For the past two years I have been sorting out and converting to Finale files really awful files he has created, by guess and by golly, in Encore (ugh), mostly playing them in with synthesizers, and creating huge "scored" versions of songs for his "Broadway musical." (Yeah, yeah, I know. I've told him, but let's move on. He's "never had a failure" and he's determined that this will not be his first.) All the songs are way, way too complicated, two thick, and can only be played or "sung" by machines, not humans. So I've spent two years forcing him to back into simple piano vocal scores with things written correctly and imported and cleaned up (by me) into Finale. Well, they still aren't "simple" but they are simpler, and many of them are really good... often very original and always interesting. Part of the problem is, of course, that anyone with a bunch of synthesizers can decide he/she is a "composer", and crank out great big "works." The machines-- computers and synths, which don't know any better, will play it back just as if it made sense for live musicians, but of course most of the time it doesn't. Here's the thing... he's really talented: that is, he has a very interesting "voice," particularly for harmony, but actually for pretty much everything... But he can't spell chords, can't spell scales, doesn't know how to find a key signature, is totally unacquainted with any of the so-called "rules" of music, or as I like to call them "traditions and common practices." He is simply completely and utterly unschooled in basic musical tradition and knowledge. During these past two years he has picked up a lot of basic stuff: notes need to be vertically aligned in order to be read (Encore doesn't automatically do this), time signatures are based in math and you can't have a 4/4 bar with 4 and a half beats. Baritones do not sing well when the tessitura of a song is off the bottom of the staff. . . Just basic stuff. He plays piano very, very well, and plays by ear so amazingly that I am constantly blown away (terrible fingering...an upward scale played all with the pinky... that sort of thing) and he doesn't really read music, though he is beginning to "pick it up" as we go along. Skipping most of the basics, of course, so it's a constant game of pick up sticks... what does he know and what is he clueless about ...arrggghhh. He DOES, however have a huge memory bank of great music which he has heard over the years, and he knows what it sounds like, even if he has no clue about how to write it down. And he can play most things by ear in any key. (My favorite anecdote: I chided him for a simple song that was so over-scored, complex, over-harmonized, over the top, that I said, "For heaven's sake, this isn't supposed to be 'Wozzeck!'" At which point he turned to the piano and began playing, by ear, music from one of the scenes of Wozzeck, which I immediately recognized. I was astounded. But he had no idea what he was playing or how to write it down. But he was familiar with it, and could reproduce it by ear. Amazing. No, he's not an idiot savant... just a savant, and no idiot... so....) Until now, he has resisted ANY basic instruction, but he wants to learn to orchestrate. I have finally, after a couple of years, convinced him that this is not possible until he backs up and starts from scratch (and maybe not then...since he has no clue about what is idiomatic, but that's another book.) I don't want him to go take a college Elements of Music 101 class because he's very quick to pick things up, and he'd be soon bored, so it's up to me to take him right back to whatever passes as Book I and teach him basic things: notation, nhythm, harmony, counterpoint, melody writing, voice leading, spelling of chords and scales, etc.. He's nowhere near ready to start "scoring" which is what he wants to do. He is not satisfied just to give his basic music to someone to arrange and score... he's a former CEO of his own company, and a control freak (by his own admission) so he's determined to do it all himself. And he has finally promised to go through a rigorous "basics" course with me, before I begin to teach him orchestration (if I live that long). And he has purchased and agreed to learn Finale. I figure that if he can use the cumbersome, idiotic Encore, he can learn Finale. So here's my question: (at last) Faced with this daunting task, what would you do? What materials, books, methods, etc. would you employ? I have taught babies and adult beginners and everything in between, and I know about how to take a student sequentially from point A to point B and beyond. But I have no CLUE as to materials for someone like my student, who jumped over all the basics and started writing huge "scores". I have a few ideas, but I thought I'd throw this at the group, and try to get some guidance and recommendations. Thanks to all who have waded through this epic email. Any suggestions will earn my undying gratitude. It's all I can afford at the moment... Linda Worsley -- Hear the music at: http://www.ganymuse.com/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
