The new teaching semester is almost upon us here in Australia. And, in the process of orienting a new, part-time lecturer to our degree program and the university context, he exclaimed:
"I thought we were just here to teach!" he said, somewhat aghast about other higher education imperatives, including research.
Universities are in the business of Research. This links directly in the following ways:
Both are centrally about knowledge transfer and applied in university's missions in various ways, but here in this context, is applied in terms of learning and teaching.
KT in teaching draws upon current research, practice, lifelong learning and application. In the case of University academics, they participate in the knowledge economy by undertaking research and the output of this research contributes directly to government, industry and yes, education.
Universities are in the business of Knowledge Transfer.
Research does not mean simply googling or reading other's works, but of course can include this. It also means original research, arguing, constructing, presenting, publishing and peer validation - then applying such new original knowledge in practical applications.
In this way, then teachers don't simply perpetuate opinion, old habits, outmoded conceptions or unsupported conjecture. They are be able to lead, facilitate and challenge both themselves and student's thinking through such a proven and personally constructed research base.
For example, a brilliant piece of work by US music technology university educator. Imagine how this works in *his* classes: Moorefield, V. (2005). "The producer as composer: Shaping the sounds of popular music". London: MIT Press. (Available Griffith library ML3470 .M66 2005)
The New Times reports that its ‘Hard to Be an Audiophile in an iPod World’ and cites some of the work of Mark Katz at the University of North Carolina. Like many others, this article seems to show a fascination for MP3s, but almost completely ignores the other hi-fi aspects of 96kHz recording, SAC-D, 5.1 film soundtracks and so on. Its almost as if ‘the art of record production’ never existed, ie, as an art form in its own right.
Unfortunately, the discussion still centres around the premise that ‘recording’ was just that – focussing on purity of reproduction, and now these days with MP3s, iPods and filesharing, everything (art, fidelity, precision, integrity) has somehow taken a back seat to ‘convenience’, eg: wearable, portable sound where ‘low-er fi’ doesn’t really matter.
Unfortunately, the term ‘recording’ is used as if this were a passive, technical matter – simply operating the start and stop button; perhaps some acknowledgement of fidelity or simply attempting to re-create a naturalistic setting. (Never see that happen with a Film Director, would we? Clearly, film-making is understood as a highly crafted process, complete with virtual, artistic outputs that stand up in their own right. Then again, I can’t imagine we’d see musos out on strike against the same bastardry perpetuated by Hollywood on their script writers).
These arguments about audio files and audiophiles tend to ignore much of the great recorded art of recent history, work that stands by itself, is not meant to replicate live performance, indeed, is an art form in its own right. For example: Queen’s ‘A Night at the Opera’, The Beatles ‘Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’, or more recently say, The Dissociatives brilliant 2005 record.
Even more stunning to my mind, the article claims that ‘Few musicians have been audiophiles’ and that they do like their iPods . . [if] the sound is acceptable . . convenience is the selling point’. Apparently: we only chase the buck and have no regard for the sound . . I don’t know where these guys have been, but clearly it has not in a recording studio and making music; ‘The Studio as a Compositional Tool’ as Brian Eno wrote almost two decades ago in Downbeat.
Seems as though the idea of ‘audiophile’ is associated with classic music buffs listening to records on specialized systems, and where the hi-fi magazines of old used to pummel this marker with ads for new equipment. The article claims that this is dead and now we go with the convenience and limitations of MP3s/iPods. Obviously they’re not involved with the huge audio technology market for pro-ams, independent musicians and recordists. See any related magazine: from Mix, to Sound on Sound, Electronic Musician, Audio Technology and many others. . .
Where once there were a handful of expensive mics available to the specialist, today there are literally thousands, most being comparatively inexpensive. And, this is replicated through the entire studio chain: from software to computers, to powered monitors, amplifiers, MIDI keyboards, baffles and other home-studo paraphernalia. Extensions of guitars, voices, songwriting and expanded scores where 2 or 3 computers screens provide infinitely more accurate and malleable information that a score or lead sheet ever did.
The musican is not an audiophile? I can’t imagine anything further from the truth, or more out of step with reality. Disintermediation (cutting out the middle man) in the music industry should not be limited to just a one-sided discussion about audio files and downloading. It now operates at the very heart of music making: studios are portable, personal, powerful and are increasingly treated as musical instruments by musicians. Sound is everything: timbre, touch, reverb, dynamics, the ‘killer groove’.
The muso of today is disintermediated as the producer, performer, engineer, arranger and composer. And above all: an audiophile who makes active decisions about what to ‘print’ as audio files and fitness for purpose: Radio & dynamics, CD and the car, 48kHz for film, MP3s etc.
Seems to me that the chatter about music on-line and the ‘death of the music industry’ really has to get over this lopsided fascination about MP3s and file-sharing, and focus more on what 21st century musicianship really has become.
Joseph Pisano, Owen Bradley and Darren Morton have a terrific blog over at Mustech.net. They write some great stuff, provide really useful and supportive information for music educators who want to get active on-line, and they also aggregate an extensive set of links, blogrolls and other music ed. resources.
More recently, they've put out a call to set up a 'Music Education Bloggers' (ME Bloggers) network. Go have a look at the info on their site under 'Join Our Campaign! 100 Music Education Bloggers (ME Bloggers) By January of 2009'. What they're asking for is as follows (and they provide help to set up, if your're new to some of this):
- You must have (or have started) a blog site and not a simple website.
- You must agree to post 2 or more posts per month about a topic that is interesting to you, your students, the music audience as a whole, etc. that related to music education and/or music technology in the classroom environment.
- You must agree to not “covet” your materials and share them with the world under a creative commons license.
- You must actively participate in our “global conversation” about our field by joining in the conversation with others: Agreeing to comment on two others ME Bloggers posts per month; share your blog with others by linking to the other ME Bloggers in either your blogroll or a page of ME Blogger; agreeing to answer legitimate quesions by ME Bloggers and others that post questions on your site in a timely manner.
Expressions of interest can be submitted on their contact page.
