Watterson commencement address

Bill Watterson, who drew Calvin and Hobbes from 1985 to 1995, gave this commencement address at his alma matter Kenyon College in 1990. Although the text is available in various places across the internet, here the text has been cleaned up and and typeset.

 


Source: http://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/C-H-speech.html

Thoughts on Music Education

Here is an excerpt from a USA Today interview with  Robert Freeman which prompted this response.

"I'm going to be 80 this summer — I'm going to retire to do some other kinds of things like promote the ideas in the book," said Freeman, who was director of University of Rochester's Eastman School for 24 years before he left in 1996 to become president of the New England Conservatory and then dean of the University of Texas at Austin's College of Fine Arts. He remains at UT Austin today as a professor.

Question: What do I face when I step out the door into the job market?
Answer: When you're in school, you're hoping to be the principal oboe. Then you get out of school and it turns out there are 500 candidates for the job, 100 of whom are perfectly well qualified.

Q.: What are the origins of this labor market problem?
A.: One is that we keep increasing the number of music schools and thus annual music graduates. Well over 30,000 a year. Orchestras are going in the other direction. We're graduating too many, too narrowly trained musicians.

Largely what it comes down to is you can't make productivity gains in the performing arts. It still takes 85 players to play a Beethoven symphony and you don't get anywhere trying to play it twice as fast with half as many players. At the same time, the musicians need to be paid more. You can't put the New York Philharmonic into Yankee Stadium — acoustically it doesn't work.

One response to Freeman comes from Robert Fitzpatrick, Dean of the Curtis from 1986-2009. Here's a quote:

Perhaps the greatest aberration of all was the creation of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in order to perpetuate and extend the educational model. This would allow students to get tenured university positions in performance so that they could teach future B.Mus, M.Mus, and DMA candidates who would then seek positions to create more performers and teachers for non-existent orchestra positions, and dwindling opportunities in primary and secondary arts education in the USA.

What Freeman calls a 'Viscous Cycle' I'd call a Pyramid scheme. The educational model in the US trains a large number of music performance majors for a career they are unlikely to have. It's as if the NCAA athletes trained to join the NBA, and when they didn't make it into the NBA (since only about 1% do) decided to return to college to recruit and train more students into the NCAA who will try to make it into the NBA. It's an untenable business model. 

Unfortunately, the study of music, like basketball, is a important in the development of kids -- even if's just for fun (especially if it's just for fun!). We need a small number of elite performers but a a large number of teachers and while the market clearly values performers over teachers, that doesn't mean that we can't, as a society emphasize teaching. It's well documented that kids and society benefit through participation in sports and the arts; money spent on teachers and coaches isn't wasted. 

This music performance Pyramid scheme is unfair to students for several reasons:

1. Students apply to Music Schools their junior year of high school when they're 16-17

2. Private schools cost up to $50k a year in tuition
3. They'll be competing for jobs along with hundreds of other highly-trained musicians
4. How many of these points are fully appreciated by a 16 year old?

College students who plan to major in poetry or play on the basketball team don't expect to make a living doing that after they graduate. How is it that classically-trained musicians have such different expectations? I think the music performance Pyramid scheme is a part of the problem. Refocusing on music education, perhaps, is the solution.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/14/music-industry-jobs/25787067/

http://slippedisc.com/2015/04/robert-fitzpatrick-a-vicious-cycle-exists-in-american-musical-higher-education/
https://my.sfcm.edu/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=3ffdb386-df3b-49ef-9a17-9f5c7fcc21fa&groupId=134904&filename=null
https://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Probability-of-going-pro-methodology_Update2013.pdf

Is the Met Too Big to Fail?

This New Yorker article below inspired the question posed above.

A Fight at the Opera
Peter Gelb has a bold vision. Can the Met afford it?
BY JAMES B. STEWART

Link: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/a-fight-at-the-opera

The Metropolitan Opera is by far the largest arts organization dwarfing its competition. The Met's expenses last year were $327 million (1). The budget for the Lyric Opera in Chicago, for example, is $70 million and Royal Opera's annual budget is about $170 m (3). 

The Met Orchestra Union made a good case that Gelb's new productions were lavish, wastefully expensive, and failed to connect with audiences. Had the new Ring been a success it would have been hailed as a bold and successful new production championed by General Manager Peter Gelb. However, it was a flop and the production hasn't made back the cost of putting it on. Rarely lauded, if ever, was Gelb's good intentions -- taking a bold risk. 

In a way the Met is a victim of it's success -- it's a the standard for top-tier opera. The Met's success has allowed it to expand into a year-round schedule, the Met in HD, radio broadcasts, and 6-7 new productions a year. This is all well and good -- but a new mounting a new and untested opera is like making a new blockbuster movie, both are complex and large organization and are neither nimble nor cheap. 

With millions and millions of dollars on the line, the Met can't afford to take chances. Big-budget blockbuster movies such as Spider Man 2 with a budget of $255 m (4) are a reminder that movie studios stick to the proven path. It's no coincidence that large budget movies are derivative -- an endless parade of sequels, prequels, and remakes of Marvel Comics -- the audience is then so give the people what they want. 

The larger the bet -- the less the risk. This is why the most daring, new and provocative things, be it movies, music or art happen on the small scale. It's okay to fail when you're small. My solution for the Met would be to do what the movie studios do -- divide responsibilities: have a blockbuster division with a large budget devoted to popular hits as well an indie studio devoted to making risky low-budget movies. Another option for the Met is to embrace "too big to fail" and put on good crowd-pleasing operas. After all, Spider Man 2 wasn't that bad.

1. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/a-fight-at-the-opera

2. http://chicagoclassicalreview.com/2014/07/lyric-opera-clarifies-budget-numbers/

3. http://static.roh.org.uk/about/annual-review/pdfs/annualreview1213.pdf

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Spider-Man_2

Northwestern University Opera Theater
Michael M. Ehrman, director

Dead Man Walking
Music by Jake Heggie
Libretto by Terrence McNally
Based on the novel by Sister Helen Prejean
This opera was commissioned by the San Francisco Opera.

I had a lump in my throat from the beginning through the conclusion of this powerful opera about a nun who tries to save a convict sentenced to death. As with Beethoven, the emotional arc of the story conveyed in the the text and music is immediately intelligible, meaningful, and deeply felt. Highly recommended!

The second piece I was lucky to hear was "And I was like Wow" by Jacob TV. This work for trombone and electronics with accompanying video tells the story of a wounded US soldier. Hearing the soldier in his own words with music setting the scene and conveying the depth of trauma was incredibly moving.

"This is what art is about!"  I though after experiencing each one. After reading a great piece of literature, seeing a great movie, or listening to a Beethoven piano sonata -- one can help but leave the experience changed as a person. This is what art is all about -- taking the audience on a journey through a story.

Yannick's Chicago Debut

Review of Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra at Chicago's Orchestra Hall on February 20, 2015. As the young (for classical music) director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, this was an exciting debut. That being said, the hall was about half full. One wonders if it would have been cheaper to fly the audience to Holland for this concert, at least you'd save on transporting the instruments. 

One game I like to play when I'm watching a new conductor is to see who they are emulating. Most often it's something like Bernstein and Solti. Yannick was tricky to pin down: he studied with Carlo Maria Giulini, an under-appreciated conductor if you ask me, and there was some of Giulini there. Considering the lack of Baton -- my mind leaps to Stokowski, but his style was not as forceful or dominating as Stoki. For my money, Yannik conducts like Carlos Kleiber: rarely doubling and using the left arm expressively -- he was active on the podium, showing how the music should go, but it never felt theatrical. 

The concert opened with Mother Goose by Ravel which was only piece conducted by memory. This is where the parallel with Kleiber ends, because Kleiber always conducted everything from memory. 

Ravel's Piano Concerto in G was up next with Hélène "the wolf-lady" Grimaud (she has a long-standing dedication to conservation of wolves). I've always been concerned her hands don't get hurt working with the wolves but so far so good. 

2nd movt grimaud arpeggiated chords, sounded like grace notes throughout

3rd Bsns in ravel split up solo. Sort of worked. Mov't started ambitiously fast

Prokokofiev's 5th Symphony

1st. Cl too soft.
2nd. Cl too soft
3rd. Bass melody is a question about war. Response is answer

4th full of character, martial pizz, playful oboe, sweet dolce strings. The Principle bassoon plays with the oboe and was behind oboe 3 times but caught up by the 4th repetition. Yannik chose quick tempo throughout which was exciting in the first half but didn't give the melodies in second half time to sing
Perc were especially sensitive, were heard but never overplayed.

Encore was Shostakovitch Folk Feast from The Gadfly. It's a lot like Festive Overture (I need to learn the clarinet part), it some good practice fodder!

Although the Rotterdam Phil is the little sibling living in shadow of Concergtebouw, they had little to apologize for and the fruits of their long-term relationship with Yannick showed. The orchestra played at the peak of its ability which no matter the level makes for an exciting evening

Radetzky Through the New Years

The Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert traditionally concludes with Johann Strauss' Radetzky March. I took it upon myself to painstakingly cull youtube to present this list because, beyond enjoying the tune, you can learn a lot about the conductors by studying how they conduct this piece. Note, how Karajan conducts the audience -- and how the audience follows! Note the sound Kleiber gets and his charismatic conducting.

1987 - Herbert von Karajan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHFf7NIwOHQ&feature=related

1989 - Carlos Kleiber
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYB4c163dJA

1991 - Claudio Abbado
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-G5HwYQRkE

1992 - Carlos Kleiber
http://youtu.be/NLtpszY6730

1993 - Riccardo Muti
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB0ayPXf5Y0

1996 - Lorin Maazel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5-yCg0OxYs

2001 - Nikolaus Harnoncourt
http://youtu.be/m_clP7RmLs4

2002 - Seiji Ozawa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfB3sUlS0Ck

2003 - Nikolaus Harnoncourt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK53FUaMAbs

2004 - Riccardo Muti
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_OoqkS_obY

2007 - Zubin Mehta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSKKLROWgOI

2008 - Georges Prêtre
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46k7Gp5L0v4

2009 - Daniel Barenboim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ll9bZXgj3A

2010 - Georges Prêtre
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeoUARw1R78

2011 - Franz Welser-Möst
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VDzca0ycCg&feature=related

2012 - Mariss Jansons
http://youtu.be/XzjH4K7coTo

2013 - Welser-Möst
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poJYW6tKRkI

2014 - Daniel Barenboim
http://youtu.be/2ORHVroiWHk

2015 - Zubin Mehta
http://youtu.be/TpSopvk7Tks

If you'd like to attend don't worry because tickets are sold on a lottery system and you might get lucky -- you'll have to commit by the second week of January though! For those who wanted to know more about the concerts...there's always wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_New_Year's_Concert

Happy Birthday Beethoven

Today is Beethoven's birthday. I don't have anything more to say about that beyond the fact that it started my current train of thought.

Beethoven was a genius expanding small ideas into grand statements. For example: the 7th symphony focuses on rhythm (dotted eighth, sixteenth, eighth), the Hammerklavier Sonata is obsessed with the third, and the 9th symphony begins with a single note. Many of the great composers were able do develop their themes in an extended working out of their implications (Charles Rosen) -- a deconstruction. The techniques of counterpoint -- none of which, by themselves, is particularly special  -- provide the tools (slowing the melody, speeding it up, flipping it upside down etc) by which an idea is taken apart and put back together.

In a Beethoven symphony, it is said that every note leads inexorably to the next note. Each small step seems logical and prosaic. Seen on a larger scale the works are undeniable genius. Their intelligibility and rigorous logic isn't a flaw but the key means by which these pieces communicate from Beethoven's heart to ours.

These days, people say you're a scientist if you can do math in your head and memorize facts. This is certainly helpful, such as learning counterpoint and harmony is helpful to composing, but it misses the point of science. These days we have software that can do math, anything you learn in school -- up to and including in college -- can be solved on a computer. Likewise, you don't need to memorize the elements -- they're listed in a handy table so chemists can don't have to memorize them.

The heart of physics is the development of ideas, working from simple to complex. For example, classical mechanics -- responsible for placing a man on the moon -- can be worked our from Newton's Three Laws. To be certain, you need math and logic, but the each step is logical and evident as you retrace the steps worn by previous generations of scientists. Like Beethoven, physicists have had great success by working out the implications derived from seemingly simple statements.