New Haven University Music Department Lecture

This lecture was a consultation/ presentation between the DigiScore team and three academics from the New Haven University music department.

As the presentation unfolded, different types of tablature scores got the staffs’ attention as this was the lingua franca of their practice. They discussed the prescriptive nature of scores such as guitar tablatures and that with those one needs to know the song and its context.

Some of our insights on the nature of digital musicianship at New Haven University music department:

  • there is no requirement for students to know how to read notation on entry into the program, students are required to acquire this skill through their studies

  • relationship with scores is difficult for students here – students would be more challenged to respond to a prompt that was not sonic if they had to interpret digital scores.

  • most students here identify themselves as music producers, rather than ‘composers’

  • the members of staff also remarked that to freely improvise would be challenging for students - they would be able to read a tableture or to improvise in a particular style but would not be aware of the avant-garde improvisation styles and techniques. However, they agreed that it would be a critical skil for their students to learn in order to enhance their creativity.

  • if one to start a course on improvisation – they would use text/graphic scores to get students into improvisation with instructions

  • as this is a liberal arts program, students have to take history classes and other arts or media courses which explains why students would be inspired by many different things like books/theories, arts, media, etc. rather than music and other musicians.

  • the staff felt if HE/ music-school mentorship is traditional it would be harder for their students to take that leap into experimentation with graphic/digital scores

  • however, it was remarked that if students were to try digital scores, the musical results wouldn’t have to be necessarily avant-garde but could suit the taste/style of students, such is the flexibility of the digital score concept.