Re: [cm] complexity in academia

Hey Chris,

> I could name many schools that are almost anti-complexity
> these days. Michigan, Yale, Princeton, Juilliard, Eastman,
> Yale . . . You pretty much get crap if you ARE complex at
> these places, these days...

> I mean, come on. These complaints were maybe valid 30 years
> ago, but not today. (Except for maybe at San Diego . . .but
> that's California for you :) ).

It turns out that is also the view of the person who
sent me the article. (I had thought he sent it to me
because he agreed with Miller.)

> Somebody should be writing a book about how universities have
> GONE SOFT and Blaaa. Universities should be a HAVEN for the
> HARD-CORE: ANY hard-core, whether it's minimalism,
> alternate tuning, complexity, simplicity, whatever . . . . .
> right now, they're just a HAVEN for THE LAME.

I guess it could be that way. What's your experience
like there at Columbia?

As for myself, I greatly appreciated the fantastic
music I heard at UCSD and admired the tremendous talent
of the graduate students they are fortunate enough to
attract. It seems like their staff, quite strong when I
wont through, has gotten even better since then. I
selected UCSD because I felt it had one of the best
music programs around and I was not disappointed on
that regard. I still consider UCSD to have the best
graduate program in the Western US, though that
reflects my own interests and tastes of course. However
I do feel that they overwork their grad students and
burn them out -- I have know many UCSD music PhDs who
want nothing to do with their instrument after 8 years
of psychological terror unleashed upon them.

Though I will admit that after a few years of new music
concerts, it started to sound less new as I recognized
a style that was constrained enough to not vary outside
of certain limits.

One think I liked about Miller's proposals was that
music students would be well served by having
permission to write for venues such as clubs.

- Jeff