Introduction

The music mentor in past times was a composer or performer who formed a special relationship with an apprentice who had come to learn music through the aural tradition that has represented the handing over of a musical heritage and legacy from one generation to another. In recent times, mass education has often stressed efficiency in the teaching process, all but eliminating the mentoring relationship in public school education. Vestiges of music mentoring still linger, especially in the studio tradition of teaching music instruments and voice privately. Yet, even there, where the possibility of mentoring remains optimum, the art of mentoring---the caring dedication and concerned persistence, tempered by a full awareness of the perils of the path---is more or less absent from the contemporary study of music.

Coupled with this absence has been the technological explosion of the past decade that has both attracted and alienated us, especially in terms of its promise for education, for music, the learning of music, and the making of music. There has been a great deal of focus on "hardware," "software," and "information." A world of virtual reality and ease of access to information is changing everything we do. Technology promises to serve humanity, yet we suspiciously suspect that we are serving technology. We lose sight of ourselves. We lose our bearings.

Course Description

This course explores the role of the music mentor in a culture which appears to be fully committed to technology as a solution to most contemporary problems. What is mentoring, and how does the mentor fit into the current educational scene? What are the failures of the current teacher roles? Are there facets of the mentoring process that can be incorporated in today's teacher training, or do we need a complete transformation? How does the mentor relate to information? Is the technological explosion antithetical to the mentoring process? Can technology and the internet serve to extend mentoring? Is there a special dimension to being a mentor in music?

Does technology takes us further from the true identity of ourselves? Does technology defeat the spiritual qualities of making music? Does technology intervene and separate human expression from the new machines that make music? Does technology bring only the illusion of artistry and virtuosity? Does technology replace the need for mastery over technical skills in making music? Does technology provide a short-cut to mastery over our inner domain? Or does technology bring us face to face with ourselves with entirely new and perhaps deeper challenges?

As you are introduced to a number of possibilities, you will select specific goals in music technology that you wish to pursue. Your acquisition of music technologies will be in a context of focusing on the teaching/learning process.

In order to benefit the most from the course material, you must follow the hypertext links of the course materials on the web, as instructed.

Course Objectives

1. Students will reflect an understanding of the mentoring process.
2. Students will explore and reflect on their process of music making and self discovery.
3. Students will become mentors of themselves and describe their process of acquiring skills in music technology.
4. Students will acquire a sense of technology as a process and extension of their own capacities.
5. Students will demonstrate skills in basic core of multimedia techniques of scanning, video capture, digital audio.
6. Students will establish and maintain a public and private website
7. Students will select and gain specific skills in some aspect of music technology:
   • using digital sequencer to create sound compositions/arrangements
   • using digital notation program to compose and arrange for acoustic instruments and voice
   • using MIDI technology for live performance and improvisation
   • using an authoring program to create educational materials
   • using html and authoring tools on the World Wide Web to establish a learning/mentoring project
8. Students will demonstrate the use of the web and the internet as an enhancement to teaching and self-discovery.

You are required to open your free student internet account in order to experience the full range of course experiences.

The Internet

You are introduced to the Internet as a resource and a means of organizing and saving time, especialy through the WWW and web Publishing.

The Studio

The course meets in Studio E and utilizes the equipment and software in the development of skills, techniques, and understandings.

Mentoring Yourself

Exploring yourself as student/teacher/student....

Workshop of Yourself

Technology as an extension of human consciousness and activity...you are working on the technology of yourself....

Students choose their focus for the course by selecting which technologies they wish to pursue after a brief introduction to the options. Paths of personal inquiry are selected on the web. The students record their personal paths and progress on the web in a public sector and in a private journal. No two paths will be identical because the students will pursue their understanding and skills from a variety of options. Students will be engaged in exploring the mentoring process with the class instructor and among themselves. The focus of the course is on the process of acquiring technology as it pertains to music making and making music.

Common Text:
Pirsig, R. M, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 1974, New York: Bantam Books.

Course Assignments

Course assignments will include daily assignments in music technologies, internet, World Wide Web, self reflection, creating, music making, and discovery.

Term Project and Evaluation

Develop a Music Technology/ Collaborative project somehow involved with music making or teaching and learning and along with this activity:

1.Keep an intensive journal and use the material from the journal to develop strategies that would enable you to establish a deeper rapport and interactive process in your creating, performing, and teaching.

All materials will be presented on the WWW.

Evaluation

Students will conduct a self evaluation in dialogue with others and the class mentor. Students will be evaluated on their daily involvement and their progress.

Websites

References

1. Boyd, J., Musicians in Tune. 1992, New York: Fireside Simon and Schuster. 288.

2. Dewey, J., Art as Experience. 1979, New York: Paragon Books. 355.

3. Eisely, L., The Unexpected Universe. 1969, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. 239.

4. Ghiselin, B., ed. The Creative Process. 1952, Mentor Books: New York. 249.

5. Hamel, P.M., Through Music to the Self. 1978, Longmead: Element Books, Ltd. 225.

6. Hemingway, E.,"A Clean, Well-lighted Place," in The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. 1966, Charles Scribner's Sons: New York. p. 379-383.

7. Henri, R., The Art Spirit. 1951, New York: J. B. Company. 226.

8. Herrigel E., Zen in the Art of Archery. 1989, New York: Vintage Books. 81.

9. Huang, Chungliang Al and Jerry Lynch. Mentoring: The Tao of Giving and Receiving Wisdom. 1995, Harper Collins Publishers, New York.
   
   
10. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. 1964. McGraw-Hill.
    
    
11. Novak, M., The Experience of Nothingness. 1971, New York: Harper and Row, Publishers. 146.

12. Pirsig, R. M, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 1974, New York: Bantam Books. 150.

13. Watts, A. W., The Book. 1966, New York: Collier Books. 150.

Copyright by Prof. John V. Gilbert

Send feedback or questions to john.gilbert@nyu.edu