MACRO Circular Opus 2

Fall 1996

Next Year's Workshop

Each year we learn something from the previous workshop. While we will still present the fundamentals of MACRO as well as other elements that have been requested each year, we are also going to adopt a thematic idea (appropriate for musicians is it not?! ) that sets the tone and composition of the workshop. How do you like all the musical metaphors? Who made me chair anyway? The theme of this year's workshop is Opportunities for Active Learning. We are looking for sessions that include performances, either performances that are prepared in advance, or sessions where performances are created as part of the activities of the sessions. We are also looking for any other type of session that involves active participation by those in the room. Each year our workshop has grown. However, a legitimate concern from last year's workshop was that we were falling into the established pattern found at so many other workshops and conferences. The standard procedure of presenter/audience is useful in many instances, but I think learning can be more enjoyable, and MEMORABLE for ourselves and our students if we actively participate in the learning process. Let's share our own classroom ideas for active learning as a part of next year's workshop. Many of you mentioned a willingness to participate in shorter, 20-30 minute sessions, this would be the perfect opportunity for us to try out the activities you use with your students. Again, I need to know this by October 18th to put it in the workshop flyer.

Teaching Hints

We are introducing a new column in our newsletter called "Teaching Hints." Here is an opportunity for all of us to share our most successful strategies for music instruction in all areas, including performance, composition, music history, theory, education, and aural skills. If you have a teaching hint, please send it in to Jamie Henke at the address listed under the Call for Manuscripts.

MACRO Workshop 1996

This year another wonderful group of people attended the MACRO workshop. The weather did not cooperate, but this did little to dampen the spirited exchange of ideas that took place at the workshop. We hope all of you will continue to share your talents and ideas in the MACRO organization.

Next Year's Workshop

Each year we learn something from the previous workshop. While we will still present the fundamentals of MACRO as well as other elements that have been requested each year, we are also going to adopt a thematic idea (appropriate for musicians is it not?! ) that sets the tone and composition of the workshop. Thought I'd include a few musical metaphors! The theme of this year's workshop is Opportunities for Active Learning. While we are interested in all different types of sessions, we are also looking for sessions that include performances, either performances that are prepared in advance, or sessions where performances are created as part of the activities of the sessions. We are also interested in any other type of session that involves active participation by those in the room. Each year our workshop has grown. However, a legitimate concern from last year's workshop was that we were falling into the established pattern found at so many other workshops and conferences. The standard procedure of presenter/audience is useful in many instances, but we think learning can be more enjoyable, and MEMORABLE for ourselves and our students if we actively participate in the learning process. Let's share our own classroom ideas for active learning as a part of next year's workshop. Many of you mentioned a willingness to participate in shorter, 20-30 minute sessions. This would be the perfect opportunity for us to try out the activities you use with your students. If you would like to do a session at the workshop, I need to know by October 18th to put it in the workshop flyer.

Macro-Analysis Contest

MACRO held its first analysis contest this summer. As with everything else we are doing in MACRO, it was a learning experience. We were surprised by the variety of analytical approaches we received, which made the decision of the judges even more difficult. The judges had such a hard time choosing one winner that they finally decided to award two prizes, one to William Carmody, MACRO's "drtuba" from California, and Charles Stark, our organist from Wisconsin. We welcome all suggestions from contest participants and MACRO members alike regarding future contests.

One possibility already on the table is to choose the top five entries, rather than just one. In this way we can highlight various different approaches to the analysis of music, which is a part of the foundation on which this organization is built. Let us know your ideas! Look for an announcement of another contest in our next newsletter.

MACRO Call for Manuscripts

We are in the process of putting together the first issue of the

MACRO Journal. MACRO invites musicians of all disciplines to submit manuscripts for publication in the next issue of the MACRO journal. Topics regarding any aspect of macro analysis and/or its application in all areas of music are welcomed.

Submissions should include:

• three copies of the manuscript without identification; and

• a cover letter that identifies both the author and manuscript title.

Manuscripts should be typewritten, and double-spaced throughout. We will take submissions at any time, but the last day we can acceptsubmissions for the second issue of the journal is June 1, 1997. Submissions received after this date will be held for consideration for the next journal.

Send submissions to:

Jamie L. Henke 
Dept. Of Cont. Ed. In the Arts 
613 Lowell Hall
610 Langdon St.
Madison, WI. 53703

e-mail address Jamie.Henke-Paustian@ccmail.adp.wisc.edu OR jamie.henke [at] wisc.edu

MACRO Circular and Letters to the Editor

Now that MACRO is growing, I will not be able to personally contact everyone with multiple reminders regarding the newsletter. Please take the initiative and send in news items, letters to the editor, or short articles at any time, and they will be included in the next newsletter. We have many members who haven't been represented in the newsletter yet; we would really like to hear from them. Please list your activities in order of importance so that if space is limited we make sure to include the items most important to you. All you need to do is send me an e-mail with the text you want included and I will cut and paste it into the newsletter.

Several individuals mentioned that our flyers and other materials do not accurately reflect that our organization is for all musicians. If you have suggestions regarding this issue, please share them with me prior to October 31.

MACRO WEB SITE

MACRO has a Web site that is operating in conjunction with the Web site for the former WCBrown Publishing company and the Music in Theory and Practice textbooks. However, we would like to see a separate site developed for our organization that would include potential "chat rooms" and other easy ways for all of us to take a few minutes out of our busy schedules to communicate with each other. Anyone who is interested in helping to set up this site contact Jamie Henke or Gene Trantham. The address for the WCBrown Web site is as follows: (are you ready for this?!)

MACRO Scholarship

Included with your newsletter you will find an announcement of the first of what will hopefully be one of many awards to be established by MACRO. The award is in memory of Robert Fountain, a brilliant musician and dear friend. Faculty members of MACRO are invited to suggest their students apply for this award, and MACRO student members are also encouraged to apply.

Introducing MACRO Members

Benjamin Ayotte learned about from a symposium given at Eastern Michigan University by Marilyn Saker, our Chair of Performance. He was one of the first student members of our organization. As a prospective teacher of music theory, he is interested in acquainting himself with new pedagogical methods.

J. J. Kim was born in Busan, Korea in 1957. She received a B.A. and M.M. from Hanyang University majoring piano performance. She came to the U.S.A. in 1984 and received another M.A. in piano performance at Eastern Illinois University (1986), played with university orchestra (Mozart Piano concerto K.503), and served as an accompanist. She also received an M.A. in musicology at the University of Iowa (Iowa City, 1989). The title of her master's thesis is "opera written for television: Menotti's Amahl and the night visitors."

J. J. plans to receive her Ph.D. in music theory this summer (1996). After all these degrees she plans to return to Korea to teach at Hanyang University in Seoul. J. J. will be missed, but she is one of our MACRO members that we can keep in touch with via our Web site.

We have many MACRO members that have not introduced themselves! Send your introduction in to the MACRO chair and we'll put it in the next newsletter!

MACRO ADDRESS ANNOUNCEMENTS and CORRECTIONS

Warren Gooch, the MACRO Chair of Composition, has a new and much simpler e-mail address. His new address is:

Due to grievous error on the part of Jamie Henke, Gene Trantham's address information was not included on the list sent to workshop participants. She extends to him her heartfelt apologies and begs his forgiveness. His address information is as follows:

Gene S. Trantham
Bowling Green State University
College of Musical Arts
Bowling Green, OH 43403
gtranth [at] BGnet.BGSU.edu

A student's response to macro analysis:

(English is this student's second language. We have not edited this letter by design in order to include the student's response to MACRO in her own words).

While I was a student at the Conservatory of Madrid, I had to take two courses of harmony in order to get my performance degree. In these courses, I studied the basic rules of traditional harmony.

Later on, I tried to analyze one of the fugues Bach wrote for Solo Violin. I did not have a very good background in harmony, in spite of having already taken the two required courses I mentioned before. However, a friend of mine, who is a teacher in harmony and analysis, helped me. I got three beautiful pages full of numbered chords, but I found this big effort useless as a performer, since it did not give me any personal idea about how to play a piece. I was just forced to study the music following a lot of rules that did not help me to better understand the music.

When I came to Madison, I was encouraged to take an analysis course in order to improve my bad background (since I strongly believe that in order to understand the music you are playing, you should first analyze it). So, even if at first I was scared of it (because I was conscious my level in harmony was really bad), I decided to take a course in macro analysis.

The first classes seemed a bit strange to me. I was used to being given thousands of rules in the courses I took in Spain. Here, however, it seemed that we tried to avoid giving rules and instead to simplify the thing as much as possible. It took me about a month to understand that analysis could be turn from being a boring thing to be something easy and also fun to do. Thanks to the discovery of macro analysis, I was delighted and astonished to verify that every single piece we analyzed was really easy to understand thanks to this analysis. Analysis was now a very simple, easy and fun thing for me (just after a month of the beginning of the semester.)

In my first paper, I choose to analyze another big movement of Bach's Sonatas for Solo Violin. However, this time, I approached the task with this new analysis, instead of the traditional one I choose in the first attempt I mentioned above. This time the work was really fun. I could discover that surprisingly the piece was full of these circle progressions. And whenever I could not find a circle progression, I could find the reason for that ( the composer was trying to remark another thing, such as a stepwise movement of a voice.) So, this allowed me to think a lot about the music and to make performance decisions on my own. (For example, I asked myself: should I as a performer remark here a stepwise movement or a circle progression there? These things turned to be my own choice not a fixed thing).

For me, the most valuable things of the analysis are:

1. It allows you to think a lot about the music you are playing in a fun way. First, I always try to find the circles. If I do not find any circle, then it comes the most enjoyable thing, which is to try to discover why there is not a circle progression. In doing so, I begin to understand the music and the intention of the composer in writing the music. This analysis makes me to think about the music I am playing.

2. This is not a fixed method of analysis in which there is just one solution to a problem. Different people can find different ways to solve the same movement. This is really good in the point of view of the performer, because it allows you to make your own musical decisions (sometimes even the same person is able to reach different solutions for the same problem. This is also fantastic: the same performer can play the same piece in different ways and to give your own performance. There is not a correct and a wrong way to resolve a problem anymore. Instead of this, there are now several opinions of the same thing, and all of them are right. So, for the first time, analysis is for me something personal in which I can say something in my own way instead of just following the same rules for everybody.

The most beautiful thing of being a performer is to be able to give your own performance, without copying anybody else's ideas. This is what gives the music its pleasure, not just to the performer, but to the audience. In order to have your ideas of a piece, you must first analyze and study the music you are going to play. In order to have your own ideas of a piece, the analysis you do should give you some freedom to make your own decisions. For me, that is the thing macro analysis has given me: the chance to play the pieces in my own way., without having to ask myself if it is wrong or right. Without any doubt it is always right, since it is based on my own principles (after of course, a careful study of the piece, in order to make these decisions).

MACRO NEWS

Brandy Gerber was recently awarded a graduate assistantship in music theory at Eastern Michigan University for the 1996-97 school year. Her duties will include the assessment and supervision of the undergraduate keyboard harmony studies. Brandy is currently pursuing a master's degree in theory/literature and harpsichord performance at EMU. She was the first student to become a member of the MACRO organization.

Gene Trantham will be teaching a graduate seminar, "Analysis for Performers," during the spring semester at Bowling Green State University, using the macro-analysis method. This will be the first time a graduate level course at BGSU has included MACRO research at the graduate level.

I know we have more MACRO news out there! Please submit items to the news letter. It only takes a few minutes to e-mail a news item in, while each small part that each member plays can have a very lasting effect on the organization as a whole. Don't be shy, anything and everything is news worthy in this organization!

Macro Analysis and Performance:

Assisting Continuo Keyboardists

One of the primary goals of the Macro Analysis Creative Research Organization is to promote multidisciplinary uses for the macro analysis system. The symbols associated with the system serve well in theory studies, but can additionally be employed to assist performers. A case in point is the use of macro symbols to

assist continuo keyboardists realize a figured bass part. Sadly, the art of continuo playing has diminished since its golden years in the Baroque Era, but with the application of macro symbols to a figured bass, a continuo performer gains the essential information in a compact format and is assisted in realizing the basic harmonic structures. Additionally, the slurs associated with this symbol system alert the performer to areas of circle-of-fifths occurrence and can help to signal common cadential formula. The macro symbols are not intended as a replacement for the figured-bass system, but instead, to serve as a performer's guide.