Instead of trying to spread theory thin, in order to directly accomodate as much repertoire as possible, might it not be better to be up-front about selecting a particular repertoire, the bounds of which are defined very narrowly, and then attempt to understand it in depth? The idea is not to present a theory that will work for any possible music, but rather to show how one goes about the business of doing theory when confronted with a specific body of music.

A composer friend, who taught at a Private College from the 1950’s through the 1990’s, once explained that he used to be able to expect all of his majors to come to College with familiarity if not command over a large, common repertoire of European classical music. Obviously, that’s not going to be the case now — in all likelihood, your students will know as much if not more repertoire than previous generations, but it will not be a common repertoire, and certainly not one one that can be captured under a European classical label. So, in a real way, any repertoire you choose will be largely unfamilar to your students, and their work will be, in a fundamental sense, a form of ethnomusicology. (For the record, I’m a nominal ethnomusicology PhD myself).

I am very enthusiastic about Diether de la Motte’s _Kontrapunkt_, a book which teaches theory through the observation of real repertoire. It’s only in German, but well worth the read.

I am very curious to learn what will be done on the music history side as well — will they respond to their expanded mandate (to cover more music both syn- and diachronically) by thinning out the survey, or by taking a small but intense sampling from greater diversity of musics?

Best regards,

Daniel Wolf, Frankfurt