25 Mar
2009
25 Mar
'09
5:38 a.m.
Intuition improves itself by learning.
This is my most beloved pedagogical principle.
I must constantly disabuse my composition students of the notion that "composing systematically" and "composing by ear" are entirely different activities, as though "The Ear" were totally disconnected from "The Mind" (of course, the ear is the more romantic homunculus in this scenario).
I say, the best time to look for constraints on your freedom is when you feel the most intuitively "free..." it's possible someone else is doing the thinking for you (see ProTools), and the constraints that are there are really the ones that are your own and haven't inspected yet. This is something that learning addresses.
Matt