(Music)-Tech Tuesday

ObjectsMusicians may be smaller larger than they appear: Music schools whose budget cuts has affected their ability to bring in performers for concerts and master classes may now be able to hold the same classes online with EchoDamp, a free software developed by the University of Southern California that promises to preserve sound quality over a high-speed internet connection. According to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the software, developed by Brian K. Shepard, an assistant professor of composition at Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, maintains ” a sonic environment online that is musically effective.” One of the problems musicians tend to have with video conferencing or web streaming, Shepard told the Chronicle , is because there is often a delay or echo as a result of the music having to travel hundreds, or thousands, of miles. Shepard said EchoDamp expands the spectrum of sound a laptop can capture, along with digitally removing that echo.

It seems schools may also be able to use this to record the master classes, which would be great for music students who happen to miss the performance or a class. But somehow, I don’t think this will bring Yo-Yo Ma to my living room. I can dream.

No bassoonist? No problem: As students increasingly use technology to compose and record songs, professors and professionals are finding ways to help them use digital performers, too. A great article in the Christian Science Monitor, titled “Symphonies gingerly embrace digital performers,” explores how professional conductors and composers are allowing digital performers and conducting programs into the opera houses, and how professors are trying to let them into the classroom.  Interestingly enough, Shepard (from the news item above) is in this article too, explaining which subtleties students can replace with computers — and which they cannot. The article in it’s entirety is well-written and complex for me to try to simplify/recreate here, but a few revealing quotes:

“Paul Henry Smith, a composer and developer of the Fauxharmonic Orchestra, says the development of cheap disc space and affordable processors has allowed sampling libraries to grow more refined, both in the number of instruments allowed and the shades of tonal quality available. Although Mr. Smith says hearing an acoustic orchestra “is still the best thing you can do” to hear symphonic music at its highest level, he says his device is a “viable, expressive instrument.”

Mr. Shepard says digital orchestration is best used not to replace acoustic instruments but to add new sounds that composers living centuries ago had never imagined. “I love the orchestral instruments, but I also love the sounds that are created electronically. I don’t see it as an either/or situation,” he says. “I certainly hope [digital media] will expand our [aural] color palette.”

And lastly, something I don’t consider music: J-school students at Columbia University rapping about ethics. Amusing, but I’m glad this guy is pursuing journalism.

Hear Women Roar.

I’m no crazy feminist, but I’m happy to take a moment to revel in some woman glory.

Postsecondary Education Opportunity, which examines public policy on education, reported at a College Board forum this week that there are only 77 American men for every 100 American women enrolled in college. And for every 100 of those women who graduate with a bachelor’s degree, only 73 men do the same.

After my celebratory dance was over (after all, Affirmative Action was created  to help women get equal access to colleges and universities along with African-Americans and other minorities), I became suspicious.

What?

More recently than many think, men were enrolling in colleges and universities at a much higher rate than women — and in certain fields, like engineering and science, they still do.

So what happened?

Experts at the forum, according to a blogpost on The New York Times blog “The Choice,”  said there are several reasons for the gap: schools aren’t in touch with the hands-on learning style characteristic of boys; young male students, especially at-risk youth, don’t have positive male role models in or outside of school to encourage a college education, and the image of smart young men perpetuated by the media is one of socially awkward teens who go alone to the prom.

Another problem is the disappearance of jobs in industries like manufacturing, experts said, which leaves many young men without any guidance about where else to look for a career.

It’s an interesting issue — but I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue from a college announcing they were making an effort to admit more male students …

Sunday Roundup: O Canada, Scary Suitemates

It might be time to take a cue from Canada: Hate on the country all you want, but it looks like they’re doing something right. Enrollment figures collected by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada show that the number of full-time undergraduate students increased by more than 4 percent, with full-time graduate enrollment up more than 7 percent. The combined total increase was 4.6 percent — the highest the country has seen in six years.

Meanwhile … An article in The New York Times reported that tuition at American four-year colleges and universities continues to rise. According to a report issued by The College Board this week, four-year public colleges increased tuition and fees by an average of about 6.5 percent in the past year, and the same costs at private colleges rose by almost 4.5 percent. Those increases brought the average price for tuition, fees, room and board to $15,213, the Times reported. At private nonprofit colleges, which the Times says enrolls one in five college students, the average annual cost is now $35,636.

Next time, just do the dishes: Something must have gone awry in a suite at California State University at Sacramento this week, where police responded to a student allegedly beating his suitemate with a bat. The student died, and his attacker is in the hospital recovering from gunshot wounds inflicted by police when they responded to the suite.

Today’s Genius: “I know … let’s cut from education!”

An exciting page in New York state’s budget saga: A proposal by Gov. David Paterson to cut aid to higher (and secondary) education.

(Again!).

Part of the governor’s plan to reduce the state’s $3 million deficit, he announced Wednesday, is to reduce spending — apparently, by cutting $686 million in education aid by the end of the fiscal year on March, 31, 2010. The reduction would be on top of other proposed cuts of $287 million to Medicaid, and $184 million to other health care programs and mental hygiene, according to the Syracuse Post Standard.

Under the proposal, about $62 million will be cut from higher education, according to the University of Buffalo’s Spectrum, which said the governor’s proposal also includes a $26 million cut from the Tuition Assistance Program, which will affect awards for students currently enrolled in the program.

TAP is run by The New York State Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC), and helps students pay for tuition at approved colleges in New York state.

Cutting this much from the budget midway through the year has struck a sour chord with many lawmakers in Albany — especially cuts like those proposed for the TAP, which would negatively affect students currently benefiting from the program and could even prevent them from continuing their degrees.

“We’re going to try to adjust the cuts to reflect the ability [of school districts] to sustain the cuts,” Mr. Paterson said at an Albany press conference. “Most of the schools have reserves that can absorb this, and if they see fit, they should certainly use them.”

Paterson has said the move would bring Albany back to “fiscal responsibility.” But part of fiscal responsibility is setting a budget and operating within it. Setting a “reach” budget and scrambling later to cover a deficit isn’t responsible, or fiscally sound,  at all.