top of page
  • musicadmin9

Summer Independent Study by Julia Moss '21

One day at the end of last summer, after a sweaty T ride back from work followed by the good ol’ Davis-to-Tufts hustle that we all know and love, I swung open Granoff’s heavy doors, soaked in the magical cool air, ran up the stairs, and popped my head into John McDonald’s office to get some feedback about a piece I had been writing. Some might know John by his slogan “a composer who tries to play piano and a pianist who tries to compose”—which is a humble downplay of his abilities but nonetheless a suitable display of his love for aphorisms— while others might know him from enrolling in his Composition Seminar or as the Director of Graduate Studies. To me, John was beginning to be a very influential mentor, as composing became a more significant part of my daily life. As often happens with us, we started off our lesson getting side-tracked by conversation about various pieces, eventually spurring me to broach a subject that had been on my mind recently: I did not feel like I knew “how” to write music, even though I supposedly had been. Last semester, I had jumped straight from the two introductory theory classes to the composition seminar, where students have the opportunity to full-on write their own original pieces. I had never written a single sliver of original music before that point so this felt like a big leap to me. John understood right away that I was asking for some sort of “in-between,” or a situation in which I could learn a specific theory concept, or analyze the music of a certain composer, and then based on this understanding write a piece in that style. He called this type of exercise “Model Composition,” and he said that there actually used to be a class at Tufts essentially dedicated to this skill. He said it might be possible to bring it back as an independent study class next semester, and that he would dig up some old materials and see if there were any other students interested. And so it began: my friend Sam (another loyal Granoff-goer) and I met at John’s office every week for our Model Composition independent study class. Each class, we studied a few pieces by a single composer—we followed along with the scores as John played through them at the piano—and then our assignment that week would be to immerse ourselves in that composer’s mind and write something of our own in that style. We started with Mozart, and over the course of the semester worked our way from Schubert to Joplin to Chopin to Scriabin all the way to Bartok. It was fascinating to discover which styles felt natural to write in, and which presented challenging restrictions that made me more aware of my own habits. As John often likes to put it, I was beginning to ask myself: “What do I always do?” I could go on about the class, but I won’t because my point here is to emphasize that a professor went out of his way to create an entire class for just two students! This is why Tufts professors, especially the music ones, are the best! Most of the time, all you have to do is ask and they will embrace your quirkiest, wackiest, and most ambitious ideas with more enthusiasm than you would ever expect.

127 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Alumni Interview Series: Meghan Connolly

We're always interested in what our alumni are up to after they leave Tufts, and we knew you all might be too, so current music department student Amelia reached out to Meghan Connolly, who earned her

Tufts Music Department Statement of Solidarity

Dear Friends of Tufts Music, I write to affirm the Department of Music’s commitment to combatting racial injustice and its support of those valiantly exercising the right to public protest. I write to

Post: Blog2_Post
bottom of page