Dismaying But Not Surprising

In our blog-hopping this morning we came across this breathtakingly dismaying statement:

When I came into our department 25 years ago, we were requiring Freshmen in their 3rd quarter to write counterpoint in the style of Bach (fugal exposition). Sheesh, most of them don’t even know the music of Bach, much less being able to write like him.

Why dismaying? The writer of the above quote is no uninformed, carping outsider, but Roger Bourland, professor (and now Chair) of the Composition program at the Department of Music at UCLA so he knows whereof he speaks, and the freshmen he speaks of are that program's first-year students.

Goes a long way toward explaining why so much of today’s so-called New Music is so utterly and airheadedly empty, doesn’t it.

RTWT here.