Perfect from now on

A friend who is working on a DMA in Composition recently mentioned an exam question he has received that involves essentially becoming an expert on 20 composers -- analyzing several major works by each, completing a biographical sketch, becoming conversant in the details of their lives and styles. It seems legitimate to me that a composer getting a doctorate would be responsible for understanding the work of active or recently active composers his faculty considers important. At the same time, it´s a bit interesting that musicologists aren´t required to do something like this. Not to rip on musicologists or their field -- I know most of them are keeping respectably busy, in spite of the few who are still, for example, analyzing details of Schubert´s music in search of conclusive proof that he was gay -- but only to observe that the current academic system is not requiring them to master 20 recent or current composers in the way my composer friend must. Of course, they have your own fields/eras that they´re required to master, and which they choose based on their research. The point here is,

Gist: composers these days are expected to be our own musicologists.

This is okay. We can and should speak for ourselves, our friends, and our colleagues. If others want to join in that´s fine, but we can´t be afraid to start.

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Note re. Costa Rican keyboards and apostrophes: this [´] is the best I can do for right now, apologies for any aesthetic disturbance.

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Explanation of title.

I don´t know why I´m thinking about Built to Spill again all of a sudden. During a hike the other day "Randy Described Eternity" popped into my head and I thought about those first lyrics (every thousand years this metal sphere ten times the size of Jupiter floats just a few yards past the earth. you climb on your roof and take a swipe at it with a single feather; hit it once every thousand years ´til you´ve worn it down to the size of a pea). Then I met a guy from Idaho today. Maybe that´s it.