Tufts University - Jumbo Yearbook (Medford, MA)

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impatient with mediocrity.” His courses aim at the time when a person will recognize the greatness of a piece of music, not because he is told about it, but because of “his jubilation, due to his enhanced sensitivity at his own revelation through direct personal experience, that it is meaningful and has relevence.” Mr. Abott believes that it is impossible to make any sig¬ nificant comparison between classical forms, which are his main preoccupation, and more popular music. He points out that popular music is fine within its own sphere, but that it is not art-music. However, he is quick to add, “Nobody says that serious art-music is better than, say, jazz, because they are different things.” He finds the current trend toward using electronic devices for the production of serious music to be an “exciting field” fraught with “infinite possibilities.” He states that most laymen criticize this avant-garde form only because they are too attached to traditional harmonic and performance media. The layman’s claim that this new form is not music has its basis in the fact that without these traditional modes of presentation, he is left “with nothing to hang his hat on.” Professor Abbott is also a student of the violin and spends a good deal of his time playing chamber music. Nevertheless, he says, “I balk a little bit at trying to pin down a special musical interest since a truly musical person is not a special¬ ist. The very nature of the art prevents him from channeling his energies in only one direction.” Some of the other directions into which Mr. Abbott is channeling his energies are as a student at Boston University, where he is studying for his Doctorate of Music, and as the musical director of his church in Weyland. Professor Abbott continues to draw his greatest satisfac¬ tion from teaching. He calls it “the missionary aspect of the art.”

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Daniel C. Abbott “In most people, the most underdeveloped sense organ is the ear.” So says Assistant Professor of Music, Daniel Abbott, whose three semester introductory course sequence has become so popular that he has been forced to use Cohen Auditorium as a classroom. Professor Abbott, the holder of B.A. and A.M. degrees from Brown University, is keenly aware of the drawbacks inherent in such an overcrowded situtation. Nevertheless, he is extremely reluctant to exclude any student from what he calls a “liason with the art.” In fact, he finds that “the whole problem of talking about music is an alien thing, since music is meant to be listened to, not talked about.” Mr. Abbott is also aware that many students, especially those who approach their subjects in a “methodi¬ cal” manner, are disturbed by the fact that his course ma¬ terial is “not as cut and dried as they would like it to be.” With these difficulties in mind, Mr. Abbott views his teach¬ ing task as “a continuing quest for the best compromise.” While Professor Abbott does see the new foundation requirement in the fine arts as one which is “highly desir¬ able,” he points out that he was not militantly for it because of his conviction that a student will probably gain much more from his music courses if he takes them under his own volition. “My three courses,” he explains, “are not an end in themselves. What is important is the student’s attitude toward the art of music, and his future willingness to include music as a significant aspect of his life.” He is trying to promote the appreciation of music as an art “by means of an understanding of its basic elements.” Mr. Abbott points out that the memorizing of pieces and movements is simply a “convenient vehicle” leading toward his primary objective which is “to hear music, not to identify it.” When asked why he is so concerned with teaching people to listen, Professor Abbott replied, “The answer lies in the music itself.” His efforts are really directed toward the “sharpening of critical tastes so that people will become

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Dwight W. Batteau Theorem: If everyone has equal rights to his own differing opinion, then no two have a valid opinion about the same thing, or all are worth¬ less. Corollary: There is at most one God. The above statement is typical of the witty wisdom which is to be found in Stupid- theorems, a book authored by Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Dwight W. Batteau. Professor Batteau is a man of many activi¬ ties, all of which contribute to his personal dynamism and his ability to communicate effectively with his students. In addition to being a writer and teacher, he serves as the Chairman of the Board of three com¬ panies; Windward House, a publishing con¬ cern, Pathways of Sound, which makes children’s records, and Listening Incorpo¬ rated, a company which deals with research problems in the field of acoustics. He is also currently editing a book for Appleton, Century and Croft with the rather chewy title of Instrumentation in Biology Informa¬ tion Theory in the Medical, Psychological and Biological Fields. In addition to these occupa¬ tions, Dr. Batteau is engaged in two research projects for the Navy. The first of these in¬ volves the effort to establish meaningful vocal communication between men and dolphins. His second project entails research into pattern recognition in underwater acoustics for the purpose of improving sonar as well as marine mining and oil drilling. Professor Batteau finds his work with dol¬ phins especially exciting because it involves delving into all the dynamics of vocal com¬ munication and learning, “how to build a language from scratch.’’ As if all this weren’t enough, Dr. Batteau still manages to main¬ tain a continuing interest in the composition and performance of music for the guitar and piano. He takes particular joy in music of Yugoslav, Greek, and Basque origin and has been on the Board of Overseers of Kinhaven Music School in Vermont. While this variety of occupations may seem to be irrelevant to Professor Batteau’s primary job of being a good teacher, he ex¬ plains, “All the teaching or research I do is essentially oriented around the universe of information. Teaching involves conveying information from teacher to student with the hope that the student can make knowledge out of it.” He points out that it is the stu¬ dent’s responsibility to turn the information imparted to him into knowledge, but that the teacher can help “by such means as exercises and problems to aid the student in understanding piecemeal what he couldn’t grasp all at once.” A student may only be said to have knowledge “when he is able to use what he has learned.” Professor Batteau, who holds S.A., S.M., and Sc.D. degrees from Harvard University, also spoke about the role of a liberal arts college in the essentially professional evolu¬ tion of an engineer. While he recognizes that