A computer geek in freshman music theory: only at Rice

One flute, three sopranos, one clarinet, one tenor, three violins and an oboe stared at me, waiting for me to identify my instrument of proficiency. It was the first day of MUSI 211: Freshman Music Theory for Majors. Professor Richard Lavenda was taking roll and I was wondering what strange, new universe I had entered where I was expected to give an overview of my musical history.

The fundamental problem was that, despite having spent over 17 semesters at Rice, I had no such history. Whereas my freshman classmates were able to invoke institutions such as Julliard and reflect over a decade of musical study, my inventory of musical knowledge would run like a Ritalin-charged MTV commercial, featuring a rapid succession of disconnected facts and culminating in the triumphant assertion that ‘H’ is not a letter used to denote the pitch following ‘G’. My list of famous musical giants would read like a page torn from who’s who of country music. My favorite classical CD was Bach for Barbecue.

“Classical Guitar,” I said, realizing that I might as well have named the bongo drum, tambourine, or slide-whistle. Surrounded by this freshman orchestra, my classical guitar may as well have been a set of bagpipes. But it was a classical guitar. And after spending every evening of the previous summer carefully filing the nails on my plucking hand and learning to play smooth arpeggios, I enrolled in music theory because I wanted to understand the classical music I was learning. However, all details taken into account, my only plausible qualification for this class was a sincere willingness to work hard to keep up with my freshman peers. And, because this is Rice, this qualification sufficed.

The fact that a fourth-year graduate student in computer science can join the freshman class of Rice music majors every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning for music theory instruction makes Rice both rare and cherishable. Few schools cater to students who have an inborn sense of academic wanderlust — a need to experience and embrace many disciplines. And yet, I think that few traits are more important for success and happiness in our world.

We live in a networked age in which the shortest distance between two points is the hyperlink on a Web site. With the democratization of knowledge, interweaving of disciplines and feverish pace of cross-cultural exchange, distances become phrenic rather than physical. In all of this, Rice can truly claim that it anticipated this future and embraced this new modality long before its pulsating rays broke over the horizon and dawned on our global society.

The college system itself answers the need for embedding people in a cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary environment. During my undergraduate years at Jones College Third South, I shared my floor with a pianist-turned-mathematician, several electrical engineers, a flutist, two football players, three pre-meds and a huge cast of other characters who never would have wandered through my computer science classes in Duncan Hall.

The college system taken with Rice’s unique brand of academics truly sets Rice apart. In my experience, any class at Rice is open to a student who is willing to work hard. Declared majors are not used to discriminate for enrollment, prerequisites are rarely absolutely enforced, and classmates are very encouraging and supportive of neophytes in their area. The silos that segregate knowledge at other universities are virtually non-existent for students at Rice.

This means that we students at Rice have opportunities that uniquely prepare us for the world beyond the hedges. Our culture at Rice not only models the world, it anticipates it. What you are able to do at Rice mimics what the world will increasingly become. Embrace this diversity that Rice offers. It took me nine years to walk into a classroom in the Shepherd School, and now that I am there, I am very glad that I came. And while a classical guitar may not exactly fit with the freshman orchestra, I have discovered a part of their world that fits with me.

Derek Ruths is a computer science graduate student.

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