So, I've survived my first year of being a DMA student. That part, not that tough. What was far more difficult was deciding to stop writing acoustic music cold turkey, switch to electronic music completely, and spend an academic year writing mainly electronic pieces. That was surprisingly rough in a lot of different ways, and I think I'm in the unique position to offer the advice to anyone wanting to try it: Don't.
Don't what? Don't write electronic music?
That's not what I'm saying. Learning Pro Tools and Max and GRM Tools and this and that have been FANTASTIC. It forces you to listen to and think about sound in a totally different way (like doing improvised music), it stretches your mind in different directions, and it's a great academic exercise. What you shouldn't do is completely jettison one of your emotional outlets like writing acoustic music. If you've spent seven+ years writing notes, and then you switch to not writing notes, the changes will be evident. Or at least they were in my case. It has been like switching languages entirely, and not having the vocabulary to express your thoughts. And that has resulted in me watching a lot of TV instead of writing music.
Luckily I'm rebounding from that, and I do hope to eventually finish my marimba and tape piece, and I'll likely use some electronic element in my dissertation. But I'm returning to the world of notes soon.
