Wendelin Bitzan

Closing a chapter today: Just taught my last two classes as an adjunct lecturer at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Despite the ridiculously low income associated with teaching undergraduate music theory modules as a minor subject, it’s been a pleasure helping those students (most of which were focused, dedicated, and really smart in conversation) develop their abilities in reading and listening to music. Yet I am more than happy that I’ll never require to work as a freelance lecturer again. The concept of Lehrauftrag (teaching assignment) is one of the most corrupted and exploitative constructions in German academia, and even though the hourly rates at Berlin’s universities will rise to a €35 minimum in the near future, there is very little hope that conditions for adjunct staff will significantly improve.

It continues to amaze me how German functional analysis is still used and taught in an idiosyncratic way, seemingly in disregard of critical approaches and enhancements of the past decades, and sometimes leading to apparent inconsistensies. Have a look at the following passage, taken from a harmony script which is currently used at a German music university. The self-referentiality and dogmatism of functional theory becomes already apparent in the title of the chapter (»The subdominant fifth-sixth chord in root position«). Your thoughts are appreciated.