Music and Technology, part III, KU Graduate Student Years

By Gary White

When I finished my Mus. Ed. degree from the University of Kansas I was still about one year away from a degree in music composition. I took a year off at that point to teach in the public schools and then returned to KU to finish the B. Mus. in composition. At the end of that year I was offered a two-year graduate assistantship teaching music theory to first and second year music students while completing a Master of Music degree in composition. Now I had an office, a regular schedule as a teacher, and a new wife. It was during those two years that I really began to flourish as a composer.

One day I looked out of my office window in the music building and saw a delivery truck backed up to the adjoining business school building. Seeing pieces of high tech equipment being unloaded, I decided to investigate. Sure enough, an IBM 650 digital computer (see photo) was being installed in the building next door. This was not the first computer on the KU campus. The administrative offices in Strong Hall had a computer and the university was in the process of making registration and other record keeping computer assisted. However, this new IBM 650 was for student use and one could sign up for a short course of three or four classes and then be allowed to program and operate the computer. There was a signup sheet in the computer room and when your time arrived the computer was yours for an hour. I immediately signed up for the short course and took my turn operating the computer.

This brief foray into the digital world was just idle curiosity, but the computer would be a more serious consideration when I had finished my masters degree. A masters degree in music composition was completely worthless in terms of obtaining employment. Only a doctorate would gain one entry into the ranks of the professors in any university of standing.

Faced with imminent unemployment, I responded to a call from IBM to come to Kansas City and take an aptitude test to become a programmer or systems analyst for the burgeoning computer industry. In the days before academic degrees were offered in computer science IBM selected young people of promise and trained them themselves. Music students were in particular demand because the company had discovered that there was a positive correlation between music training and computer programming. I traveled to Kansas City and took a series of tests, followed by several interviews. Returning home I waited for the results. When a week or more had past without any word from IBM I panicked and went to the placement office in the school of education to see what might be available in the way of public school teaching jobs.

There was a job opening in the four corners region of Colorado and I gave the school superintendent a call. He offered the position to me on the phone, but I said that I would need to come out and take a look at the place before I would sign a contract. I spent the next day driving out to Dolores, Colorado and a second day looking over the school. Everyone was very congenial and I found the mountain scenery breathtaking. By the end of the day I had signed a contract and called home to inform my wife. She informed me that IBM had called and they were offering me a position as a systems analyst, which would include a year of training at full salary.

Suddenly I was faced with what turned out to be the most important decision of my life. Rather than spend any time deliberating it, I impulsively said that I had already signed a contract and I would honor it. I called IBM and thanked them for their kind offer and prepared to move out to Colorado to begin work as the only music teacher in the town. It seemed that the die was cast and that music had won out over technology for once and for all. That proved not to be the case, but that momentary decision determined my career path for the future.