Module 4 - Abstracting

Abstracting is when you take a subject and boil it down to simplicity; representations are abstractions. For this module, I chose to examine a piece I am teaching to my students, “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful” (yes, I know, it's way early, but we learn a lot of Christmas music and this works). There are actually several abstractions that take place with what I did. First of all, written sheet music is an abstraction of the actual music, as it is only a representation. Without the understanding that the different marks mean something, the sheet music itself is meaningless.

I chose to further abstract this piece (as sheet music is not as much of an abstraction for me anymore, as every mark on music has meaning for me) by analyzing the chord structure. Most pieces in Western music are built around chords, which generally have three or four notes, in a 1-3-5 arrangement. For example, for a G chord, it will have G (the first note of the scale), B (the third note of the scale), and D (the fifth note). Within these chords, only the first and the third are vitally necessary. The first determines what chord it is, and the third determines whether the chord is major or minor (sounds happy or sad).

Pieces often make frequent use of I, IV, and V or V7 chords. A I chord in the key of G Major is a G Major chord (G, B, and D), a IV chord is a C Major chord of C, E, and G, as C is the fourth note of the G Major scale, and a V chord is a D Major chord of D, F#, and A, with a C (the 7 in a V7) optional. However, there are other chords. There are minor chords, like the ii, iii, vi, and vii°. In the key of G, these are the a, b, e, and f#°, respectively. Major chords and keys are always written with an upper case letter or roman numeral, while minor chords and keys are always written lower case.

In order to analyze “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful,” I wrote out both the letter and roman numeral for each chord under the music. I also circled the root (the “1”) of each chord, and put a box around each third, as these are the two most important notes in each chord. This was my physical representation of my abstraction. For an audio representation, I played the piece as it was written, played only the root, and then mixed the two together to over-emphasize the root of each chord.

Closely analyzing the chord structure of a piece helps me understand what is going on within the piece. With music, you can use your gut feelings to make decisions about how things should be played, but you can also mentally analyze a piece to help you make those decisions. Often, you will come up with slightly different interpretations, but that is the beauty of music. Analyzing the chord structure gives me another way to look at it. I could emphasize either the root or the third, or only play the melody with the root and the third, I could emphasize the melody, emphasize the lower cello part, or any other individual part, emphasize the second violin part (the harmony), or do any other of a number of things. But analyzing the chord structure helps me to make this decision in an informed manner.

Module 3 - Patterning

Patterns are all throughout music, in the rhythms, the notes, even the “form,” or the order of the notes. Patterns are also all throughout life, so being able to discern and create patterns is important. Patterning is the ability to not only find patterns, but also to interpret them, make sense of them, use them, and then to create new patterns that are also useful.

Most music that most people are familiar with is written based on triads. That is, the music is based on the interval of a third. An interval is the space between two notes (counting both notes), so a third has one note in between the two. For example, A to C skips one note, B, so is a third. Of course, this isn't always the case. In the middle ages, when music was brand new, it was first used by the church, and all the music was written in fifths (for example, A and E). These are called Gregorian chants. In more recent times, composers have attempted to do new things with music, resulting in some very odd things indeed. Webern was one of the first minimalists. In minimalist music, an instrument may literally have only one or perhaps two notes at a time, with a fair amount of rests in between. The overall combination is music of a sort, but not any like we are used to. Another relatively recent development, in the last hundred years, has been the development of twelve-tone music and serial music. These composers believed that all the combinations of notes using the old patterns (the thirds) had been used. In these types, composers will put apparently random notes on the page, but they cannot use a note a second time until all the notes have been used once. The result is that no one note is played more than any other.

To create a new pattern, I didn't want to go so out on a limb like the minimalists, serialists, or composers writing twelve-tone music. However, I wanted to write something a little different, but still working with intervals. So I wrote a short piece based on the interval of a fourth. A fourth is not so unusual in music (“Here Comes the Bride” starts with a fourth), but you don't often have music based on fourths. My result is a bit different-sounding compared with what we are used to, but not completely strange.

Intervals are a topic that some students struggle with initially, but that is very helpful for musicians to know. Any musician that wants to get at all serious about their music must become very familiar with all intervals and how they interact. By composing a piece based on fourths, it really drove home to me just how dependent I am on thirds. It was actually rather difficult to keep it to fourths; I kept drifting to using thirds. This exercise would be useful to use with my students, to compose songs based on each different interval (seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, sevenths). It would really help them get to know each interval, how it sounds (some really don't sound great!), and it would be great practice harmonizing with a melody.

 I'm having a difficult time representing my composition on blogger, but so far the best I have is a link to the file that I uploaded to google documents.  I'm working on getting a recording of it, as it does sound a bit different, but not too different.  So here's what it at least looks like.

Module 2 - Perceiving

For this assignment, I will be looking at rhythm for a song towards the beginning of my students' violin education, "May Song."  "May Song" is a difficult song rhythmically, as it is the first song to have a dotted quarter note, and students have had relatively little experience with eighth notes, which this song also has.  To learn this song, my students traditionally listen to the CD and have the sheet music.  Here is a photograph of the sheet music:

Here is what the first line of the piano part looks like:

This offers some information about how the dotted quarter note is played, but not enough.  Even if I showed this to my students, they likely would not gain much from it.

So, to look at it in a different way, I used colored construction paper to create "notes."  Each measure was 18" long, each half note was 9", quarter notes were 4.5", and eighth notes were 2.25".  Dotted quarter notes were 6.75".  I laid out the pieces, with the top row showing the measures, the next row showing the rhythms the students had to play, the third row was half notes, the fourth row was quarter notes, and the bottom row was made from eighth notes:

 

Measure 1:
















Measure 2:

Measure 3:















Measure 4:

(Since the rhythm in the piece during the fourth measure is half notes, I did not include a second row of half notes.)








Using these pieces, students will really be able to experience how a dotted quarter note is equal to 3 eighth notes, and a quarter note is equal to 2.

Reflection:
 

Perception is how you use the five senses to experience the world, and how you process that experience. When I originally perceived the rhythms of “May Song,” I mostly used the senses of sight and hearing. I saw the music, the rhythms, and each of those rhythms means something different to me. Dotted quarter note, eighth note, quarter note, and half note, all mean something different. I also heard the song; heard how long each note is held, and felt the rhythms.

To re-imagine the rhythms of “May Song,” I wanted to provide my students with a way to experience rhythms in a different way. My experience and perception of rhythms is colored by my long experience and association with them. I've been playing for 19 years, so every note has a different meaning to me, amassed over those 19 years. My students don't have that long background experience that I do, but I want to enable a similar experience for them. I used colored strips of paper to represent each note, allowing students to manipulate and work with the rhythms in a physical manner.

By representing rhythms physically with pieces of paper, the time each note takes is translated into physical space each note takes up. This provides a different way for my students to experience rhythms, in a way that enables deeper understanding. Through manipulating the rhythms, students can directly experience that each dotted quarter note gets as much time as three eighth notes, and that having a dotted quarter note and an eighth note is a different rhythm than having two quarter notes, though they take up the same total amount of time.

While I have told my students this many times, they will not internalize it until they discover it for themselves.  By using these sheets of paper to work with the different notes, they should be able to discover this on their own, without me having to tell them.

Module 1: Veja Du

Here's what the pictures were of . . . my 5 string violin that has a pickup - my alternate violin.

About Me

So, I came to teaching in a bit of a round-about manner.  It all started in high school.  See, I was dead-set on becoming a zookeeper.  I was volunteering at the Oregon Zoo, working with one of the roving keepers (we got to work with all the animals in the zoo!), and absolutely LOVING it.  I thought, "Yes, this is what I want to do!"

However, about that same time, my violin teachers asked me to join their Teacher Training class.  And when I say "ask," I mean they said, "Oh, Ashley, you're going to be in our teacher training class.  It's Friday afternoons, when you're here anyway.  Bring a binder."  And, being the obedient child that I was, I did.  I really did NOT want to teach music, but like they said, I was there all Friday afternoon anyway.  Why not learn how to teach?

So, I went through high school, doing my very best to prepare myself to be a zookeeper, while at the same time doing the student teaching thing.  I had a couple violin students in high school; three or four.  Not many, but that was okay with me.  Besides, I didn't want to teach when I grew up, anyway.

In college, I kept up with my track to be a zookeeper.  I got my Bachelor's of Science in Zoology from Colorado State University, and really loved it.  I decided I wanted to work long term with birds.  After college, I ended up with a job at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, in Tacoma, WA.  So, with the help of my parents, I moved to Tacoma, and started working in the zoo world.

For the most part, it was a lot of fun.  I worked in the Wild Wonders Outdoor Theater (ever see a bird show in a zoo?  Yep, this was it, only with all sorts of animals), which was a bit different for me.  I have never considered myself much of a people person, and I had HORRIBLE stage fright.  But, I got over it, and learned a lot.  Only problem was, I had landed a temporary position.  After a year, my hours ran out, and I was forced to look for different work.

Originally, my plan was to move around until I found the perfect dream job, then settle.  But I hadn't planned to fall in love.  Shortly after working at the zoo, I met my now-husband, and found out he never wanted to leave Washington.  Hmm.  I hated the Northwest.  But, love prevails, and here I am still.

So, anyway, after a year, I was left without a job at the zoo.  I couldn't go anywhere else and ask my then-boyfriend to choose between his family, a great job, and the home he loved, and me with my unpredictable future.  So I stayed, and thought, "what else can I do?"

Turns out, I could teach.  I started teaching private violin lessons, and it's really taken off from there.  That was a little over four years ago.  Since I started teaching, I rented a studio to teach out of, and am now working on moving my studio home.  My husband and I bought our house outside of Buckley (small town in western Washington), and I have chickens, ducks, and just got goats.  I also have a number of indoor birds, two fish tanks, and a horse that I board at a nearby stable.  Do I have too much going on?  Most likely.  But I'm loving every minute of it!!

Even though I don't need my MAED (no, I'll never teach in a school setting, and I'll be doing the exact same thing I am now), I really want it.  I'm loving learning so much about how to be a better teacher, and I feel like my students have already benefited.  I've already implemented a bunch of new teaching practices and ideas.  I should be finishing up my MAED at the end of the spring 2013 semester.  I'm really excited to be done and have more time to work on some of the ideas that have been spinning around my head, but I have had to warn my husband that I'll most likely want to go back for my doctorate someday.  Hopefully not for a while.