Journals
I am looking to explore the topic of one's improvement in a field of study in relation to their mental state during their practice. Over the course of the past year I have been trying to improve as quickly as possible for college auditions (I plan on majoring in jazz performance). As a result of this, i have been trying to find what type of practice will yield the best results. I believe that if I could find the best mental state for improvement, I could edge out competition (not just in college auditions, but in what sessions I get hired for, what gigs I get, etc). I've already learned a lot about practice, like the fact that you have to be practicing stuff in ways that exploit what you can't do, or the fact that you need variety in your practice. I simply want to know how you should think during your practice, which is my goal over the next year.
The first website I researched essentially listed strategies for continuous improvement. There were three sections, one for setting standards for yourself, another on how to actually improve, and a third on taking feedback.
The second site I researched contrasted a growth mindset with a fixed mindset, a fixed mindset being one where you make excuses whereas with a growth mindset you make plans.
The major takeaways I got from the websites were 1) excitement could very well be a part of improvement 2) making plans could be an important part of improvement 3) there very well may be multiple mindsets for improvement.
None of the sites talked much about repitition, which was surprising.
https://www.lifehack.org/357234/5-ways-cultivate-growth-mindset-for-self-improvement
“Continuous Improvement Mindset.” PRP, www.uni.edu/prp/continuous-improvement-mindset/.
5 minutes of questions
Will everyone have the same internal reaction to the same level of frustration?
How do you measure frustration?
Do areas of study matter?
Will certain variables affect others (ability to practice for lengths of time)
Can creativity be developed outwards, or inwards (meaning will you, in high intensity situations, be able to go beyond what you've practiced, or will you have to go beyond in your practice)
How does one keep from getting distracted, is this possible to the same degree for everyone?
How do you measure improvement accurately?
Long term improvement vs. short term improvement?
Repetition vs. intuition?
9/11 Journal
How far outside the standard conventions of music can one go while still creating something comprehensive?
This is a change in topic
When considering what is listenable and what isn't, there are a few elements to consider. I first want to know if there is a baseline for listenable music that applies to all people (ie. Is there some element in music that makes it sound consonant no matter who the listener is? I am doubtful that there will be an answer to this question, but if there is one it is likely repitition). I then want to know, having failed to find an answer to the previous question (which is the likely outcome), who is deciding whether this music is comprehensive? If I can find a diverse set of listeners (I am very confident of this possibility), I will land upon my final question (the one at the top of this post), which will prove to be the most important one. This question is of utmost importance because I will be trying to push the limits of my musical vocabulary as far as they will go, but that will be useless if nobody wants to listen to my music. If I can find some sort of rule that will allow me to make outside music sound inside to even the most inexperienced listener, I will be happy.
9/16 Journal
Essential question- How far outside the standard conventions of music can one go while still creating something comprehensive?
In researching the elements of musical composition, I stumbled upon the book "A Chromatic Approach to Jazz Melody and Harmony," by Dave Liebman. This book gives the reader different methods for playing outside tonal harmony while improvising. While this book is more improvisation oriented than composition oriented, it gives the reader a great idea of how to play outside while still making the music that is listenable. Liebman states that there are a few necessary things in order for you to play outside: 1) You have to have, at a minimum, a working understanding of basic harmony and melody [and in my case, rhythm] 2) You have to balance playing inside with playing outside. I interpret this to mean, in a compositional setting involving all three major aspects of music, that one must always have at least two conventional, or at least repetitive aspects to their music while the third can be outside.
For the Person Place Thing SDA, I spent about 2 hours working on it. It was a very fun endevour, but if I had to do anything differently next time, I would have put more time into the words. Obviously, the main goal was to communicate something from a musical storytelling point of view, but I think that if I had put more time into the words, the music would have shone through in a clearer way. In terms of creativity and storytelling ability, I am happy with the SDA. I used a looper pedal to create the background music, which was essentially polytonal cacophony with lots of rhythmic variation. I then put the speech out of sync with the music, because that is something I will work on throughout the year with melody and form.
10/12- Musicians who might eventually have something to be proud of are always looking for ways forward. Exploring different ways of composing using randomized harmonic, melodic and rhythmic components is a way of finding different paths forward in music. The problem many musicians come across is finding specific ways to do just that.
As Robert Oppenheimer said (albeit in an extremely different context), "When humans can do something, they will." The reason people should care about moving music forward isn't because something terrible will happen to them if music isn't moved forward, or even because the might miss out on new and exciting music. We should care because there is no reason not to.
Many great musicians have talked about moving music forward. For many of them, it is an unconscious thing-- they practice everything they can think of, then they find themselves doing new things left and right. For some, it means getting analytical. I plan to be mostly analytical in this project, but practicing and studying what other people have done is an important part of developing new language. In this spirit, I will be transcribing a solo on my instrument every two weeks in addition to adding to my musical vocabulary.
David Liebman, davidliebman.com/home/ed_articles/practicing-philosophy/.
Doyle, Aidan J. Conversations With Chris Potter. 5 Nov. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGERvPmeHCM.
10/20 - For this SDA, I would like to write a short electronic paper describing what I have worked on this month. The paper will include audio files to make my endeavors clearer. The problem I will be focusing on mostly will be my study on rhythmic development with respect to melody. This has been extremely challenging for me, because I'm still not sure exactly how to go about doing it. I will try to hit critical thinking and creativity, because I will be trying to qualify what I'm doing to build a structure in my mind, and if I am not able to do that, I will be objective about my failure, not depressive. In terms of creativity, I will be trying to find as many ways to develop lines as I can.
I'm looking forward to analyzing the work I've done and writing about it, but I'm dreading having to insert all the audio files.
11/2- I loved the freedom given to me. It gave me an opportunity to write about my topic in the most efficient way possible. I was able to give the reader a lot of information in a short article, yet due to technical difficulties, most people weren't able to see it until many things were changed. I dedicated about 7 hours to this assignment. I discovered that almost everything in music has to be explained in minute detail so a nonmusician. The most important thing I learned about was that I have to make sure everything works swimmingly before turning it in. In terms of identifying a problem, I learned that identifying a real problem can help you move your work forward in ways you might not otherwise have realized. I’m extremely proud of the paper itself and how I laid everything out. I need to work more on my topic-- I need to move on to the next thing (harmony). Something I can use in the future is the time management I gained from this assignment. My new essential question is “How can I outline and superimpose harmonic progressions in a sensible way over tunes with set harmonies while still using interesting melodic contour?"
11/13- “How can I outline and superimpose harmonic progressions in a sensible way over tunes with set harmonies while still using interesting melodic contour?"
At this point in my ventures in composition, old things are as important as new things. I am currently listening to Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Chopin and Bach to refresh my bebop language and to get a better grasp on comprehensive uses of tension and release and harmonic movement, and for their melodic contour. Musical devices that I can utilize from these people include tritone subs, chromatic arpeggios, borrowed chords and rhythmic juxtaposition. I am reading Jazz Theory from Basic to Advanced Study with the goal of finding new progressions to learn and new ways to express those progressions (voicings, melodies, etc.). Specifically, I am looking at Lennie Tristano's solo (featured in a chapter of Jazz Theory) work on the following advanced techniques: Sidestepping (playing a halfstep above or below the chord), Melodic interpolation (repeating small melodic fragments to displace a melody) and extending chord structures by superimposing different progressions. Here are some links to pieces that have some of the melodic and harmonic things I am looking for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FLbiDrn8IE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJMIIxm1bGo
I will connect these things with my work in October by developing ideas rhythmically into different harmonic progressions.
https://routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/9781138235106/
11/20
Rhythm has been the name of the game since my last journal. I have practiced two things: the first being an excercise where I use a pattern on a scale (I was using the diminished scale, but it could be any scale, because the focus is on rhythm, not melody or harmony) over a predetermined rhtyhmic device. The pattern was a three note shape (starting on a note, going to a higher note, then going back down to a note inbetween the two), and the rhythmic pattern was two 16th notes, followed by a 16th rest, followed by syncopated 16th notes, which covers 2 beats (the specifics are not necessarily important-- it could be any rhtyhmic pattern as long as it doesn't align with the shape ex. you couldn't have a 2 beat shape with a 2 beat rhythmic pattern-- that would be pretty easy. In our case, it's a 1 and a half beat shape and a 2 beat rhythmic pattern (reminder-- a beat is a unit of time in music. It's what you tap your foot to)). The second thing I've been working on was an excerpt from Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 5. This excerpt utilizes a 3/2 polyrhythm. The melody is in the right hand, which is in 3 while the left hand plays in 2. The melody is usually displaced by an eighth note, which makes what might normally be easy an enduring task.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDTgj_69JKA
This past SDA was very positive. Arranging music is super fun, especially christmas tunes. The SDA gave me an opportunity to put what I've been working on over the past
12/12 few months into context- such as arranging techniques like padding and drop 2, or reharmonization techniques like harmonizing scales and using suspended chords. This SDA, which took about 6 hours, was completed with the purpose of finding different ways of outlining extended harmony over semi-unrelated changes, which I succeeded in doing, but it would have been nice to find even more. I might be able to improve on communication, curiosity and creativity-- I didn't collaborate with anyone and I wasn't really trying to cover any new ground in any exciting way. I learned a lot about formatting google docs. I used a lot of sources to make this assignment, such as Terefenko's book, Jazz Theory, or Lennie Tristano's solo on Lineup, or John Coltrane's Joy. I am very proud that I was able to effectively use hits to back up the melody, but I definitely need more creativity harmonically, and rhythmically (with regard to harmony). I will be able to use the information I have gained from this project in the future by applying all the new arranging techniques to my compositions. In terms of depths of knowledge, I disagree with the premise of the graph. I was at level one for the vast majority of the project, but all that time spent at level 1 (and occasionally 2) added up to a strong 4.
Lesson Plan Template - Lesson 1
Address the following in your journal posts. Note, this may change week to week.
Summary
Subject(s): Compositional and Arranging style of Jacob Collier
Topic or Unit of Study: Introduction to Jacob Collier and Collier's practice methods
Grade/Level: Intermediate to Advanced
Time Allotment: Five hours.
Objective(s): What are the goals of this lesson for you and the viewer?
Describe who Jacob Collier is
Go into detail on how Jacob Collier practices and approaches music
Outline what the next two lessons will be about
Considerations - What do you need the viewer to know before this lesson?
The viewer needs to have a baseline understanding of music theory
The viewer should probably know who Jacob Collier, although it's not required
Materials & Resources - What are you using in this lesson? What do you need the viewer to have in order to be successful?
Instructional Materials:
Piano
Sibelius
Audacity
The viewer should have a pencil and composition manuscript or notation software.
How are you going to make this entertaining and enlightening for the viewer? -
I will be playing samples of Colliers music in the video, and I will be going through topics relatively quickyl to keep the viewers attention.
Lesson Plan Template - Lesson 2
Address the following in your journal posts. Note, this may change week to week.
Summary
Subject(s): Music theory
Topic or Unit of Study: Harmonic and Rhythmic elements of Jacob Collier's playing
Grade/Level: This could be described as beginning/novice/intermediate. Why did you choose this level?
Intermediate to advanced. I chose this level because it is a step up from the first video, and the content provided in this video will be fairly advanced-- metric modulation, polyrhythms and audiation in particular are all complicated topics that I will be discussing.
Time Allotment: How much time do you anticipate this taking?
Objective(s): What are the goals of this lesson for you and the viewer?
Continue to review materials from last lesson (metric modulation, polyrhythms, triadic structures, audiation).
Begin discussing how collier uses harmony (voice leading, movement, voicings, voicing hand movement, anticipation, harmonic options in soloing, extensions). Planning to teach this hand in hand with rhythm.
Discuss use of rhythm (hand in hand with harmony). This will include many things from the first half of this video, but I will be talking about how harmony fits in as well.
Considerations - How will this lesson differ in complexity from the last?
The first half of the lesson will be a continuation from the first, but the second half will ramp up in difficulty, (from beginner-intermediate to intermediate-advanced.
The same audience from the first lesson will be able to watch this video (beginning musicians with some knowledge of theory)
Non musicians will most likely be lost, unfortunately.
Materials & Resources - What are you using in this lesson? What do you need the viewer to have in order to be successful?
Instructional Materials:
Piano
Sibelius
Audacity
The viewer should have a pencil and composition manuscript or notation software.
How are you going to make this entertaining and enlightening for the viewer? - What have you learned about engaging viewers virtually that will help you this week?
I will be explaining how to put the concepts I will talk about into context. This means that I will show the audience how to compose or improvise like Collier, and they should walk away from the video with the potential to put the pen to paper and have good results. I will also use examples and cutaways to make my video more exciting.
Lesson Plan Template - Lesson 3
Address the following in your journal posts. Note, this may change week to week.
Summary
Subject(s): Harmonic And rhythmic aspect of Jacob Collier's compositions and arrangements
Topic or Unit of Study: Putting it into context
Grade/Level: This could be described as beginning/novice/intermediate. Why did you choose this level?
Advanced. In this lesson I will be explaining how to use Jacob's harmonic and rhythmic material in an actual composition-- given the complexity of Jacob's style, this will be a very advanced video, especially considering the fact that this lesson will involve a lot of actual playing, as opposed to just knowing/understanding the material.
Time Allotment: How much time do you anticipate this taking? How has the amount of time changed since the last lesson?
10 minutes. Because of the heft of the material, I will be using the maximum amount of time.
Objective(s): What are the goals of this lesson for you and the viewer?
Showcase a composition of mine that is in the style of Jacob Collier
Take a video of myself actually practicing some of the material
Briefly summarize some of the material that I didn't get to in the last video.
Considerations - How will this lesson differ in complexity from the last? What subject specific terminology are you using at this point?
Most of the terminology will be the same (polyrhythm, sidestepping, superimposition, metric modulation, etc). Where this video will differ is the level of skill required-- we will actually be putting the material into context.
Some of the material will be at the same level as the previous video, because I will be taking some time to wrap up the material from that video.
Materials & Resources - What are you using in this lesson? What do you need the viewer to have in order to be successful?
Instructional Materials:
Piano
Sibelius
Audacity
The viewer should have a pencil and composition manuscript or notation software.
What have you learned about engaging viewers virtually that will help you this week? How will you address any challenges in recording your lesson?
I will practice speaking through my lesson before recording so I don't have to make the video as cut up and edited. I will also use more cutaways in this video-- I use them a lot in my first video which turned out nicely, and I think my second video could have used them
Before making a lesson video, I had experience teaching trombone, teaching people to play soccer, leading a brass quintet, among other things. These were uncontrolled environments, meaning I had no ability to edit anything (whereas when I made a video I could control the final product to every minute detail). This forced me to learn from my mistakes, and prepared me for a task like making a lesson video. I was able to interact with people, which gave me a more immediate feedback system as to what I was doing right and wrong, but also allowed me to make more mistakes because people are usually much more forgiving in a live environment. At the end of the day, teaching through a video and teaching something live are different in almost every way, even the material you teach on any given subject could be different, because when you are teaching live you are constantly reacting to everything your student does. One thing that isn't much different, however, is the impact of a lesson plan. Having a lesson plan, no matter how you're teaching, cements what you are teaching into your head, allowing you to efficiently teach as well as change your plan easily on the spot.
I used to think that as long as you relayed information in a coherent and logical way, anybody who was interested in a subject would be willing to listen. However, watching my videos back, I realized that I would need to make my videos a lot more interesting if I wanted people to enjoy them. I had to go back and edit my first video for hours in order to make it more interesting, a process that was actually somewhat fun, but also the most difficult part of the whole process. I often had to rerecord bits of my video and figure out how to insert my rerecorded bits into the video naturally. I had to figure out how to make the audio not sound like it was cutting away to something else every time I used different audio clips. Luckily, I managed my time effectively, so I faced few time shortages, and I was able to edit my videos with little stress.
Ironically, my strongest "C" was collaboration. I say this because although there was no litereal collaboration evident in my video, I actually reached out to some other ECMers to get audio clips of them making some kind of noise that had to do with their EMC topic. I then harmonized those sounds in the style of Jacob Collier. I ended up not using them because of stylistic contrasts with the rest of my videos, and because of time. Still, doing that helped me shape what I wanted my final product to be, and gave me more options with regards to the final product. My weakest C might have been creativity, because I really did most things in a very straightforward way, and even my arrangements were very strict in terms of what I allowed myself to do (everything in my arrangements were essentially stolen from Jacob Collier in some way).
I had never made a lesson video/tutorial before this project, so everything was a learning experience. I learned how to use iMovie, how to edit videos, and how to use loom. In order to make the videos, I had to use loom to record all of the lesson videos, followed by a period of editing on iMovie. Doing both of these things was relatively straight forward-- while I used loom, I recorded myself using Sibelius or Youtube, and I then saved the videos to my computer and dragged them into iMovie. The end prduct was a lesson video that was pretty effective-- it conveyed nearly everything I had planned, and did so in a succinct way (only 30 minutes). Obviously it will take a lot more tries to reach maximum efficiency in terms of materials taught and time used, but I'm happy with what I've accomplished. If I had to go back and do this all again, I probably would only do one thing differently: I wouldn't carry over specific topics into different videos, because I would like for each video to have been able to act as a stand alone tutorial. With regards to the rest of the project, I wouldn't have liked to change anything so much as improve-- I would like to have improved the quality of the video, as well as some minor editing details. To anyone completing a midterm next year, I would say to plan ahead and don't force yourself to follow your lesson plan.
My new essential goal for March is: Find ways of using harmonic extensions in a very listenable way.
3/3
After spending so much time focussing on rhythm and melody for the first few months of the year, and a combination of rhythm and harmony (for the Jacob Collier lesson videos), I am shifting my focus primarily to harmony. I have found myself unable to write harmonies equal to melodies given the amount of time I've focussed on melody as opposed to harmony (rhythm in this instance can be thought of as an element of melody, because it serves much more to inform melody than harmony). I hope to explore the essential question "How can I use extensions, inversions, voicings and harmonic movement to achieve a gospel sound while incorporating modern techniques (in composition and in recording).
For the next month I will be trying as hard as I can to use only direct music sources like spotify (as few how-to videos as possible to give my ear as much practice as possible). I may use Google to find sources for a variety of gospel artists.
Questions
1) Who will I primarily listen to?
2) If I cannot transribe something myself, what will I do?
3) How will I collaborate with people?
4) How will I be writing the music out? (Will I be writing the music out?)
` 5) Who will give me feedback?
3/10
How can I compose music with harmonic influence from gospel and 80's jazz music but rhythmic influence from 90's hip hop?
I will be primarily be using music as my sources (if I find any videos pertaining to my topic, I will use them).
Here are some links to the music I plan on using to find out how to answer my essential question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgqJ4g8bbps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Qj_itCW8g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPCwL__3Lss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrGHujK8rmY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psLc3Mkt8Hg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Czs7fl1r7c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VheZ90VIVc0
All of these sources contain, at least in part, the sound I am looking for. I will be listening to a lot more than just these recordings, but I will be getting a lot of my information from transcribing bits of pieces of these recordings.
After getting this information, my main goal will be to be able to compose and perform a piece that contains the answer to my essential question. In other words, I want to compose and perform a piece that contains spread voicings, inversions, side slipping, consonant extensions (and all of the other things that I will hopefully explore) all in the style of 90's hiphop.
3/17
My essential question for this months SDA is: How can I compose a piece using harmonic devices from 80s jazz music and gospel music while using rhythms and sounds from 90s hip hop music? My sub questions are "What instruments will I use to play through this composition?" and "What will the structure of the composition be?"
Over the next few weeks I plan on composing and performing a composition mixing the styles of 80s jazz, gospel music and 90's hip hop. This is a pretty big feat, especially since I don't have much experience in either gospel or hip hop music. My first step was to try and immerse myself in hip hop and gospel music by listening to it and trying to get the sound in my ear by playing through as many hip hop/ gospel chord progressions as I could while (especially with hip hop) listening to the sound of each instrument, in particular the drums. While gospel music, jazz music and hip hop all rely heavily on improvisation, I will be approaching this with a much more rigid format because I am so new to gospel music and hip hop. I will be using sibelius to write out all the parts (there will be a section for improvisation, but even this will have boundraries so I can effectively communicate the style of the music in my playing) so I will have time to think about every part. This is also where my sub questions come in-- in order to play through my comiposition, I will need to understand what the structure of my composition will be (likely AABA with an interlude) and what instruments I will use (I still have to figure that out, although piano, drums and bass are all definites). For my SDA, I will also be writing an essay with the annotated score for people to follow along while they listen.
This project is important because it is an exploration into something rarely investigated, a combination of gospel, hip hop and jazz music. With that in mind, it will be important for me to be able to think Critically, because it will take a lot of effort and conentration and logical planning to be able to effectively make this project a success.
Here are some sources I've used heavily over the past week or two.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODX6ioszoFE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AELLM7_rgZE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lrVO3pPDP4
4/14 As I think about my EMC symposium, here are my three main questions.
1) What will accompany my symposium speech?
2) How much of my symposium will be talking, and how much of it will be presenting something?
3) What will I talk about?
If I can figure out the answers to these three questions, then I will be able to get a really good start to my symposium. If I know what will accompany my symposium speech, then I can start working on that, and if I know the answer to the second question, then I will know how much I will have to work on it. The third question might be the most important, because I will need to know what the symposium will be about if I want to actually do any work on it.
4/21
My symposium will be centered around the big idea: Advancing One's Musical Vocabulary through Composition. This idea will be new to my audience (at least, most of my audience) because my audience will not necessarily be musical people. They will be friends and family (and whoever else decides to watch my EMC symposium). That being said, there is still something to be gained from watching, even if you are not a musical person. A watcher may be interested in the concept of neuroplasticity (something I will talk about in my symposium: the ability of your neurons to modify themselves to adapt to new ways of thinking/behaving) and might try to utilize that in their own lives. They might even try to compose a bit themselves, because in my symposium I will discuss how anyone can start composing using simple, learnable techniques. My big idea might be able to be google searched, however there will be numerous concepts that will be unique to my presentation-- aside from neuroplasticity, concepts such as audiation and pattern based harmonic excercises most likely are ungoogle-searchable (at least within the confines of my subject). My hook will be neuroplasticity, because-- based off of personal experience-- people go crazy over that sort of stuff.