Journal #7: Frustration

 I broke section five of the book into two different sections, as it is about double the length of all the other ones, and I have to say, I didn’t gather a damn thing about how to play the harmonica.  The chapter starts with saying it is rather difficult to play some of the riffs.  However, I just don’t understand how to do this by reading it off of a piece of paper.

I was reminded of, as I read this section, of a part in Harry Potter where the teacher will not let them practice defense against the dark arts and Harry asks how they are suppose to do it and she tells them a theoretical knowledge of how to use the magic should help them in their OWL exams.  I am not sure if I got that correct, but I know that I don’t feel like practicing these riffs because not only do they not sound good, I don’t know how to practice them.

I am reminded, again, of when I use to play in my band. When I did not understand something I would just play with my friends or listen to it played until I got it.  It was more about making good sounding music then understanding riff patterns to use.  I feel like I have put the cart before the horse.

A third revelation I’ve come to while writing this journal about reading group texts.  If a student doesn’t understand or know a concept after reading the 2^nd chapter, or hasn’t even read the 2^nd chapter, how can I keep their attention later in the text? I ask this because I am on chapter 5 of this text and I am getting a headache just remembering chapter one and trying to figure it out. 

Maybe this is what tests are for, for us to gather our thoughts over a section of the text that makes sense to go over and then we are able to move on.  It also forces us to practice the skills necessary to move on.  I feel like the text is referencing things that I “should know” but don’t and they aren’t helping me understand at all.  It’s like skipping algebra and moving straight to calculus. 

How can we individualize education so that we don’t have students forced to go at the ‘pace of the program’ (as I am forcing myself to do in this book) and instead allow them to individualize it for their self-learning process?

Another idea for my research project:

(1) People get so caught up in hitting the rudimentary tasks of a class that we forget what the big idea is about.  I think I mentioned this about in one of my earlier journals, or something like it, that we get so focused and lost on the individual ‘battles’ of a task that we forget what the big picture is and we need to be constantly reminded of that. 

Learning how to play the harmonica is not a good enough reason to learn how to play it.  Why did I want to learn how to play it? Why is it important? Students should be able to answer these questions for themselves, not just be able to get the answer from the teacher.

Journal #6: A Moment of Success

Just played with my buddy and I think it went rather well! We looked up some songs to play and he is far more musically inclined than I so when I told him to play in G --- he did! And he knew what I was doing and I had fun.  While we mostly played drums and guitar, we also picked up the harmonica and messed with it for a while. 

Mostly played some holiday tunes.  Here comes Santa Claus and Auld Lang Syne ended up being some favorites.  He actually pulled out his ukulele and we played “Auld Lang Syne” together and it sounded rather nice.  When you have multiple people playing together it tends to cover up the mistakes of some and focuses more on the sound of the group.  I forgot that about that idea.  I remember in high school making music with them and thinking that none of us were very good apart from one another, but when we played together it sounded like music.

Idea for my research project:

(1) How important collaboration and group work can be in the learning process and how much they help with retention of information because group members “fill in the blanks.” 

Journal #5: Pre-Jam Plan

I read section four: Cave Jam: How to Accompany before I met up with my buddy to play a bit of music. One thing I appreciate about this book: It continues to harp on the fundamentals while mixing in a few tricks to try here and there. Something I do not appreciate: It assumes a C harp by the player, and my G harp just isn’t doing it for me. I don’t know if it is because I am confused by something inconsequential or if it really is an issue, either way: It is really frustrating. 

I’ve sort of made it my purpose to get an understanding of the harmonica through this book, and learn by playing some songs and jamming with my buddies.  I am thankful that I am going to this jam session with some other skills other than the harmonica (drums) and I’m looking forward to playing with my buddy. We use to play music a lot together when we were in high school and I sort of stopped playing afterwards. Major nostalgia is in order. 

Journal #4: Cross-harp Style

I planned to go through sections three & four of my textbook this week but I decided to just go through one for two reasons, the first I will point out first, and leave the 2^nd for later: This cross harp style of the blues lesson was rather difficult and I was left confused.

In the last lesson, I spoke of my fear of having the wrong type of harmonica and decided it would be fine. But after reading further, the need for a C harp seemed to be really important because I don’t have the right tools to understand the lesson. So here is the idea I had after this lesson for a research project:

(1) Not having the right tools to perform the task can make it more difficult.  Like playing basketball without basketball shoes, not having the right calculator in math class or not having the correct edition of a book in class.  How does this affect the learner?

            For me, it harmed my ability to do the task because I felt like I already couldn’t             complete the task, and further, I did not understand.  This also goes into a problem             of not having an experienced harmonica player available to me.

This chapter had me playing a song called “Red River Valley,” for which I had to listen to before I could get a handle on it.  The book said this song was rather easy to understand, but I had never heard of the song and that just made it difficult.  This got me on a search of other songs on the Internet that I might be able to play. 

The search led me to harptabs.com where I was able to search for songs that I was able to play and knew the tune to. After the search of a few songs I was led to  “Auld Lang Syne” which I picked up and was able to make the tune known to me! That was very excited.  My friends and I like to have a new years party and play music together, so I thought maybe this would be my coming out party with the harmonica. 

This idea made me really excited about the harmonica again, and helped me not get so bogged down by the textbook I was reading.  This leads me to another thought on what a research project could be about:

(2) How, if students can see a reward or purpose at the end of the lesson, then they are more inclined to push through the hard parts (or the tedious) aspects of that lesson.

One more point I’d like to make about this lesson, and the culmination of all these lessons is the amount of vocabulary involved in my textbook and the need to be able to read music.  This lead me to perhaps my favorite, and best idea, about what I might do my research project on:

(3) If vocabulary is too difficult for students (or the reading level is beyond their comprehension) how that affects learning. 

           

            While it obviously affects it negatively, I wonder this because it affects my English             classroom. If I give students a ‘too hard text’ and ask them to push through it, what will             my results be? What is the proper amount of “difficult words” to put in a text? There             seems to be a fine line here between feeding students what they already know and             overwhelming them with new ideas.

Final Point – I decided not to do the fourth section of this book because it involves how to “Jam” with other instruments. One of the members of my old band is coming into town this week and I think I’d like to try to jam with him.  I’ll use my drums/bongos mostly but I think this could be a good opportunity to pull out a new song with my harmonica and give it a go for about 15-20 minutes. 

Journal #3: Section 2

During this lesson, I went over the section two of my textbook: First Sounds of the Harmonica.  The lesson focused on the different types of harmonica, basic chord progressions, how to play individual notes & some different playing methods. 

I started the lesson fairly excited.  I was able to figure out what type of harmonica I had in my possession (A Hohner Marine Band) and the importance of what type of key it was in, which is G. See, while in a band during high school (in which I played percussion), I remembered having played a lot of songs in G, and further, the best sounding ones were in G.  That was the basis for which I bought my G harmonica.

The book uses a C harmonica in most of its imagery, and that scared me at first.  It was a relief then, when I found out that all harmonicas are played the same regardless of key.  The only difference being in each riff is which key it is in. My book called this the “Principle of Harmonica Relativity.”

In this lesson I did a whole lot of fooling around and playing with my harmonica, the most exciting part. However, much it was rather difficult and I wonder how much I will actually have to pick-up and use to be able to play harmonica.  I had heard that playing the harmonica was rather easy, and thus far it seems rather difficult.  The book does a good job of making sure you enjoy playing, and just fooling around with your harmonica --- which makes me wonder something regarding research: How much can be taught and how much simply needs to be practiced.  Thus the line, practice makes perfect. 

I feel, after today, that I am comfortable holding and playing the harmonica and I also am excited to try out some of the different strategies for sounds when you play.  However, I am a little disconcerted that I do not have anything to “show” anyone after this lesson.

I think if I keep going on like this, I am going to annoy the hell out of the rest of the residents in my building.  To put what I just said into perspective --- the first song I played was the “train whistle.”  And I practiced it, quite a bit.

Possible research topics:

(1)  The inability of online education to teach skills (such as labs, etc.) because my only teacher is the book in front of me and any supplemental texts I am able to find. This reminds me of a ‘teacherless’ classroom.

(2)  The importance of feedback in education, assessment, etc. (because I am unable to get any). So maybe --- the importance of testing to teach someone a subject? To tell you what is important, etc.

(3)  The ability of prior knowledge in a subject to help with the learning in another (I have experience with music and therefore understand it, I wonder how much this helps).

(4)  How much practice is necessary to really “get something.” How much “out of class” time should be spent on something before you get it, etc. 

Journal #2: Introduction

The introduction of the book I will be reading is a good one.  The book is laid out in a sense that it tells the “story” of the harmonica based on Adam and Eve learning about music.  It is fun and keeps my interest.  However, in this first lesson I did play any harmonica.  It taught me the fundamentals of music --- or instead, for me at least, simply went over them again because I have a background in music. 

I have a few ideas for this journal, I will attempt to keep putting together a list of possible research ideas into each journal because, from what I garner, I think that will be the majority of what I need to present.  I am fearful of not having learned anything for my presentation so I will probably just focus on my research and I want to make sure I have a good one.

First Idea:

(1) The importance of having a “big sell” to begin a lesson.  One of my teachers over the summer talked about how storytelling can be a great method for beginning a lesson and getting the interest of the class, this book does that. Is there any research to back the idea of a big sell? The importance of it? Just one idea, I’m sure of many! 

Journal #1: Pre-assessment

For my pre-assessment I gathered my harmonica and a short piece of music I use to know (Old Lang Syne) and attempted to play it.  I did this mostly to feel out how much I remember of my short experience with the harmonica. 

My ability is poor, the first thing I recollected is that you had to draw/pull to make sound in the harmonica, although I cannot remember the logic behind the method, nor when you would want to do either.  I am unable to play the piece.

My baseline of information is thus: I own a harmonica and a simple book with different methods of playing. I plan to use the book as my guide for learning.  I am a very poor player and will need to start my training from the very beginning.  I am able to use make noise with the harmonica and I have a strong desire to learn how to make pleasant noise with it.