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!