Reflections of Summer

These two intensive workshops provided me with many different ideas:

First, music education is not only about teaching student knowledge or technical skills but also about how to be a musician. So students learn the musicianship from us, they learn how musicians work on  their music, how musicians communicate with people and how musicians enjoy their life. Thus, as a music educator, we should not only define our roles as a "teacher", we also have to be aware that we are "musicians" no matter what we teach and no matter how old or how young our students are. We have to realize we affect students in various ways. 

Second, before I feel stuck when I teach students how to read scores, I always feel sorry for them because they have to work hard before they taste the joy of music. I really want them to experience music without "conscious " notice of it. For me,  unconscious learning is the amazing part: If children can learn lots of repertoires spontaneously without feeling like they were learning. They just follow the flow of class, and gradually learn all the music repertoires and skills. It would the most beautiful learning process. 

Children learn music from playing games, imitating rhythms and singing the words or any simple words, like "da da da " or "di di di ". Therefore, children don't need to start at sight reading or at any complicated rhythm.


And in the impact, I jump from all the traditional teaching skills to very technological media, like i- movie, garage band, etc. It's a totally different experience, that I will consider including in my lessons.


Another important thing is that I start to use a camera to record my life. In the beginning, I did this subconsciously, but at some points, I can feel that  the way I look at this world start to become slightly different. I can start to look at the subject and how he or she affects the world around him. Before, I only focus on the the main subject, but now I can see the whole picture. This new habit gradually opens my eyes. I become more sensitive of everything. 


Besides, by looking those recording videos and pictures, I can find some details about what kind of person I am, observe myself about how I complete a job, what's my attitude about life and how I communicate with others. I found some advantages of recording.

Because it's always difficult  to change people's behavior, people are reluctant to give feedback. And even if some people tell us the truth, we might not really trust them. Only when we really see ourselves, see through our behavior, and realize who we really are, what we really do, only then will people start to change their behavior. For example, I remember once I recorded my student's performance, and then we watched it together. He observed himself and said: "why is my face so tense, why is my posture so weird and why do I always bite my lower lip?" I am so surprised and excited. because I already told him about those behaviors thousands of times. However he only need to see "himself", and then he can change those bad habits immediately.
Of course, this tool always helps me to understand myself more. I will know how I teach, how I interact with students, make sure that I really have eye contact with them.  For me, recording is a very efficient tool of teaching. 

Collaboration

 From impact, I realize the importance of collaboration. It never comes out in my mind before. For me, I can do everything on my own, figure out most problems. I can stay in my little room for whole day to do a job, getting some ideas from the Internet, like youtube, google, etc. Nowadays, we don't seem to need any help to complete our tasks. But at some point, my production become narrow-minded. I know to absorb other's perspective is also important, but I just never do this.

In this final production, actually I sacrifice some of my ideas. My groupmates decided a lot of details, but I come up with costume, and general idea for the scenes, for instance, the progression from conflict to freedom. For example, I wanted us to wear black and white for contrast, but we could not make it work. I used to control a lot. They always agree with my ideas in the beginning and do what they can, so the outcome is not quite what I thought. But I still like it.  In the end I am glad I did not over-insist my opinion, so that we eventually created a piece we could call "our own ".

I love my Venus group. In the beginning, they talk different language and have different habits. But I just try to be open minded and accept who they are. So then, We have more opportunities to understand and be close to each other. That's how our group works. I like all of my group. Even though sometimes I do not know what they are talking about, I can still feel they are friendly and willing to include me. I want to thank everyone for the unique experience of impact. I had a lot of fun, and wish I can work with everyone in the future.

Letting students feel unique, be part of the music

Before this workshop, I never think about perform with multimedia. Now I already think about I can hold a concert to make my students interact with some videos or audios. I can give them some children’s story books, and I can read that to them or make some video to them, and even have them arrange music for the story. No matter what instrument they use, I think they can enjoy this. Because I only use very traditional ways to teach, especially nowadays children learn everything from internet, tv, movies, so the traditional way makes them bored. If I can use multimedia to stimulate their creativity, it might be good.

If I can hold a concert with multimedia, I even can let them choreoraph some movements and combine very traditional and very modern ways to present everything.

Then maybe more people would like to get involved with classical music, which usually requires a lot of knowledge. If we can use multimedia to expose them to classical music without lecturing, they can just feel it and understand it more, especially children.  Otherwise, it’s just so boring to them.

I saw a lot of teachers, they teach their students by lecturing, tell them the history of music, music theory, and so I saw a lot of children get bored, space out, or give up.

Not to say they should not learn history or theory, but they need a way to become interested. With multimedia, they can feel they are unique and are a part of the music and the art.

***

Children don’t have that many life experiences, sometimes they play some difficult, complicated musical pieces, but they don’t understand how they should perform with feeling. For instance, if I tell them to play with joy, excitement, or sorrow, they don’t really know what to do because they do not have such experiences. But if I reference moods from movies, they might be able to get their own feeling from those stories.

Technical Difficulties

Today we use iMovie, a program for editing movies. And we always run into problems. We could not import a .mov file, and at first we could not figure out why. Eventually we figured out why, but we were frustrated.

Technology is quite convenient for a lot of fancy stuff, but even some professional engineers, they still need to take a lot of time to figure out a simple task. Sometimes it's a very silly problem, like our .mov problem.

As an educator and performer, we won't have any simple issues that we do not know how to fix. Everything is from the heart, and we can respond immediately.
Also, I use iMovie to redo my project that I made in Windows Movie Maker which is here. I spent double the time to finish almost the same job. It was so annoying. Each application has its own benefits, can do some things that the other cannot do.

From last time, I mentioned that too much planning makes people lost. The same is true for technology. In the beginning, you have good ideas, can imagine all the detailes in your mind. Then when you start to use technology, there are many ways to make you lost. First, you have to figure out how to use it, which can be slow. Second, the programs always have lots of fancy functions, so you might get lost. Third, some people without thinking, they just use those functions, and this restricts the possibilities.

We definitely need technology to help us make good production, but
if you want your production to be creative and unique, it's essential to keep your own identity, and not let technology take over your ideas.
Of course you have to be flexible in this process.

Is it possible for artist to be very creative and very logical?

This is what we talked about today. For artists, like composers, choreographers and directors, they might just come out a fresh idea in the beginning, then they have to build up their own plan to complete this idea. However, too much planning can get in the way of creativity, so how does an artist balance the two?  

In my experience, most talented music students have short attention span and are messy and lazy. But they always have better performance than other students who work harder than them.
I also taught some students who really had talent to create good music, but their parents or them just do nothing about their talent, Finally, it just become a part of their habit.

On one hand, creative students usually have talent in the beginning, but without a plan, their talents would never grow. With a plan, they can develop step by step and continue to grow.  On the other hand, if they just have plan but not so much talent, they also won't shine. I think both are important.

Sometimes, it's not that simple. Three years ago, I wrote a musical with every details and planned every scene step by step. But in the end, the music and the scenes become very bland and boring, I was getting struck in that project. I did not know how to be flexible during this connected series scene. In that time , planning got in the way of my creativity.

For people who really want to complete their great work, it is definitely necessary to be creative and logical. Although this is kind of opposite character, it indeed happens for some great artists. Of course, it requires lots of effort to make it. It is possible!
 

Concept of contrast- final production

We all live in a very complex system, full of contrasts.
Our emotions change so fast; we feel excited and happy one moment and feel angry and frustrated in the next moment.

Scene1
We come from very conservative countries, and now we all live in New York, the free-est city.

In daytime, we work, we study, trying to be good.
In nighttime, we drink, we dance, wanting to be free.

We are both angels and demons.



Scene2
So,we always fight with ourselves, but nothing changes.




Scene3
The only way out is to accept that this is who we are.
We are both white and black, light and dark, calm and crazy, loud and quiet.





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Talent Show

When presented with a big screen and very good stereo system, the audience will start to focus on every detail. This is the most important part, because nowadays it is hard to have an good environment and enough time to just focus on the present surroundings. So when people walk in to the theather, they seemingly become 10 times more sensitive: every sound for them is so clear and sharp, and every moment becomes so valuable.

I think people would like to go to a theater is because they really want a place to concentrate and feel themselves while they watch the performance. It will bring out their past experiences and feelings.

After showcase

After showcase, there have been some voices in my mind but hard to express.

The screen in front of me shows people’s daily life, like subway train, flowers, sea, people walking around...etc. I started to space out just like how everybody who walks by these scenes would do. I never pay attention to the daily background. When they put it on the big screen with very nice music and sound, these daily scenes suddenly become so fasinating

In the end, is a person's solo dancing. She just simply enjoys the music, head swaying and humming a simple song, just like how people at home will do. This deeply attracts my attention. She only uses minimal technology that everyone would know how to do, yet she successfully gives the illusion that she is the only one there. Her performance is a reminder that even a simple performance can be very powerful and that people should not forget to enjoy themselves.

2011/7/28 I start my first blog.

A lot of people have suggested that I start my own blog. I always think about this, but I never do this. Today, Dr. Gilbert wants me to create my own blog. In fact, I really like this idea, because I always have a lot of new ideas hovering in my head, however I am always too lazy to write down these ideas.

I know this must be a new experience, especially for me, the person who does not like to organize things.
So on 2011/7/28 I start my first blog.