[audio https://www.tumblr.com/audio_file/berglar/3560854507/tumblr_lhbhgyhwIh1qex889?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio]

I want to cover this song. I think it would sound nice on piano. Plus I want to work more on this vocal range. 

from the Cambridge Introduction to Narrative

"It is hard to look at the novel as if it were a kind of music, orchestrated simply for our enjoyment."

Shit. Narratives are all business. Can’t wait to get back to music.

Untitled: Why the Suzuki Method is incorrect.

The goal in mind for music education should be music literacy. I think the main problem with music education is the problem that is faced by music more generally. Music as an art compared with reading or writing a language, has not become prevalent in society for one reason or another. The result of this fact is that more extreme positions either demonizing or deifying music notation come to the surface more easily. For instance, if reading and writing were not basic skills taught in most education systems, intransigent pedagogical philosophies would be more prevalent. Similarly we are stuck, in music education, with well-respected pedagogies and teachers that hail or deride music notation.

In reality, both point-of-views are problematic because students that are taught either point-of-view are ill-equipped because they will only know one or the other: to play and not to read, to read and not to create. We cannot imagine a world where there were people that were exclusively readers or exclusively writers, therefore how has music fallen behind?

In response to your comment, we similarly cannot imagine a world where there were students equipped to read and not to write, to speak and not to read, to write and not to speak. And while students might find one to come at first more naturally, we wouldn’t base an entire pedagogy around this occurrence, or think that because of this “talent” they would be ill-equipped to learn that in which they weren’t as seemingly talented for. Doing so would seem negligent and would be the fault of the teacher, not the student for not having the natural ability. Similarly, I don’t think that we should treat music education this way.

 Additionally, all our past experiences and learning styles affect those subjects and skills that we can come to more easily. What makes learning hard is overcoming that arbitrary disposition— creating new experiences and expanding our learning styles and ost importantly: finding the teachers that can enable us to do so.

allofthismusic:

Interesting thoughts.  I think that we have to balance reading skills with aural skills.  The ultimate goal is to be able to turn symbols on a page into sounds both in our minds and through our instruments.  Also, which method is most effective also depends on the student and their learning styles and previous experiences.

berglar:

It’s true that this very sentence has been ingrained in me by my Pace Piano teacher, Yoko Jimbo since I was a wee young one. But yesterday I realized that the idea that Suzuki is the wrong way and that Pace is the right way was never logically bridged in all that time.

First, a quick intro:

As…

Untitled: Why the Suzuki Method is incorrect.

Musical Morning

sunday morning
slow beats seething
through the screens and 
the open windows
eggs frying
legs shaking
after we stayed lying
so long in bed

sunday morning
both of us reading
and looking up
occasionally
looking up
occasionally

sunday morning
you’re doing your thing
and I am doing mine
speaking words more
a formality
cause we get the feeling
of one mind

sunday morning
sheets still warm and
kitties swarming
round our feet
life comes easy
your sweet company
making it so complete

of all the monday through fridays we join the crusade
of all the saturday nights in which we were made
of all the exorcisms I’ve done with your ghost
still it’s sunday morning and I miss you the most

sunday morning
slow beats seething
through the screens and
the open windows
eggs frying
legs shaking
after we stayed lying
so long in bed

sunday morning
both of us reading
and looking up
occasionally
looking up
occasionally

~Ani Difranco

This mouse just saved my hand. i can't believe microsoft made it.

This mouse just saved my hand. i can't believe microsoft made it.

scarf as skirt. 

every now and then she has some great surprises. 

fiction versus lies

The author constructs a fictional world and we as readers reconstruct that world. 

Environments that stretch in space, exist in time and are habitats for animate agents that play out the story. 

But what if you pick up the newspaper and read that an article that you had read the previous morning was in fact incorrect. Was lying. Intentionally even? Is this fiction too?

I imagine that reading fiction is like traveling. You arrest your expectations about the new world that you are entering into. Entering it with a clean state of mind that is slowly populated as you find out more about this new place you’re visiting. 

When we read a newspaper, we’re assuming it has something to say about the actual reality that we inhabit. This is a completely different set of expectations. 

A newspaper might supply us information that is false but that does not mean that it is fiction because ultimately it’s building upon the world that is our version of reality. 

In the end it is about expectations.