Week 11 continued: 11/2/11 It is Wednesday and I arranged with my piano student Melissa to do our final filming of our piece together with me using the pedals on the organ. I tried to find a book on the organ, but only found a book that was publiched in 1957 and is very technical and not for lay people like me. I think I need "The Organ for Dummies". I will look again and hopefully I will find a better book on how to use the organ stops and how to use the pedals. In the meantime, I will continue to learn after this journal is handed in because this is a topic that I want to improve in my life. It has significance to me and that is what motivates a student to want to learn. As teachers we must strive to make learning relevant to our children's lives. This is a great responsibility and a difficult task. The fact that there are so many varied personalities with varied wants and interests is a challenge to any teacher.
Joy and I went over to the church at 4:00 and I practiced for an hour and then Melissa was able to come. We practiced for another 45 minutes and then Joy filmed us playing for another 30 minutes. It has my feet coming in nicely at the end. Much better than the practice that we did on week 6. I have improved. I have learned to put the pedals into the end of the piece. I need to keep working on learning the pedals for the rest of the song. It does not come easily to me. I am a bit uncoordinated apparently, but I can learn. Just like all students can learn, so can I. I will keep practicing to gain the automaticity that is required at the organ. It is a lot of work to learn something new. As teachers it is good for us to realize the struggle. Hopefully this assignment will make us more simpathetic to our little learners for we have a renewed personal knowledge of how difficult learning something new can be.
Thank you, Dr. Carr for this class and this assignment. I feel I gave it my best effort. I practiced two or more hours most weeks. I definitelly learned that learning something new is a challenge. We need to make our learning environment as appealing and conducive to learning as possible for this is not an easy task we ask of these children. In Chapter 3 we learned about creating a learning focused classroom. I hope to create this in my class. I hope to make coming to school worthwhile, a place that children want to come to. I will be understanding when learning something new is difficult, but I will have high expectations also and then scaffold them to be able to achieve the desired end result. THE END
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Monday, October 31, 2011
Learn Something New
Week 11 10/31/11: Well this is that last week for writing in this journal. I have diligently tried to keep up on the writing and the practicing. I have enjoyed this medium of journal keeping on the blog. Classrooms where everyone has a computer would do well to have the students keep a journal on their own blog. It could encompass their math journal, reading journal, science journal and maybe even a 'Learn Something New' journal.
I have found learning something new to be challenging and difficult. I really thought I would be able to be successful at using the organ pedals if I just practiced enough. I believe now that it will take me a year of practicing to be able to do the pedals for one piece. That is not a bad goal. I think, being the lifelong learner that I am, that I will set that goal for myself. I will choose a hymn and work to learn the pedals. I'll give myself a year but no more! Wednesday Melissa and I will play our final rendition of 'All Creatures of Our God and King'. It will hopefully be beautiful even though the use of the pedals is limited. I will practice tomorrow and hopefully be ready for our taping on Wednesday.
Thank you, Dr. Carr, for having us do this exercise. It has been eye opening to see how difficult learning something new can be. I did think that I would be successful. I didn't realize that after all of this practicing, that I would feel so very unsuccessful. But, it just means that more practice is required and patience, just as students, especially students with disabilities require more practice and patience (Eggen, 2012). (I just read that in our Chapter 9 reading today). (This is not the end, go on to November's posts).
I have found learning something new to be challenging and difficult. I really thought I would be able to be successful at using the organ pedals if I just practiced enough. I believe now that it will take me a year of practicing to be able to do the pedals for one piece. That is not a bad goal. I think, being the lifelong learner that I am, that I will set that goal for myself. I will choose a hymn and work to learn the pedals. I'll give myself a year but no more! Wednesday Melissa and I will play our final rendition of 'All Creatures of Our God and King'. It will hopefully be beautiful even though the use of the pedals is limited. I will practice tomorrow and hopefully be ready for our taping on Wednesday.
Thank you, Dr. Carr, for having us do this exercise. It has been eye opening to see how difficult learning something new can be. I did think that I would be successful. I didn't realize that after all of this practicing, that I would feel so very unsuccessful. But, it just means that more practice is required and patience, just as students, especially students with disabilities require more practice and patience (Eggen, 2012). (I just read that in our Chapter 9 reading today). (This is not the end, go on to November's posts).
Learn Something New
Week 10: 10/27/11 I practiced on the piano again for 30 min. I am sad that I can't focus on the hands and my feet at the same time. The only place that I can really do the pedals is at the end. It sounds great and the hands are not changing while I come up the scale with the pedal. Since the hands are just holding down chords, I can concentrate on moving my foot. What is discouraging is that my student Melissa last week, sat down for the second time to try the organ and she brought a piece with her that she practiced the hands and now wanted to try the feet. She was amazing. I don't know how she was able to do so well. I feel perhaps like special ed kids feel when the other students in the class understand that math problem, and they just don't see it. My feet surely do not see the pedals. I don't know how she was able to coordinate her hands and feet so well. Wow! It was shocking. I just have to accept the fact that some people can achieve more in some areas than others. Perhaps playing the foot pedals takes kinesthetic intelligence and perhaps that is what I do not have. I used to be athletic and coordinated, but my body does not let me do much in the way of athletics anymore. So, perhaps I am losing my kinesthetic intelligence and that is why I cannot coordinate my feet and hands like Melissa can. I was really beginning to wonder how anyone manages to play the pedals. Since witnessing Melissa do it so effortlessly, I realize that some people can do it quite easily.
10/28/11: It is alright that Melissa is so great on her first attempt to try the pedals. I said earlier it was her second time at the organ, because two weeks ago, after we tried our piece, she came over and played the organ just for fun. She didn't attempt the pedals then, but just played some hymns and goofed off with this new, fun, instrument. So when she came prepared to try her organ piece, I was amazed that she could play those pedals with relative ease. They were not perfect, but she was playing them and was not afraid to try. I practiced for 30 minutes again.
10/28/11: It is alright that Melissa is so great on her first attempt to try the pedals. I said earlier it was her second time at the organ, because two weeks ago, after we tried our piece, she came over and played the organ just for fun. She didn't attempt the pedals then, but just played some hymns and goofed off with this new, fun, instrument. So when she came prepared to try her organ piece, I was amazed that she could play those pedals with relative ease. They were not perfect, but she was playing them and was not afraid to try. I practiced for 30 minutes again.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Learn Something New
Week 9 10/21/11: I met Melissa at the church for her organ/piano lesson. She is wanting to learn how to play the organ now too. She played a piece that she started working on at home on her piano. She did amazingly well at playing it on the organ and adding the foot pedals. I am now thinking that it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I have been practicing for weeks now and I am not as proficient with the pedals as she was on her first try. Hmmmmmm. Hopefully this humiliation is making me a much more understanding teacher when I try to teach someone how to do fractions and they just don't get it. I'll be able to remember back to the organ footpedals and just sigh.
We practiced our duet for 30 minutes. It sounds great together for if one of us makes a mistake it is not noticed because the other instrument is carrying the sound.
10/23/11: There are not any You Tube videos on the stops of an organ. I am surprised. I shall have to go to the library. Hey, we have a library at school. I'll checkit out!
10/23/11: My son Jens comes home in less than two weeks!! He comes home from two years in Chile on Nov. 4, Friday. We present our Learn Something New project on Monday the 7th.
We practiced our duet for 30 minutes. It sounds great together for if one of us makes a mistake it is not noticed because the other instrument is carrying the sound.
10/23/11: There are not any You Tube videos on the stops of an organ. I am surprised. I shall have to go to the library. Hey, we have a library at school. I'll checkit out!
10/23/11: My son Jens comes home in less than two weeks!! He comes home from two years in Chile on Nov. 4, Friday. We present our Learn Something New project on Monday the 7th.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Learn Something New
Week 9: 10/20/11 I practiced my piece on the piano today for 15 minutes, and I practiced yesterday for 15 minutes. Tomorrow is Melissa's lesson. Perhaps we will practice with the organ again. I still need to look up You Tube videos on organ playing. I talked with my neighbor who I consider to be a great organist, but she said she did not really understand the stops either. She would just practice and guess at which stops she wanted to use and then would fool around until she had the piece sounding the way she wanted. I can't get the information that I was hoping to get from her. That is how I have been playing also. On Sundays when I am the organist (just once a month), I just fool around with the stops until I think it sounds ok and then try to remember what I decided. She also said she did not use the pedals. That made me feel a lot better. I know the other organists don't use the pedals either so I suppose they are hard for everyone. This duet piece is very special though and I would really like to be able to use the pedals proficiently for it.
So to summarize up to this point, I have been practicing a lot on the piano to learn the piece. I have practiced on the organ alone and with Melissa. I have talked to my neighbor and found that she would not be the reservoir of information that I was hoping for. My pedaling is awful and I need to keep practicing. I did watch twice the tutorial video that came with the organ and learned a lot. It so far has taught me the most about the workings of the organ and the stops. I hope I can find a book that will teach me how the organ works and some philosophy behind the workings of the stops.
So to summarize up to this point, I have been practicing a lot on the piano to learn the piece. I have practiced on the organ alone and with Melissa. I have talked to my neighbor and found that she would not be the reservoir of information that I was hoping for. My pedaling is awful and I need to keep practicing. I did watch twice the tutorial video that came with the organ and learned a lot. It so far has taught me the most about the workings of the organ and the stops. I hope I can find a book that will teach me how the organ works and some philosophy behind the workings of the stops.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Learn Something New
Week 7: 10/13/11 I practiced on the piano for 30 min. I still need to develop automaticity (new word I learned in this weeks reading) with my hands so that I can concentrate on the feet. It is much harder than I thought it was going to be. I don't know how organists do it all. My hands are getting better so there is a small ray of hope. I still need to check out some You Tube videos. I'm sure there must be something on it about the stops and the pedals.
10/14/11: I practiced on the piano for 45 minutes today. It's coming along better.
10/16/11: I went to church an hour early and practiced for 45 minutes on the organ. I wasn't practicing this particular piece, but it was good organ practicing and I think it counts for that.
Week 8: 10/19/11: I practiced the piece on the piano for 15 minutes. It is getting better. Now I'm going to look up some You Tube videos. I shoudl see if the library has any organ videos or books as well. I'll do that tomorrow.
10/14/11: I practiced on the piano for 45 minutes today. It's coming along better.
10/16/11: I went to church an hour early and practiced for 45 minutes on the organ. I wasn't practicing this particular piece, but it was good organ practicing and I think it counts for that.
Week 8: 10/19/11: I practiced the piece on the piano for 15 minutes. It is getting better. Now I'm going to look up some You Tube videos. I shoudl see if the library has any organ videos or books as well. I'll do that tomorrow.
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