1.
Re: Friday, February 26, 2010's Surrender Value post, I said: There's more to language learning than memorizing vocabulary. A communicative approach is higher-surrender.
I wonder if this is true...
One way to test would be the scrolling piano-roll sight-readers thing (which I'll describe in a future post).
2.
I wonder if practice without performance imperatives, where social (and economic) feedback (and incentives) affect the role of "creativity," execution, speed, reactivity, etc. is doomed to never be as effective as practice where you aren't "struggling"...
3.
I think communicative playing involves (or is related to) listening, grooving, relaxing.
4.
To vary a riff and groove on a tune, try: listening for melodies within melodies, playing subtly with dynamics, taking certain notes out, and/or shifting your multimeter perspective.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Groove-Based
Just a reminder: the keeping of an ostinato (and especially a simple one) allows you to musick at the same time as concentrate on (item by item, cyclically or Gestalt) various aspects of playing: form, feel, awareness, etc., If you're thinking about forward movement all the time, about what comes next, where it could go (or where it can't), etc. it seems to me that at least some of your concentration is diverted away from those aspects of playing.
Another (Partial) List
Approaches to Practicing/
Things to Think About While Practicing/
Phases of a Practice Session
a. memorization (step by step, slow); incl. play through the things you know to refresh familiarity
b. form (slow to fast); concentrate on Feldenkrais stuff, the "feel"
c. reactivity (different speeds);
d. flow/groove (different speeds);
e. concentration/focus
One of the points here is that, whereas yesterday I was feeling burdened by the reduction of my practicing to little more than memorization, today, I'm recognizing the importance of memorization in the total package of what makes an effective practice approach--whether the individual components of such a package are parsed out and dealt with individually (30 minutes of memorization, followed by 45 minutes of work on form, etc.) or whether as part of a kind of Gestalt approach.
Things to Think About While Practicing/
Phases of a Practice Session
a. memorization (step by step, slow); incl. play through the things you know to refresh familiarity
b. form (slow to fast); concentrate on Feldenkrais stuff, the "feel"
c. reactivity (different speeds);
d. flow/groove (different speeds);
e. concentration/focus
One of the points here is that, whereas yesterday I was feeling burdened by the reduction of my practicing to little more than memorization, today, I'm recognizing the importance of memorization in the total package of what makes an effective practice approach--whether the individual components of such a package are parsed out and dealt with individually (30 minutes of memorization, followed by 45 minutes of work on form, etc.) or whether as part of a kind of Gestalt approach.
A Blog?
I wonder if blogging really the best way to go about this . . . I think that some kind of "interactive, public document of my developing thoughts on skills acquisition, pedagogy, and practice" is a very good idea. (I might think it were a great idea if I had some readers and some people with whom to interact.) But the format of a blog (with its largely--if not entirely--chronological interface) just doesn't facilitate the kind of manipulation of data that I think would be most effective for stimulating discussion and innovative, problem-solving ideas.
As an example: from the last post until now (and I still have 30 min. left in the session for today), I've realized that one thing I want to do is develop a few lists from which, say, some keywords could be derived (cf. olympic skiers) so that I can get to where I am now in the session* faster, and so that I can generally waste less practice time. *(You see . . . despite what I wrote in the last post, I now feel very "warmed-up." I've stopped [or maybe, relaxed] concentrating so much on memorizing vocabulary and instead, am paying closer attention to form and generally just moving across the keyboard more slowly. As a result, I feel that the last hour and a half was more productive than the first two hours.) Two lists in particular I'd like to see (and have accessible, not chronologically, but in some other, more spatially interactive way) are:
1. Xylophone Skills
a. imagining a melody and choosing the keys that correspond (relative to position)
b. parallel octave jumping in singles, doubles, triples, etc.
c. rolls
d. 4s and 5s
e. left/right independence
f. on the fly cross rhythm and polymeter creation
g. recalling & reproducing memorized patterns
2. Keywords for Form (cf. Feldenkrais Awareness)
a. relaxed. no tension.
b. wrists straight. wrist snap.
c. thumb position. thumb snap.
d. middle finger second digit, pinch to thumb.
e. shape of bend of support fingers.
f. elbows.
These lists are obviously incomplete, and I'd like to continue to add to them, refine them, but again, because the format of the blog is chronological, what am I going to do, hunt through all the previous posts to find each time I mention new thought/idea "x" so that I can add it to category/configuation "y"?
I think some parts of the blog format are really good. (It IS useful to be able to access this information chronologically if that's what's called for in a given situation, and I like the idea of adding a video component, for example, but there need to be other options as well, as in the case of the specific situation I just described.) Or as in this other example:
I came up with the idea about a half an hour ago to follow a pattern of waking up early and beating the crowds to the practice rooms so that I can use the mirrors in the big room (and so, get visual feedback on some of the form keywords I just listed.) Well, good. Now I've blogged that idea. There it is. The idea is written down. Which is good because I'm so busy, I may not have a chance to implement that (or some other) idea for a few days. But how likely is it that I'll remember in a few days that I even had that idea? And what if a few days becomes a few months? Unless the blog allows me (and others) to access (and reorganize) such ideas in a convenient way, what's the point of writing them down at all?
As an example: from the last post until now (and I still have 30 min. left in the session for today), I've realized that one thing I want to do is develop a few lists from which, say, some keywords could be derived (cf. olympic skiers) so that I can get to where I am now in the session* faster, and so that I can generally waste less practice time. *(You see . . . despite what I wrote in the last post, I now feel very "warmed-up." I've stopped [or maybe, relaxed] concentrating so much on memorizing vocabulary and instead, am paying closer attention to form and generally just moving across the keyboard more slowly. As a result, I feel that the last hour and a half was more productive than the first two hours.) Two lists in particular I'd like to see (and have accessible, not chronologically, but in some other, more spatially interactive way) are:
1. Xylophone Skills
a. imagining a melody and choosing the keys that correspond (relative to position)
b. parallel octave jumping in singles, doubles, triples, etc.
c. rolls
d. 4s and 5s
e. left/right independence
f. on the fly cross rhythm and polymeter creation
g. recalling & reproducing memorized patterns
2. Keywords for Form (cf. Feldenkrais Awareness)
a. relaxed. no tension.
b. wrists straight. wrist snap.
c. thumb position. thumb snap.
d. middle finger second digit, pinch to thumb.
e. shape of bend of support fingers.
f. elbows.
These lists are obviously incomplete, and I'd like to continue to add to them, refine them, but again, because the format of the blog is chronological, what am I going to do, hunt through all the previous posts to find each time I mention new thought/idea "x" so that I can add it to category/configuation "y"?
I think some parts of the blog format are really good. (It IS useful to be able to access this information chronologically if that's what's called for in a given situation, and I like the idea of adding a video component, for example, but there need to be other options as well, as in the case of the specific situation I just described.) Or as in this other example:
I came up with the idea about a half an hour ago to follow a pattern of waking up early and beating the crowds to the practice rooms so that I can use the mirrors in the big room (and so, get visual feedback on some of the form keywords I just listed.) Well, good. Now I've blogged that idea. There it is. The idea is written down. Which is good because I'm so busy, I may not have a chance to implement that (or some other) idea for a few days. But how likely is it that I'll remember in a few days that I even had that idea? And what if a few days becomes a few months? Unless the blog allows me (and others) to access (and reorganize) such ideas in a convenient way, what's the point of writing them down at all?
Friday, February 26, 2010
Surrender Value
There's more to language-learning than memorizing vocabulary. A communicative approach is "higher-surrender."
This, from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics:
> Surrender Value
>
> This concept is taken from the world of insurance. A policy with
> high surrender value yields a quick return on investment.
> Wilkins (1974) observes that in some situations (e.g. on pre-
> sessional courses) the learner requires a swift ‘return’ on
> ‘investment’ made, in terms of ability to communicate. Wilkins
> argues that the notional/functional syllabus provides this since
> the learner is soon able to use language to communicative ends.
> The structural syllabus, in contrast, has low surrender value
> because it may take a considerable time before the learner has
> enough grammar to attempt communication. (1974).
Tonight, I'm finding myself just memorizing parts. I'm pretty sure that memorization is a big part of learning to play. But tonight, I'm letting myself get hung up at every "mistake" and not playing communicatively at all. Being limited to just memorizing "vocabulary," it feels like I'm compromising the development of the skill of recovering from a missed note--the very skill that would supersede the need to have parts memorized (or at least that would allow for the creative improvisatory recovery from something I "went for," but missed.) The question comes up: "OK, so why not just stop memorizing vocabulary tonight and work on the development of that skill?" And the answer is: "Fine . . . and how do I do that?"
Hmm . . . I'm going to have to define "communicative playing" at some point. . . . And "improvisation."
This, from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics:
> Surrender Value
>
> This concept is taken from the world of insurance. A policy with
> high surrender value yields a quick return on investment.
> Wilkins (1974) observes that in some situations (e.g. on pre-
> sessional courses) the learner requires a swift ‘return’ on
> ‘investment’ made, in terms of ability to communicate. Wilkins
> argues that the notional/functional syllabus provides this since
> the learner is soon able to use language to communicative ends.
> The structural syllabus, in contrast, has low surrender value
> because it may take a considerable time before the learner has
> enough grammar to attempt communication. (1974).
Tonight, I'm finding myself just memorizing parts. I'm pretty sure that memorization is a big part of learning to play. But tonight, I'm letting myself get hung up at every "mistake" and not playing communicatively at all. Being limited to just memorizing "vocabulary," it feels like I'm compromising the development of the skill of recovering from a missed note--the very skill that would supersede the need to have parts memorized (or at least that would allow for the creative improvisatory recovery from something I "went for," but missed.) The question comes up: "OK, so why not just stop memorizing vocabulary tonight and work on the development of that skill?" And the answer is: "Fine . . . and how do I do that?"
Hmm . . . I'm going to have to define "communicative playing" at some point. . . . And "improvisation."
Friday, October 30, 2009
The Third "M"
Robert Epstein's Self-Help Without the Hype presents the "Three Ms-" approach to modifying one's own behavior. The three Ms are: modify your environment, monitor your behavior, and make commitments. When I was living in Mexico I would send weekly practice reports to my friend Danilo in Italy. In my apartment in Ottawa I had a posted chart (1) that any friend that happened to be over for a visit could glance at. With this blog post, I am going to make a similar public commitment by announcing that henceforth, I will be updating daily practice reports in a Google docs spreadsheet.
1. This is exactly the kind of thing, by the way, that I would like for C.A.R.P.E.T. to address. What kinds of feedback (what kinds of stimuli, presented how, for how long, by whom, to whom, with what latency, and with what kind of user input, say) make for the most effective "self-help."
1. This is exactly the kind of thing, by the way, that I would like for C.A.R.P.E.T. to address. What kinds of feedback (what kinds of stimuli, presented how, for how long, by whom, to whom, with what latency, and with what kind of user input, say) make for the most effective "self-help."
Sunday, March 1, 2009
French, Mandinka, & the Mande Xylophone
In addition to the Mande xylophone, I'm studying French and have begun learning Mandinka. My 10-minutes-a-day resolution for the xylophone has been very successful so I've thought to apply the 10-minutes system to my French and my Mandinka. And that's been going well until now. I have an observation about those studies that will offer insight to my xylo-practicing: In my French studies, I always seem to want to try to learn everything all at once. I don't have patience with myself. I try to accomplish too much, spread myself thin, and end up not learning anything particularly well. I think that (as I've been doing with the first and second batch of Mandinka flashcards), if I make sure I don't move on until I've mastered the material at hand, I'll be better off for it in the long run. I think that my French studies would improve if I achieved greater mastery over a particular set of flashcards instead of being in a rush to just get to the end of the list. Mario Gaetano (2001) asserts that "the primary goal for each practice session is progess." But progress could be a strengthening of knowledge of old words (manifested in speed, accuracy, and confidence.) Adding new words is of course important, but an "exercising" of your existing vocabulary must also take place.
When practicing xylophone, be calm. Be patient. Focus on the task at hand. Concentrate on improving the specific skill or movement. Set a time-limit so you don't spend all night on one thing, but don't just move through the practice in a hurry to get to the end of the exercises. You will enjoy your practice more, and it will pay off for you in the long-run.
When practicing xylophone, be calm. Be patient. Focus on the task at hand. Concentrate on improving the specific skill or movement. Set a time-limit so you don't spend all night on one thing, but don't just move through the practice in a hurry to get to the end of the exercises. You will enjoy your practice more, and it will pay off for you in the long-run.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)