#submediant

[the-sassy-composer]

Why Is Practicing Still Considered Necessary To Music Education?

Practicing is an archaic custom that only hurts our children today.

So this website is like The Onion but for musicians and I don’t think I’ve ever loved a website more.

[livingproverbsfour]

A Day of Music

Date: September 29, 2011 @ 11:04 pm

Books: Subject- Elementary Concepts of Mathematics

          Theology- The Four Loves

          Education- 3,000 years of Educational Wisdom

          Truffle- ??? (still open to suggestions)

Tidbit of the Day:

I had, in fact, been avoiding the math textbook (for obvious reasons, I'm sure). I was worried it would slow down my momentum and energy for the task ahead. Can I tackle any subject? Can I teach myself from books, long abandoned on shelves, in corners of the library people void? The Elementary Concepts of Mathematics is a math textbook from the 40s and has proven highly entertaining thus far, I quite wish I hadn't put it off.

Today's tidbit is humor from the textbook:

   “Phyllis' requirements in a man are that 1) either he drives a sports car or that 2) he is both 6 feet tall and a good dancer. (Of course, if he has all three attributes, so much the better. but one should not be too particular.)"

Hahaha. I loved the emphasis on the "too" particular.Another for your enjoyment:

"There are properties which a set of cows has which a set of theorems do not have- you cannot milk a theorem or prove a cow."

I'd like to see someone try though!

Needless to say, aside form the humor, the textbook is exactly that- a textbook. It is challenging and even in the first chapter I have learned new things about math. Huzzah!

Thoughts from Classes:

Today's thought comes from Intro to Education.

Question: Are we simply preparing kids for testing or are we educating them?

Interesting fact we learned today: America is way behind in mathematics and reading comprehension in relation to other developed nations but we are number one as far as confidence. More students in the US  believed they were doing well in school then any other nationality of student.

Are we developing confident students with nothing have confidence in?

The answer is yes. Most would agree that the education system in America is failing, and failing fast. The problem is trying to solve the problem. I don't pretend to have the answer (except for the impossibility of firing every bad teacher and hiring newer more competent ones, distributing funds evenly across the states and cities,  disbanding the unions, not allowing students to slide by....) but I do not that where we are at now is not a good place to be.

New Word:

Submediant: the sixth tone of a diatonic scale, being midway between the subdominant and the upper tonic.

  found in my guitar chord book

Guitar:

Today was a long, slightly bad, day. On those kind of days all I want to do is play the guitar. So that's what I did. Every free second I had (which wasn't much... I ended up playing pretty late)- namely, 6 hours.

It was great though. I went through and played all the major scales until I was annoyed with them but thought I'd mastered them pretty well.

I learned the intro to Shadow on the Wall by Brandi Carlile.

I practiced the intro to The Cave some more.

I messed around with barre chords and moveable chords (used to hate them before I understood them- now I love them!)

Read a bunch of music theory stuffs and got a general idea about relative minors and cycles of fourths/fifths.

Basically a largely successful day for guitar. And my fingers hurt.

Bible:

Here I will in the future attempt to type that day’s verses from memory but I haven’t started today. I’m starting Oct. 3rd, the first week day of the month. So… yep.

(Confused? Read this: http://dft.ba/-beginhere)

[submediant-blog]

Things about today:

I'm learning patience and how to think; I don't have to jump to jealousy when my boyfriend says he was out at a club all last night.  I don't have to jump to insecurity when he says he saw his ex girlfriend.  I don't have to feel that empty feeling inside that comes with doubt.  I can choose to trust him.  Choose to believe him every time he tells me I'm beautiful, when he says I'm amazing, and when he says that I'm his.  Choose to appreciate his honesty and appreciate myself, instead of wonder if I'm enough.  I don't have to feel sad.  That's what trust is about:)

I've sat in this chair on tumblr, twitter, and facebook all day, now on my fourth cup of coffee, eating nutella with a spoon, listening to the thunderstorm outside.  My mind is in a thousand different places, but I'm learning to love.  To love my life, to love others, to love myself.  It is easy for me to love, though, when nothing is going wrong.  I'm afraid that the moment things go awry that I will lose hope again, fall into the downward spiral.

That doesn't have to happen.