DONEEEE

   Wow I feel such relief right now that I'm SO CLOSE TO BEING DONE WITH HIGH SCHOOL. Okay. Bye.

Some last ideas...

   Overall, I think this WISE project has taught me a lot. I've learned a lot more about myself than I would've thought. I think it's a good thing, because knowing your faults can help with correcting these faults. In the future, maybe I'll be more strict with myself and work more on my other troubles. In terms of piano playing, I'm definitely going to continue and explore everything. Music is so amazing and I can never not be inspired by other songs (does that make sense). I've decided to start a new blog... I haven't thought of a name yet, but for my adventures during college, I definitely need some sort of journal that records everything down for me.
   This experience was fun, I got to explore with myself and with others. It's a little too late now to expand on what I've really learned here, but I can tell you that it's not a short story :)

   I did want to say, though, that if I had the chance to do this again, I definitely would not have chosen piano. As much fun as this was, I think there's just so many options that if I did something else that I was crazy about... I wouldn't have missed anything important. Although, maybe I'm just always going to want that free time to do whatever the heck I'm "into" at the moment.. haha.

A last list of some things that are different about me NOW:

1. I can read sheet music (yay)
2. I got a lot closer with my sister
3. I learned about my pushing others away
4. I realized my problems were more than just procrastination
5. I love to blog
6. I love making skeletons to work through later (backbones for what I'll write)
7. I enjoy piano
8. I get inspired with (insert selection of videos)

Dear Future WISE Student

Dear Future WISE Student,

    This is the third time I'm writing this because I lost my other two draft papers that I had before, so bear with me here if I start not making sense. Basically, when I came into WISE, I had very confused ideas about the entire thing. To the future WISE students out there, WISE isn't just your typical half year actual English and half year of randomly doing nothing. I heard a lot of rumors about this class before I got here, and honestly, I was quite scared. Since supposedly, an entire year of material is squeezed into a half year period of time, I had heard that the first half of English is incredibly difficult. However that's supposed to payoff as later, during the second half, there's practically nothing to do! NOT TRUE. Actually, I feel like the class is very well distributed, and I didn't feel overwhelmed during the first half. The second half however, I'd be lying to say that it was a breeze... What was supposed to be a half year of free periods was definitely not a breeze. It's actually kind of crazy that the notion of "the second half of WISE doesn't even matter" ever came to existence because out of all the other WISE students that I know, there isn't one that isn't actively working on their project throughout the entire period. From what I've seen, every student has passion and fervor towards their project, and it's just very pleasing to see how much everyone enjoys what they have time to do.

   So in all, dear future students... don't get a misconception. Yes WISE will be requiring work second semester, and yes it's definitely manageable. Honestly if I were given the same option again, I would definitely still choose WISE because it was one of the greatest investments I've ever made for myself.

Sincerely,

****

IHS WISE PROGRAM - Narrative Essay/Bibliography/Research Commentary

     So basically, I have decided that for my narrative, I'm going to tell the story of the lesson I learned/do some more in depth reflection. For my presentation though, that's going to be entirely demonstration of research (mostly macro?) because I know I didn't demonstrate a lot of that in my journal overall. I feel like my journal might be very similar to what I might put in my narrative, but... we'll see?

Inspiration & more - Today's Obsession: http://www.youtube.com/user/SunnyChoiMusic

    I love how every time I feel like giving up on playing something, I can just go on youtube and find my interest back into playing piano.

    Sunny Choi is an amazing piano player who plays interpretation covers of songs that are released. She plays songs like "Just The Way You Are" by Bruno Mars and "Jar of Hearts" and even Lady Gaga. I think she covers all songs that are recent/new/played on the radio.

   This is just an example, but they're all amazing, and I love how she uses her whole entire body in her playing. It's almost as if she's flowing with the song. I wish I could achieve this magic. Haha.

Wohooo!

   Tong Hua is doneeee! I thought this song would be so much easier because of how slow it was, but some of the chords are crazy impossible. Haha... I'm so glad I got over the ending bump. Even though I can't play it perfectly, when I hear myself hitting the notes and I feel them flow together and I hear them resembling the actual song, I get really really happy. Even though it's still "broken", I can imagine myself playing it perfectly with all the notes flowing smoothly. I think it's kind of weird that I feel this way, and it's sort of an embarrassing, but oh well. I just hope I can get this song perfect in the next week.
    I don't want to reveal toooooo muchh here because I want it to be a special performance when I play it for my presentation, but since I haven't really had practice with audience in performance, I am planning on playing the song for an audience to practice either this Friday or this weekend. I'm contemplating whether or not to just go to church and play it for a bunch of strangers as like a... "test". Hahaha.

Thoughts after the sample...

   So I was Carrie's student evaluator, and I've got to say, it was amazing. I've always loved her slam poetry, and hearing everything again was just an irreplaceable experience.
   I'm kind of scared because I'm not exactly READY to present... because I don't know what I'd do. However I'm really excited to get everything done. Carrie's presentation was really well done, and you can tell she had a lot of practice too. Her voice was strong and her message was clear, and during every minute of her presentation, I was actually wondering how horrible it would be if I couldn't do any of that. What if I trip? Or fail? Or the piano won't work? There's so many 'what if's' and I kinda got overwhelmed.
   Aside from that, as Carrie's evaluator, I read her journal, and I found her style of writing really great. I wish I had done that for myself before, but it's too late now... yeahh.

童话 part 4

  Yeah... I'm still on the third page because I decided to try to play through from the first page, and it didn't really work out... but I still have time to prepare this for my final project!

Journey without Mrs. Miller

   I guess it's really time to talk about this, because I definitely should do it at some point. It's been quite some time (more than two months?) since I've broken away from lessons with Mrs. Miller. I think it was still around the middle of March when I first stopped, and I must say, there are teachers for a reason. I used to think that having someone there wasn't actually necessary, because I my entire jump start to piano...[I've decided to expand on this in my actual presentation instead of communicate it here!]

童话 part 3

Okay, so I worked on this song a lot but I'm still on the third page. Some of the issues I had before kept occurring. I still have problems with transitioning and such, and it's slowing me down a lot. Right now I'm only practicing reading through the notes, and playing everything at a super super super slow speed, but I can't wait to play everything at the actual (still slow) tempo.

童话 part 2

  I LOVE this song :) So far I've gotten through the first two pages, but I still need to practice more to have it sound reallyyy good. I really want this entire song to be perfect because it just, it would ruin everything if it sounded terrible. It'd be like disrespecting the song. Haha.

童话

   Ms. Lord says I should try and maybe have my younger sister find a piece of sheet music for me to sight read but honestly I know I can't do that. It would be stepping way out of my comfort zone. Instead, I thought I should make a compromise and prepare a piece to present as part of my final project. This would definitely be stepping out of my comfort zone even though I remember I previously stated that I wasn't too much affected by stage fright.

  I found this song from my iPod bank, and I think it's a very good fit for me right now. It's slow and flowy, and sort of similar to Canon in D, which I had played before. 童话 (tong hua), which means fairytale in Chinese, is a rather old, but still popular, Chinese song.

   I really like this song because it sounds really pretty and I know the lyrics to the song. It seems pretty attackable, so I'm gonna go and try out this piece right now. In the description of the video above, there is a link to the sheet music, which is what I'm using. Hope for the bestt!

Notes and Bits from Mentor Meeting

• a lot of breaks
• figure out how to speak towards these breaks?
• push more to seek more - bear that in mind
• journal? what are the reasons? explain.
• road to take? 
• not pushing = do more hands off
• you decide your fate
• mentor's job? - you (I) backed away from my project, so did Ms. Lord

-Make more lists! What do you know now that you didn't before? Of self, topic of interest, people, etc.

-PREPARE FOR PROJECT - anticipate what your evaluators are going to ask!

-scan your journals

Where's your endpoint? -> self teacher? why? 

Have Julianna bring in a piece? (final project idea?)

What do I want to know more about that I don't know now?

Do I want to explore other adults learning the piano?

Mentor Meeting Planss!

  Yeeah I see that I haven't really been doing much working on my goals. It's really falling apart. Maybe it's the end of the year coming along so quickly but I do realize that I haven't been keeping up to date with everything. One step in trying to fix that, however is that I will be brainstorming more of my ideas about my final project with Ms. Lord. Since that's coming up really soon, I need to confirm what I'm doing and work on it. So if I use some of this mentor meeting to come up with ideas, I'll at least definitely be working on one of my goals that I set for myself last week.

Saturday's practice

(Since Ms. Lord said I should do more like, recording of what I actually do...)
    I practiced today from 5:40 pm to around 7:00 pm, before dinner. I started off playing repertoire in the first 20 pages of my Progressive Piano book. I had a lot of trouble during the sections where it was based in the key of E so that's probably something I need work on more. Uhm, now I pretty much know the music to Canon in D by heart, so I'm basically just practicing for fluidity and better transitions (transitions are harder for me to remember when I'm not looking at the music). Yeah... I took like a 15 minute break somewhere amidst this and had cookies! :)

Thursday Mentor Meeting

  I feel like this is once more reenforcing the facts that I've been behind and there are some definite things that I need to get done. There's definitely a lot to do, but I guess if we had to narrow it down to the most important/urgent ones, planning for my WISE project and reflecting/demonstrating research!

Uhohhh---

  I might've mentioned this before, but my AP Physics C exam is from noon to 5pm on Monday, which interfers with my mentor meeting. I've contacted Ms. Lord and changed the time to Thursday.

New Goals for this Week :)

   I didn't really do much last week, so this week, I'll try to work on WISE and piano a lot more. Here are my goals. I'm only going to set a couple because I've realized it's a lot more important to be concentrated and focused rather than to have lots of expectations.

1. Make solid plans and work on final project.
2. Fill in the past holes in my WISE blog.
3. Practice everyday (I really didn't do this last week, so...)
4. Update and compile my (annotated) bibliography.
5. Upload another video.

Soo... that was a fail...

   It is now Saturday, and I've had AP exams that crowded up so much of my time that I didn't even get to make a plan to try to incorporate piano into my schedule. I am sad to say that I have not worked on much or any WISE this week, except on Thursday, when I didn't have an AP exam (I have 6 exams this year, technically you're only allowed to take 5 in total, but Physics C has 2 parts, so it  counts as 2 exams). On Monday, I have my Physics C AP, so I won't be able to make it to my mentor meeting, and I'm hoping to fit some time in for practice tomorrow. This really sucks, the fact that I haven't done any WISE work. I had really hoped to manage my time and make ends meet, but I ran out of time even just to do that. I wish I had realized this earlier, and maybe planned my schedule for AP week ahead of time, WAYY ahead of time. I'm honestly pretty disappointed in myself for being so uncommitted. What a fail... it's the end of the year and I don't have long before I have to present a final project. I really need to get my act together.

In Class - Sign ups for presentations

   I had originally signed up for June 14th at 1:00 in the afternoon, but turns out Mary wants to switch times with me because she wants her mom to come see her presentation, and her mom can only make an afternoon time. However, after I talked to Ms. Lord about it, I found out that my government final is in the morning of the 14th so I don't think I'll be able to switch with Mary.

Plans for AP Week

   So I have a lot of updating to do. A bunch of my entries previously are just stemmed and seem to have nothing written for them. Honestly I just haven't had the time to take out my journal of written notes to put it online. I'll start the backings or the stems of my work for the future but I never seem t want to get to it and have it done... it's like I have all the tools but I just don't want to start it officially yet. I'll start something and right in the middle of it, I'll stop. Anyways, so I need to make plans for

Monday's Mentor Meeting

  In this mentor meeting, I revealed the fact that I think I am going to be really stressed during AP week and that I might possibly fall behind a lot in my WISE work. Of course, it's best if I make plan for this week but I hope I get a chance to actually do so, because I have so many exams this week that I honestly think I'm not prepared for at all that I'll end up cramming entire nights before the exam. Ms. Lord really thinks I should make a plan too. She was actually the one who suggested this because she sorta realized that I'm kind of the person who'd drop everything when something big, like, AP exams, are here. And I guess I've never admitted that about myself, but now I can't deny it.

Sunday's Reflection && new goals

For: last Sunday
Last week's goals said:

1. Ask Julianna to critique.
2. Look through all past journal posts and REMEMBER WHAT YOU SAID YOU'D UPDATE (speaking to me)
3. Try to journal as soon as things happen, if possible (ie. right after a mentor meeting or right after practice)
4. Use this week as a last week for Canon in D, practicing and "perfecting" (? possibly ?)
5.  Brainstorm a bit more about end project ideas.
6. Research on history of the piano.
7. Contact Yuangting Li, a Chinese girl at IHS who gives piano lessons, for some help in trying to work on Fireflies?

   Yepp, I finally did it. On Saturday, I asked Julianna to sit down with me for a bit while I played. It was definitely awkward because for me, it was weird having someone younger act as a teacher, and for her, it was weird being the "older sibling" or the "more experienced" one. My sister commented on my fluidity and also told me that I was speeding up a lot in certain areas where I shouldn't have been. At first I had a lot of trouble pulling words from her, but soon it worked out okay. According to Julianna, I had to look at my fingers a lot more than the music, which could be an issue as I'm not supposed to focus on my fingers, but the notes on the sheet. She also told me that my fingering was also wrong in the last section, but that wasn't too big of a deal. This was actually a funny story because my little sister could not make herself 'critique' me until I offered her a bribe (Reese's cups, yumm). 
   In terms of my other goals, I am slightly lacking, as can been seen in the recent couple of days, so I will be extending this goal period for a while to fulfill these goals, (especially 2,3,5,6). I did get to contact Yuanting and will post a short interview at some point in time!

Ithaca Wise Program - Task Force Journal Review

  So today in class it was announced that the sample presentation is on May 26th at 6pm in the afternoon. I think I've already blogged about this in my other mentor meeting reflection, but this is just a further reminder. In my notes, I wrote down that I should contact my mentor regarding the schedule for the presentation to make sure that both me and my mentor are available to attend the presentation (my own). However, I just realized that since Ms. Lord is my mentor (lucky me) she'll be at my presentation without even my having to ask her.

  Someone named M. Wyant read my blog entries and made comments on my blog posts. I was totally unaware that this was happening so I was really surprised, and I found it rather interesting that the reader thought I was a male. I guess I never read my blog entries assuming that the blogger was male, or I never realized that my voice also made sense in the male point of view? IDK if I'm making sense, but it's not a big deal. It was really cool to read someone else's comments on my entries. And I think some things were made more clear to me in their words that I never saw before. M. Wyant said that I'm doing a lot of soul searching (I never thought of it that way) and that I am learning my strengths and weaknesses (true, just I never explicitly acknowleged?). I think this journal review was really helpful, and I will look to it for reference if I feel like I'm lost in blogging, because I definitely think it gives me my direction but in a much more general/summarized manner.

IN CLASS

Mentor Meeting After Break

This is for Monday 04/25/2011
   After my mentor meeting with Ms. Lord, I realized some other "homework" that I have to do. A big thing is making plans/an outline on what to practice and when to research (the specifics of the rest of my project). The "deadline" I should expect for the project is around the 10th of June, so make sure to get everything done before then. In this mentor meeting, I also realized that I should be focusing a lot on the macro portion of research and not just the micro portion. This means I should be doing more research on the piano in general! (I feel like this has been repeated multiple times in the past couple of mentor meetings...?) Hm... and a little idea for future journals is to write about how my project process is now different in comparison to before, when I had Mrs. Miller and there was someone to guide me through everything. Other ideas for future aid include trying to watch someone else practice or play or go to a recital or something of the sort. It is also important to consider the method of learning/approach, because there are more than one way to approach things, and sometimes it's hard to realize the fact that one specific way of approach may not be the best or only way to approach things. I guess this means that maybe I should be exploring my directions in learning and the paths I'm taking because there's definitely more than one route.
   The sample presentation that will be shown to our class will be on the 26th of May and Ms. Lord reminded me that everything's actually coming up pretty soon, so there's not too much time before I need to come up with a finished product. Gahhh so much to do...

Video :)

Due to technical difficulties, the video took FOREVER to upload, so I won't have time to write about it just yet, but will do :)


  ALRIGHTYY THEN. So I've definitely learned the rest of the song. At this point right now though, the second part is still veryyyy shaky. At the end I kept trying to play from memory and hit all the wrong notes several times. I would've re-recorded, but my camera was running low on batteries. However, the beginning of this video (in contrast to my first video), was pretty smooth I would say. A lot more "fluidity" resulted after my practicing, and although I would say the piece still sounds quite choppy, it's probably not hard to fix as long as I keep at it, practicing and such. The tempo of the piece is a lot closer to the actual (if not the actual) tempo that the song was supposed to be. I noticed from comparing back to my last video that I went a lot slower there. However, also unlike the last video, I'm not slowing down too much when I make mistakes. Maybe this was just my being in a rush to finish the recording, but when I messed up, I didn't slow down for my corrections, only tried attacking the piece at the same tempo over and over again. Slow down and take the approach. That's definitely something I want to ALWAYS remember to do. 

It's Sunday, Sunday, gotta make goals on Sunday... plus reflections on last week

   ^a little Rebecca Black there? XD

   Anyways, here were my goals for last week...

1. Make goals for the week every Sunday.
2. Upload a video once very weekend (I only have access to recording during weekends).
3. Learn the rest of Pachelbel Canon in D.
4. Try to make ^ sound more fluid/pretty.
5. Ask Julianna (sister) to critique.

1- Alright! So I'm doing this so far, seeing as how this post is supposed to be for making goals...

2- So I'm slightly having technical issues with my dad's iPhone (with which I am recording my progress), because the first video, I cut in a 30s portion to make it possible for me to email it to myself directly through the iPhone (it needed to be cut, and I could cut it easily on the iPhone). However, this second video I made has to be longer than 30s, so I figured I just transfer it through to my computer and edit it later, but since I couldn't find a program with which to upload it, I had to just upload it as it is. Being filled with mistakes, it's going to be super embarrassing, but it's uploading right now (takes 30 minutes to upload cause apparently it's quite lengthy, and I had to find a new upload server because for some reason it just won't upload on 4shared....)

3- Yep yep, totally working on this! I've read through the end of the song, but I'll write all about it in the next post.

4- Same for this one! I'll be writing more about it in the next post, but I'll consider this done!

5- Okay, so I've made the decision to push this one back one week because I figured it'd be best to have the whole song kinda under my arm before I ask someone else to critique. I don't think I want to do this multiple times, so I'll redo this goal this week, and ask Julianna to critique for me once I'm familiar with all of Canon. 

---------------------------------------------------------------

I've done 4/5, that's still passing, right?

Here's this week's goals, let's aim for 100%!

1. Ask Julianna to critique.
2. Look through all past journal posts and REMEMBER WHAT YOU SAID YOU'D UPDATE (speaking to me)
3. Try to journal as soon as things happen, if possible (ie. right after a mentor meeting or right after practice)
4. Use this week as a last week for Canon in D, practicing and "perfecting" (? possibly ?)
5.  Brainstorm a bit more about end project ideas.
6. Research on history of the piano.
7. Contact Yuangting Li, a Chinese girl at IHS who gives piano lessons, for some help in trying to work on Fireflies?

Uh-ohs...

   Booo practice AP exams...it's the week before spring break and all I can think about could think about were practice APs and, well SPRING BREAK. I'm going to NYC for the entire week and being far far (sorta) away from Ithaca. It's Thursday afternoon, my last practice AP exam was today (for this week at least), and I am ashamed to say I haven't done enough research... actually I haven't done much new except practice. I've been practicing, however, and learning the rest of Canon in D (which will be revealed in my video post).

"Out of the Rut" Journal Activity && Partner Read

[I started doing the "Out of the Rut" Journal Activity, but then I felt like I've done this already? So just the Partner Read?]

edit!

I think I have a problem.... I'm a bit confused as to who's journal I'm supposed to be partner reading. Tabea told me she was reading mine, but Jimmy's reading Tabea's and since Jimmy's is on a paper journal, he told me I would do his journal, but he would give it to me during government class before spring break. This, however, didn't end up happening....? So..... I'll find out on Monday I guess.

Mentor Meeting & Response on Ideas for End of the Year

(semi posting this like a week later, but the date's set to when it's supposed to be so that my journal entries are in order as they're supposed to be)
   So like I've stated in my last mentor meeting blog, I've still been having trouble coming back online. But anyways, in my mentor meeting today, Ms. Lord congratulated me on sort of finding my way, and stepping out of my comfort zone (a lot)? Similar to my last mentor meeting post, I seem to be still having lack of motivation in coming online onto my blog. Scraps of paper keep piling up somewhere around the house when I write notes down for my journal, but I'm really having trouble coming back here to update. Maybe it's the end of the year or maybe it's cause spring break/AP week's coming, but it's definitely an issue. Which brings up the next point I need to make. What am I planning for my end of the year presentation? The end is coming by really fast and no joke, it might crash into me, so where am I headed? Ms. Lord says it's a good time to start thinking now. And I have, a little bit, or at least in the thirty minutes...
   I guess I'm still not quite sure on exactly yet, but I think for my presentation, what I could be (possibly) showing are (oh my gosh really?) my progress videos, if they turn out okay and I do enough [maybe just the first and last?] and perhaps teach the class a little something that they would be able to play on their own?

Reflection && New Goals (explicitly stated) -- 5 for the week

  I think I've done pretty well this week. I know in the past couple of weeks, it seems as if I did nothing, but I definitely did work, it's just not as much as I have done now or before the entire "thing". I know there was that little (or is it big?) bump along the way, but I think I'm moving past it alright. As part of my "new plan to keep track of my progress and to make sure that I'm progressing", here are my goals both in general and for the week:

GOALS

1. Make goals for the week every Sunday.
2. Upload a video once very weekend (I only have access to recording during weekends).
3. Learn the rest of Pachelbel Canon in D.
4. Try to make ^ sound more fluid/pretty.
5. Ask Julianna (sister) to critique.

Out of these five goals, I think 1, 2, and 5 are going to be more difficult than the other two, and they are the ones where I'd be stepping out of my comfort zone the most. This is because for 1 and 2, I'd be making another commitment, which I always knew would be an obstacle, and for 5, I'd be asking someone younger to "teach" me. 

Hmm something new....

   Okay, so hopefully this works... I went and took a video of myself with an iPhone and uploaded it to 4shared. I didn't realize I could just upload it through Blogger, but too late I guess. I just posted the embed code into the Edit HTML section and messed around with the <br> break lines and other HTML stuff I learned from when I was in middle school and I was playing around online with coding and layouts and such. Anyways, here's how far I've gotten with Canon in D Major. This song went a lot smoother than Fireflies (not my playing, but the process of me trying to play). Ahhhahaha it's so embarrassing. [Is this stepping out of my comfort zone? I think so!] It definitely doesn't sound anywhere as good as the other youtube version by the tiny child, but... oh well. Don't laugh. Or mock. Or whatever else, comforting words won't help either.

   If you saw the video, you would've noticed that I made a super big obvious mistake at the end before I stopped recording. I also probably made several mistakes prior to the end, but yeah... that's how far I am this week. I think this is how I'm going to keep track of my progress. I'm going to try and upload a video every weekend to show how far I've gotten with my playing, and to show what I'm playing. I think it's a very good "doing" demonstration. As far as this song goes, I'm still kinda bad at moving from one position to the other, and everything sounds chunky, so that's something I'm hoping to fix with practice. I'm not even finished learning the piece yet (I think the beginning was the easier part), so next week, I'll be moving further along there too... yepp.

OH AND I ALMOST FORGOT! Sometime next week, I'll be asking my little sister to comment on my playing and to tell me what I'm doing wrong and where I'm doing wrong, as Mrs. Miller had instructed I do during our last lesson for the purpose that the mistakes that I don't see get pointed out.

A Stir Away From (Fire)Flies

   Is this a step into or out of my comfort zone? Either way, I think this is good, the fact that I opened one of my old books to a song I've never really played and stopped on this one. I think I've always thought this song was really pretty, but it's definitely, DEFINITELY, SLOW. Previously, as in years before, I lovedd fast songs because they were easier to learn the rhythm to, and they were easier to play (maybe?), or at least in my opinion. I didn't want to learn this song for that reason. Anyways, I decided to attack it this week, and it's been going on pretty well :) OH I've been rambling for this entire time and I haven't even mentioned the title of this song yet. It's Pachelbel Canon in D Major. Since the sheet music is sometime I have physically, I can't link to it here, but there's a youtube version of this song in D Major here: Canon in D Major (by the looks of his hands, this person looks like he/she's under the age of 10....)

   Yeahhh, and the version to which I linked above is a lot more... fancy/emphasized than the version I have. Mine is A LOT simpler, and probably sounds a lot worse....

"Happiness Revisited" && In Class Tuesday

1. When do you feel most happy?
2. React/Respond to article.
3. Where are you on the flow chart?
4. How has this changed/remained the same throughout the course of your project?
5. How can you achieve flow?

(will be updated -having trouble finding article)

Monday's Mentor Meeting

    It seems that I've been having quite a difficult time trying to update my WISE blog. I don't know why, but I just, whenever I come onto my blog, I've gotten to lack the motivation to write anything down, or somehow, my mind just goes blank. In this mentor meeting, I know there was discussion regarding my making a plan for the next week, to keep track of my progress and to make sure that I'm progressing. I don't really have a plan yet though, so that's a GOAL OF THIS WEEK! To find a plan, to make a plan... or something.

   I think there's some other things I've forgotten that were discussed in this mentor meeting, but one thing I wanted to mention was that Ms. Lord that insisted that I bring up the previous incident that had happened, and reflect upon it. This is the second time it was mentioned, and the first time, it wasn't because I forgot, but it was because I didn't want to remember it. As much as it may be thought to be of help, I do not think it will be of any aid, and I will not be expanding anything more regarding to this issue.

Fireflies

   I just wanted to say how impossible this song was. ASFHGSJKHGSGHL this song is IMPOSSIBLE to play. Each of the notes take at least a minute for me to figure out and make sure that I'm on the right note since the key jumps from white keys to black keys, and I forget how the melody of the song actually goes sometimes, so then I get lost and have to start over when I'm trying to piece out the song from what I've already played. I literally spent an entire hour doing this, and then later when I came back to the piece, there was absolutely not improvement at all, or at least not enough improvement for me to stay. The version from which I am learning is thirteen pages long (four lines per page, with only one line on the last page). Right now, I can't get past the fourth page without getting mad at myself for not being able to play it right. I've worked with this song so slowly that I think I've grown to hate it and like it at the same time. Even more, these mixed emotions have been making me really frustrated. I'll be really excited and inspired to play piano, and then I'll leave dejected and upset by the fact that I recognize that I can't play it correctly. Honestly, now that I'm writing this, I feel really ashamed that I gave up, but I'll probably continue to do so even without noticing it.

The Search part 2

   So there's some really old research that I've kinda just left there that I did like wayy back a while ago. I figured I'd put it here since I forgot what I really aiming for in this post.

How to Read Sheet Music

   Tadaaa... so yeah, these were sorta things I learned when I was younger that Mrs. Miller didn't really want me to use, but when I couldn't remember anything, I would be coming back to this and thinking:

"Every Good Boy Does Fine"

"FACE"

"Good Boys Do Fine Always"

"All Cows Eat Grass"

    This link also had some good tips, most of which had already been covered verbally to me by Mrs. Miller.

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ANYWAYS. My ORIGINAL intention was to share this:

zeldaxlove64's cover - FIREFLIES by OWL CITY

Isn't it pretty? I totally envy her, both her playing ability and her voice. It's really amazing, and definitely inspirational. Each time I hear her play, I just imagine myself doing it as well. After listening to this, I actually went and sat down to practice "Fireflies".

   I really think this song itself is really pretty. It's one of my favorite songs ever, here's the original. 
I've actually been listening to this song when I'm trying to go to sleep. It's on my nighttime playlist, along with a couple of other songs that are also by Owl City. Owl City = Adam Young, who is super talented and who writes, sings, and plays all of his music. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl_City)

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   I think after working in this project, I've lost sight of my clear goal. I mean I knew what I'm aiming for overall, but it's the little things that I forget, it's the exact words that I said before and the exact thoughts I had when I said them. This is probably why a lot of people's goals change as time progresses because as they work, they always progress a destination, and sometimes that destination is different from their original goal. Anyways, I do sort of remember mentioning about researching the correlation between music and mood, and that's probably why links relating to this topic are plastered all over my initial bibliography. This one website says that it has actually been tested that music improves mood. A study was conducted for college students that had results that showed that music, regardless of what type (whether it's country or rock), improved the afterward moods of the students who listened to it. The students kept diaries and worked with a psychology teacher to determine that they got positive emotions after exposure to music. (http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20031022/music-improves-mood)

   [Reflection on this?] I feel like this means that I'll definitely be depending on music in college. I mean I am listening to it a lot even now too. At least once a day (definitely as I go to sleep), I listen to music. I wanted to listen to piano music to study whether or not piano music especially has an effect on one's mood, but I got realllyyyyy bored after the first couple of days. However, I think this study that was done helps me think positively, because I sorta am conscious that I am in a better mood after listening to music, and I want myself to always be in better moods.

Mentor Meeting: Week into April

   So I'm actually writing this today [Tuesday, April 05, 2011], which is about a week later than the date of this mentor meeting, and I have to say, I honestly can't remember much of the content. I know this was the first mentor meeting in a very long time (I missed the one last week) and so I think all that happened was that I updated Ms. Lord on all the things...? I hope I don't forget to include anything here, but basically, I informed Ms. Lord that I have been having some issues and I have informed her that I have stopped my lessons with Mrs. Miller. I think another major part of this mentor meeting was indicating that I have also not progressed much in the last week(s).

Comments on "Disrupting My Comfort Zone" + BIG REFLECTION?

  Brian Grazer, huh? Well, I think that he's a pretty great person for challenging himself and continuing to challenge himself. I think he's overcome some great feats and he definitely speaks some words of wisdom.

 "If you're not growing, you're dying."

   I think his enthusiasm towards "disrupting [his] comfort zone" is really great. It would be pretty awesome to adopt that outlook of his, but things are easier said than done. I do think that I have disrupted my comfort zone, but definitely not a lot. However, I think that not a lot of disruption is acceptable for me. I don't think my project asks that I get out of my comfort zone a lot. Actually, I think it helps me if I stay in my comfort zone. Perhaps in another situation, but the "comfort zone disruption" isn't something I'm aiming towards in this project.... or is that just what I think?

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On the board it prompts:

What are...

...3 ways I've stepped out of my comfort zone?

I feel like my decision on actually taking lessons is definitely an example of my stepping out of my comfort zone. This would be... the third piano teacher I've had, and I've had other music instructors for other instruments in the past as well. I don't know why, but I absolutely detest having piano lessons. Somehow or another, I always feel like I would disappoint the teacher and it would make me feel extremely uncomfortable before my lessons. Another way that' I've stepped out of my comfort zone could perhaps include when I played for some friends at school when they came by to visit me in one of the practice rooms.  I was super self-conscious because the friends for which I was playing were all really good at piano. This actually reminds me, I should journal more of my practicing experiences because it shows more "doing". I guess a third way I've stepped out of my comfort zone would be when I asked my middle sister to watch me play piano and point of if I was doing anything wrong because that's what Mrs. Miller had suggested I do before ended lessons. She said that this would help me make sure that I was playing correctly. I was reluctant to do so because it's kinda odd to have a little girl tell you you're doing things wrong... but it's for the best :)

...4 ways my project has changed thus far?

Honestly, I don't think my project has changed a lot. Or perhaps I just haven't noticed it yet? Though, everything's taking a really long time and I've already forgotten the deadlines I've set for myself at the beginning of this period. This reminds me, I should go and read my first entries.  What's with the music and emotions thing? The idea seems really odd to me now... xD 

...3 things I wish I'd done differently in working on my project so far?

I definitely think I should have come with a better plan on the research portion. I have NO research plan. All I do is randomly find things and stick them into a bookmark folder on my browser and that's it. Hm... I also think I should've considered how I would be managing with a teacher and/or working independently a lot earlier. Everything seems messy because I had no idea where to go. Another thing I wish I'd done differently was find a more interesting specific topic to research, a more interesting micro-research focus.

...5 things I've learned about my field of interest, myself, and working with others?

My field of interest? Why, there's a lot of people devoted to it and my sisters really love it. I like piano, but I definitely don't have the same passion as some other students that my teacher has. Myself? I'm a very indecisive person and I let a lot of different things affect me... I guess that means I'm sensitive? Or something... IDK. (There I go again with the 'I don't know' 's). Working with others? Sometimes what others have in mind for me is not exactly the same as my own ideas, even though we may not be having trouble working together. 

Last Week: 03/28/2011

    Ahhh haha I couldn't make it to my mentor meeting today either. It was a sad picture. I went before our class meeting the following day and it seemed to me that Ms. Lord was quite disappointed in me. Oh, the things to be fixed... I would put in a big reflection here... but I don't want to. This was when the email and stuff was going on.

The Search

TBU

FOUND! Sheet music for Fireflies by Owl City - this is the newest and best version that I have found and am deciding to use.

LINK

Tuesday's In Class

   Ms. Lord was not at school today and Mrs. Gergely came in as a substitute. Mrs. Gergely told us about the funding opportunities that were specifically designed for WISE and also gave us these sheets for making WISE funding proposals. She told us that currently there's about $700 in the WISE fund and that this amount (plus more if we fund raise it) needs to be divided among about fifty WISE students. Some students will need a large chunk of funding while others may not need any funding at all. I'm one of those I think, or at least I feel as if I can cover the costs myself. Anyways, we were and will be brainstorming more ideas of interesting and innovative ways to fund raise.
  Oh and presentations of WISE projects continued after that!

Monday Meeting Delayed

Due to a last minute mix-up, I wasn't able to make it to my Monday mentor meeting during 7th period. I had a friend tell Ms. Lord at the beginning of 7th because I wasn't allowed to leave the place where I had to stay.

Just a note...

  SO... a lot has been going on in my life lately. Aside from just the regular loads of  homework and projects and online courses and such, I've also been having some issues, some relating to family, that have been interfering with my entire life. There have been some really sudden changes this past week that might seem like they came out of nowhere. First, although I had originally planned to try to work towards an ending in my piano lessons, last Monday, I realized that I had to start Track, which is everyday after school until 6pm. Mrs. Miller has no other times available for me and I can't miss Track practice once every week, so I talked to Mrs. Miller and we came to the agreement that I would be stopping classes for now. I still have two other classes that I've paid for that I could come in and take in the future when we both have time (something could be worked out). Mrs. Miller is allowing me to keep the piano books that I've been using because I could always return them to her through my sister Julianna. Another thing is the Saturday morning class. I was originally hoping to make it to the class and to play the Black Swan and Hamster Chase, but I started Track on Wednesday, and practice is every day of the week except Sundays. This means that I have to be there for practice on Saturday mornings as well, and the time, unfortunately, overlaps the hours of the Saturday class. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to figure everything out, but as of now, everything seems to be in a mess. I really hope everything will work out. I don't think I've progressed very much this past week, and I've been sorta skimping on the piano practice because I've been going straight to Cornell to do my homework everyday after Track practice (I don't have a ride home until about 10pm). This makes it so that I have trouble getting in all my practice time. Ahhhh everything's crazyyy.

In Class Journal Part 2

Directions: Read the two documents and journal on how they relate to each other as well as to your project.

I read the article on practicing first, and almost instantly I felt as if it were speaking to me. I felt as if the intended audience was supposed to be me since the article uses a musical instrument (guitar) as it's main example. I think I've always avoided thinking about this, but deep down inside I definitely knew he difference between "practicing" and "playing", this article just stated it in plain words for me.
It's really important to practice the things you're not good at to get better, which is what I think this article is trying to tell me. However, the other article seems to be saying that it should be the avocation and vocation that results in your well-roundedness(?)

Overall, both are trying to set WISE students on the right path and to work and practice diligently in order to have the skill that will last a lifetime.

Mentor Meeting on Pi Day

  It hasn't been a long time since the last mentor meeting so there wasn't too much to discuss during this one. I came in during 6th period because I had a test 7th. So first of all, regarding the Saturday class, I haven't really decided anything. I kept saying that I don't know, and that maybe I'll go, but only for the reason that I'm expected/hoped to be there. I have said "I don't know" so many times during this project that it's annoying even me. Ms. Lord says that I really shouldn't be doing that. I shouldn't be unsure, but rather, I should figure out my own path, because no one's going to be there to set the guidelines for me. Honestly, I don't know  Scratch that, I do know, I just dondhsdjkghsklgs I think I'm going to need to like, set a rule for myself where I can't say "I don't know".
   During this mentor meeting, I also told Ms. Lord of my plans to end my lessons with Mrs. Miller due to the fact that I want to take on the challenge of working with myself and keeping myself on track. However, what would be my plan to keep myself learning? How would I be enforcing learning?

In Class Journal Part 1

   Today in class we shared our projects. Natanya baked chocolate chip cookies for the entire class to show her baking process (they were so yummy!) and Jimmy showed us a bunch of his mixed martial arts. He seems super enthusiastic about his project, which is a very good sign. I liked how he talked about the Brazillian jutsu and such, and although I don't know anything about martial arts, he seems like he's doing pretty well.
   Carrie presented a poem in class. And WOW was I stunned. I loved her emotion and strength, and I sorta wanted to yell "Encore!" except that might've been a bit too awkward. Haha. Slam poetry is her project focus, and what she's doing is presenting poems within 3 minutes. These poems are graded on a scale of 1 to 10.
   Mary showed us her clowning! It was so much fun to watch her juggle and make balloon animals and talk about her adventures at the Camp Good Days Carnival. I love hearing how much people are enjoying their projects because it makes me treasure even more this class and how lucky we are to have this time to do something we enjoy.
  After that, Jordan, Dylan, and Tara all presented. I didn't take any notes here because I had been a little too captivated by Mary's balloon animals slash I got to the bottom of my paper and decided I was done xD BUT Jordan told us all about his success in finally finding a publishing firm for his Star Wars study guide and Dylan showed us his super blue laser. Tara showed the class her oversized sketching journal which she uses to plan out the fashions to be created. It's actually really cool and I found it very interesting how she's actually making clothes and having models.

Duet with Julianna

Today I played a duet with my sister! We started off with Heart and Soul, and kept working on a couple of other simple duet pieces.

Mentor Meeting Feedback

   So today's meeting, according to Mrs. Lord, was one of the most important mentor meetings thus far, because I've come to realize that I'm encountering problems with myself and not just with piano playing as a topic in general. There are two, with the first one being that I can't read sheet music and I can't seem to get it straight no matter how hard I work at it. Mrs. Lord suggested that I try a different approach, but somehow I don't find that an appealing option. Maybe I'll just work in this manner for a couple more weeks and then decide something? And another thing is the Saturday morning class. My inability to decide on whether or not to go could be because of stage fright, or something else... Am I afraid of feeling inferior to all the other younger students that are going to be there? Or am I just not prepared yet? What is it?

Class Meeting #2

   Right now I'm in class typing this up on my iPhone 4 (OMG YAY I FINALLY GOT IT). Labeling your blog needs to be in a more organized manner. It's important to make sure that there is a well-rounded balance of research and balance. An important aspect of journaling is to express the details of your "doing". Just saying what was done is extremely boring and will be really hard to come back to. It's easy to remember the exact event, for example, if you read a book or you ran a mile, but how you felt during that reading or running will be difficult to reconstruct a month or two from now. That's the point of journaling, to mark down the details and feelings that won't be remembered.

Monday's Lesson #5

   After repeatedly playing "The Black Swan" and "Hamster Chase", I have finally gotten both of them under control. There are still a couple of errors here and there, but it's moving along :)
   Mrs. Miller says there's a Saturday morning class next next Saturday where students play for each other. I'm not quite sure if I want to take part in it yet because Mrs. Miller said it was optional. I'm not exactly sure if I'd fit in since most of Mrs. Miller's other students are rather young. And that is the reason why she didn't enforce it on me and gave me a choice. She says that I could play either "The Black Swan" or "Hamster Chase", or even both. Early I had said that I wouldn't be afraid of an audience, but perhaps I actually am? I don't know, for some reason, I just don't want to do it. However, I'll practice as if I am, just in case something last minute happens and I have to perform. Mrs. Miller said it would be good for me because it'd give me an incentive to practice "harder", but... well, we'll see.

SNOW DAY WOOHOOO

   Today's snow day was an absolute Godsend. Well, maybe not in all cases. I didn't have a mentor meeting today, so I'll have to make up for it, most likely on Wednesday... very productive day XD

Reflection on the 1st Week in March

   For the dates February 27th to March 5th, my focuses for the week were on recognizing notes on the staff and learning to pedal. I've been practiced at school twice (due to absence/classes, I only had 2 classes free during 7th period), so I wasn't able to progress too much on pedaling. For note recognition, I've drawn tons of diagrams on the back of my progress journal and found random pieces of songs I would never play that I wrote down the notes for (ie. marked ABCDEFG above each note).

Wait A Minute... What?

   In response to my previous entry on mentor meeting plans, I've found some answers while some other questions were left blank. With the continuing lessons thing, I've decided to stick with taking lessons for another month and seeing how it goes. Everything else could pretty much be answered with "it really depends on you" (me).

   After my fourth piano class, it was recognized that I still honestly don't know how to read sheet music because I have a lot of trouble recognizing the notes on the staff and knowing what they are. So for this week, that's going to be my focus.

    Another thing is the pedal. I have no idea how to use it, and while Mrs. Miller and I were exploring the pedal on Monday, it was found that I really need practice with it. Since I only have an electric piano at home, I plan to use the school pianos especially for this type of practice. The song "Black Swan" is absolutely perfect on which to practice the pedaling.

In-Class Journal Entry #1

   In class on Tuesday, we watched a video of a past WISE project. Since I was not present in class, I had to borrow the disk to bring home to watch and journal on the video.

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• Austin - building a barn
• "a barn is a lot more than just a structure"
• "everything takes longer than I expected"
• lots of challenges
• picking wood
• trying to get a tractor to start
• WISE in an independent experience, but it's also more than that, because it allows students to spend time reflecting on who they are becoming as a result of the experience.

   Personally, thus far, I have found part of "everything takes longer than ... expected" to be exceedingly true. Although I'm not building a barn, the process of learning how to play piano and learning to read sheet music isn't easy. Somehow, I just can't see where I would end up at the end of the year. I can't really tell if I'll be able to fully read sheet music or I'll still be struggling. It's sorta like I can't plan out anything, because I don't even know how I am doing myself. If I look back to the first day when I started, I can't really put a label on how far I've progressed because I honestly don't know. I  feel like I haven't done much, and that makes me really scared. Am I going somewhere? Am I going at the right pace?

Absence

   Due to personal illness, I was not at school today, so I missed the class get together we had during 7th period. I'll update back here later afterwards (:


   On Friday, I dropped by Ms. Lord's classroom and picked up the folder containing the WISE project of a previous IHS student that is relevant to my current project. The past project was on learning to play the guitar, and although the topic isn't exactly the same as mine, it should be a good reference/model.

Key signature - Major

   So right now, the keys I have learned are (corresponding to the sharp notes indicated in the chart below) C, G, D, A, and E. I have also learned F major, which has one flat on B.

(the following was printscreened from Wikipedia: Key signature - scales with sharps)

Before My Mentor Meeting

   Mentor meeting today 7th period! I've kind of been contemplating whether or not I should continue taking piano lessons from Mrs. Miller because to learn fingerings, it can basically be taught in one lesson... but Mrs. Miller's also teaching me about keys and such so... I don't know...
  This is just a little note to myself for things I want to bring up and talk about today with Ms. Lord:

• Future plans... Am I going in the wrong direction? A new direction?
• Do I have to have recitals?
• Am I going at the right pace?
• Should I start learning pieces on my own?
• Should I continue piano lessons with Mrs. Miller?
• Should I tell Mrs. Miller about my blog?

Lesson & A List of Recommended Pieces

FOR:  Friday, February 25th, 2011

   I forgot to practice today, but I did make up for it on Saturday... just saying.

   Something else I forgot was the fact that Mrs. Miller said I could pick out a piece to learn now! Anything, anything at all! Should I try Fantasie Impromptu? I mean just listen to it, it's crazy beautiful... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvm2ZsRv3C8

...but also crazy impossible? I mean some of the really hard pieces that I've already learned how to play (by ear/memorizing fingerings) are Beethoven's Fur Elise, Brahms' Hungarian Dance, and Mozart's Turkish March. But those were by memorization, which is by far, much easier than reading sheet music.

Here's something I found on Google that I thought might be useful in the future...
a list of recommended classical pieces!

  Andd... also I kind of made a list for modern songs even though in one of the other posts, I said I wouldn't make one. I only have one title on my list right now, and that's Owl City's Fireflies. 

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amm7Do0ySkU

   The piano version is really really pretty sounding. If two days, I'll probably just pick something off this list instead of going with the first song I hear on the radio (most likely this song?). 

Day Dreaming && When the Saints Go Marching In

FOR: Monday, February 21st, 2011

   Today was my third lesson!

   For the past week, I've been working on this one repertoire piece called "Day Dreaming" by Dolly E. Kessner. I've been having such trouble with it because it's a very... awkward(?) piece. There are seven beats per measure, unlike your standard/average four beats per measure. And especially since the number of beats are odd instead of even, it is very difficult (or at least for me) to keep up with the rhythm of the piece while exercising all other areas (volume, tempo, notes, etc.) This was one of the major pieces I worked on during my lesson with Mrs. Miller today. Since my metronome doesn't have seven beat per measure, she suggested that if I still had trouble, it's best to put the metronome on one beat per measure and just count. My trouble was that I wanted to make the number of beats even, and I kept leaving an extra rest at the end of each measure. When I finally got the beats right during my lesson today, I got the notes wrong... however, after my lesson, I came home and practiced this piece for half an hour more and now I think I've got it down (:

   One of the other songs I worked on during my lesson today was "When the Saints Go Marching In" [page 61 of the Progressive Class Piano book]. This is a version edited by Elmer Heerema [author of Progressive Class Piano]. When I had first started learning piano, years earlier, I had learned a different version of this song, so I kept getting the notes wrong because my hands remember the piece differently. Mrs. Miller says that this is how one learns to memorize a piece, because you practice it enough that your fingers remember how to move, your muscle remember how to react. And since this was one of my favorite easy songs to play back then, I kept making mistakes in attacking the piece. Of course, with enough time, the piece came out perfect!

   Something interesting I began to look up was the history of this song, "When the Saints Go Marching In". Although this might not be the best source from which to reference, I looked this song up on Google, and found it on Wikipedia. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Saints_Go_Marching_In

   Wikipedia gives a rather good overall background on this song. This was traditionally meant for accompaniment to a funeral march, a "jazz funeral" to be specific. I was looking for an original version of this song, and according to Wikipedia, the original was copyrighted by Oliver Virgil Stamps. I kinda got bored after that and stopped reading the rest...

Youtube Artists

FOR: Friday, February 18th, 2011


   I've been on the hunt for the "perfect" modern song to learn, and so far I still have no luck. There are a lot of "good" pieces, but nothing "perfect" yet. What I do is go on youtube and search "piano cover". Sometimes, if I just type the beginning to something, the top searched/most popular choices will show up in a little auto-fill choice thingy. I don't want to put down anything specific yet because I know that if I do, I'll probably just limit myself to the ones I've recorded down in the end.
   During my research, I found many many inspiring youtube artists. The channel of one of the most amazing artists I've found is here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/zeldaxlove64

  She's so good that I feel intimidated... haha. I mean, it may just be that she has an amazing voice, but her piano is also exceptional in my opinion. 

   Anyways, from my youtube hunt, I honestly think that, since so many songs sound amazing on the piano, I might just go with the first song I hear on the radio one day. Although I still have to get this approved by Mrs. Miller, I'm really excited to start this! 

A Mentor Message

[I've been on vacation so I haven't updated for two weeks, but I have everything down! :)]

FOR: Wednesday, February 16th, 2011


    My first mentor meeting was supposed to be on the 14th of Monday, but I accidentally missed Ms. Lord when I went by. That was a bad start to the week... but fortunately, I was able to reschedule and meet with Ms. Lord today, the Wednesday after.

   In our first mentor meeting, we discussed the plans for future mentor meetings. I didn't really know what the specific jobs of a mentor were, but I found out today that they vary depending on the mentor and student. Here's some notes for future mentor meetings (technically speaking to myself here):

• If your mentor isn't there and the room door is open, he/she will most likely return shortly and/or is nearby. Stay and wait a while, or leave a note on the door and come back in a couple of minutes. 
• The mentor isn't supposed to go after you to make sure you make the meeting. At least that's not what most mentors do. It is your job to reschedule and/or plan accordingly.
• YOU tell your mentor what you want them to do. Do you want them to reflect on your progress? To question you? To listen to you? To be someone that you can ask questions?
• Bring questions for yourself and plan to discuss them with your mentor. 

"So as you read..."

"...try to read ahead - see the entire measure (or phrase) at a glance - not one note at a time."

   Second lesson today! I was a bit unprepared for it because the first part of the day was kind of rough for me as I had two tests in my two most challenging classes (ap physics c and calculus bc). But anyways, I sight-read some of the pieces I had practiced during the past week for Mrs. Miller, and somehow, all of them turned out horrible, or at least it seemed to have from my perspective... I mean maybe I was just nervous, or maybe that's just how it's supposed to turn out, but I was HORRIBLE. It seemed as if I had never played the pieces before and I was struggling so much to get each of the notes right. I had to keep restarting and I forgot the rhythm and when to play piano or when to play forte. It was actually quite embarrassing, I felt like a turtle on its back. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Miller was disappointed, but... I don't know...
   I got a lot of new suggestions/tips though, like if I'm making mistakes, I'm going too fast, or if I'm having trouble with playing with my hands together, try just the left hand part first.
   A key thing I was told was that I speed up WAY TOO MUCH, and that makes it difficult because I'll get the notes wrong just from being hasty.
   Anyways, this time, instead of just half a page of comments for the day that she recorded in my progress book, I got a whole page. That's probably bad... more work this week I guess, but I definitely need it.

Repertoire && Taylor Swift

   I remember when Mrs. Miller first said this word, and I had no idea what it meant. When I looked it up, it said that it means "[a] list of dramas, operas, parts, pieces, etc., which a company, actor, singer or the like, is prepared to perform [or a]ll the works of a particular kind considered collectively".

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_repertoire#ixzz1DuLW5LyU

   I was assigned four repertoire pieces to play. Some of them are actually kind of hard. I spent half an hour just learning the notes and the rhythm to the first one. I guess maybe I need to spend more time on that? Yes, that's good.
   Anyways, my piano practicing hasn't been very well received by my parents. My dad usually enjoys listening to us practice, but he doesn't think I'm playing piano when I practice the repertoire pieces, because I mess up so much that it doesn't sound like anything. Aside from repertoire, I also have several rhythm drills that I have to do. It's like a score of beats that you tap to or something... so at the dinner table, I'll be like, tapping away, and my entire family just looks at me as if I'm from another country. Haha.
_______________________________________________

   I've been sorta looking through current songs for ones I like that I could learn to play, and I realized that I like so many so them that I don't know how I'm going to be able to just choose one. Being indecisive as I am, does that mean a new challenge? I mean, I stumbled onto my little sister's albums of Taylor Swift, and I think most, if not all of them, would work for a piano cover. Plus, they all seem fairly simple to learn as well, so I don't know... they're really easy to get stuck in my head.

An Update On Practicing

   I was really hoping this wouldn't happen as early as it did, but I guess it couldn't be helped. I knew I was going to run into this problem...
   I was REALLY good with practicing on the first two days. Right after I got home from school on the first three days, I practiced for half an hour each time. From the log book Mrs. Miller gave me, I did all the reading sections from pages 15 to 31. But somehow on Thursday, I just decided it was okay to practice at a different time, to practice after dinner or something. Or something... well that something became not practicing at all. Even worse, I didn't practice on Friday either. I guess I didn't realize that the fact I had to work right after school, and didn't plan ahead.
    The good thing is that on Saturday, I "made-up" all my missing practicing by practicing for two hours straight. Only, that's actually bad because I wasn't supposed to do that, I wasn't supposed to cram practicing all into one block of time. It's only the beginning and I've already broken sequence. But what else can I do about it? I mean, at least now I'll be prepared for next week because I'll be bringing my books to school and practicing on the pianos in the practice rooms during 7th in the Performing Arts Center. Hopefully nothing like this happens again...

A Very First Lesson

   Oh heyyy! So, on Monday, February 8th, 2011, I had my very first lesson with Mrs. Miller. I was actually a little nervous because I didn't want to mess anything up. It turned out okay, I got a new assignment notebook where she'll be recording my homework assignments and what I should be practicing. She's told me A LOT about what I need to do to help myself learn how to read sheet music. She gave me lots of tips!

• don't listen to a piece before you look at the sheet music, instead, try to imagine how the piece would sound just by the notes you see on the score
• don't look down at your hands
• know your intervals [third, fourth, fifth] based on the number of keys difference; this is really good for learning how to read sheet music because it helps me picture the key/where it is
• count out-loud to get the right rhythm! [apparently I have a lot of issues with this....]
• remember the volume that the piece should be!
• practice!

   I kind of feel like she assigned me a lot to do, but maybe not? I started practice, and it went okay, but I'm definitely not through it all yet. Maybe like 1/5 of all the pages she assigned. The problem is that I went through the first couple of pages pretty fast too, so I'm probably going to have to practice for an hour or more in the future. 

Two Week Plan

    My plan for the next two weeks is to launch off on learning how to read sheet music, which means I'm basically going to be going through a book [the one I'm using is called Progressive Class Piano, a book specifically directed at older beginners] and practicing the pieces specific to learning how to read music. It's kind of difficult to explain exactly what that means, but I'm basically just playing simple pieces with notes that are easy to recognize and then increasing the difficulty of the notes (?)
    I'm probably going to spend a whole month on just reading sheet music because I definitely need the practice. I guess I didn't mention in my last post that I would be taking lessons with Mary Ann Miller. She also teaches my little sister, so I kinda get to hang around her house a lot. Anyways, my lessons are every Monday at 5:30PM, so that'll be happening every week. In addition, I'll be practice for at least half an hour every single day [this is actually going to be monitored by my mom... boooo haha]. I actually haven't asked my mentor who'll help check up on me yet [YIKES], so I should probably get on that.  So Ms. Lord agreed to be my mentor, and we will be meeting every Monday as well, during 7th period. 

   As for research right now, I'll probably start reading my sources on music therapy. At the same time, I'll be starting to listen to music every night as I fall asleep :D

-last edit 02.13.11

Dear Reader

     It's incredible how music is such a big part of life nowadays. I don't think I've ever gone through a day without turning on the radio or dancing to my iPod. But that's music in the digital sense. There's a lot more to music than just what you find on iTunes.
    One of the first instruments I've ever really been instructed in was piano. I think I was about eight years old at the time, and I memorized the fingerings to Fur Elise from my Casio keyboard. Even though it seemed amazing at the time, it was a terrible way to start off piano. Why? Well, I ended up not being able to fully dedicate myself to learning how to read sheet music. I figured I could always just learn by memorization, so why worry about reading the scores? Haha... sucks for me now that I realize it's so much harder to re-memorize the things from before than to just re-read the music. So anyways, that's pretty much why I decided to dedicate my English project to piano, to learn how to read sheet music.
     I guess it's also more than that, if you want to take into consideration the fact that I'm aiming to learn some specific pieces and that I want to learn more about the correlation between a person's behaviors and their exposure to music.
    Have you ever heard people do a cover of a song where they both play it and sing it? I so want to do that! Well, at least the playing part. So that's why I'm certain that at least one of the pieces I will learn will be some modern song. I'll definitely learn classical pieces too, but I really want to be able to do a cover of a song at some point. And aside from that, I've been noticing how music helps calm me down slash it affects my mood a whole lot, especially when I'm stressed or upset or something. So I'm kinda investigating how music correlates to a person's behaviors and such. I mean I've found some key pieces, like music therapy, so that's definitely something I'll be researching. After a couple of months, I'm kinda hoping to evaluate how my experience with this piano learning affects my personal behavior through my own perspectives.
  I'm really looking forward to the end result because being able to play piano well would not only give me a hobby, it would make my parents happy as well. I think I'm really going to enjoy what I get out of this project, because it's a skill I'll be able to keep forever. Of course there's going to be challenges that I'll need to face. A definite one is overcoming my lack of daily commitment. I've never really been able to follow a routine and do something everyday, so this will be one of my top challenges. I think another challenge is going to be finding the time to do all my practicing and working on piano related material because, like everyone else, it's a fun year AND a busy one too. Good luck me?

-last edit 02.13.11