Wednesday - January 03, 2007
should be a fun semester....
This Spring semester ought to be fun for me.
I'll be teaching the continuation
semesters of the Elementary Harmony and
Sight Singing/Ear Training courses for the music department as well as the Intro
to Music Tech course.
The students I had last semester will be augmented by new ones this semester. Last semester there was a difficulty with registration so many of the students that ought to have been in my section weren't able to be. Now we'll have more balance between the sections. I truly enjoy teaching those courses. It's "entry level" theory, but I don't mind it. In a sense, it's fun to be challenged to find appropriate ways to present the material to them. It's as if every class is different & therefore needs to be taught differently. It's sort of fun. I wish I had the quote in front of me, but I love the Sufi master's quote about teaching. It's something to the effect of "the first job of a teacher is to tear down the idol that students make of him". I try to take that to heart....especially in the upper level courses, but even in the elementary levels.
The Music Tech course will be fun, too. There is SO MUCH to cover in that course, but I hope they'll get a good taste of what that world is like. I wish we could go more in-depth, but it's just not possible in one semester. Eventually, I'd like to be able to teach an Advanced Music Tech course....but that's certainly going to be down the line a ways.
I have in past semesters let the Music Tech students watch Tom Dowd & the language of Music. They seem to respond to that very well. They, of course, have absolutely no idea who Tom Dowd was, but they get into the film very quickly. Watching someone work with folks as varied as Ray Charles and Derek & The Dominoes is quite impressive to pretty much *anyone*! There are so many great scenes in that film...so many wonderful aesthetic discussions that you don't even realize are aesthetic discussions (the most beautiful kind!). As much as I hate to show films in class (that's a whole nother conversation!), I'll probably let them watch one of the Classic Albums DVD's as well. The Nirvana DVD is particularly good for me since it has MANY scenes with Butch Vig (of Garbage fame, of course!). He talks about getting Kurt Cobain to double-track vocals (he told Kurt that John Lennon did it...that convinced Cobain to do it!) amongst other things....
Should be a fun semester....
The students I had last semester will be augmented by new ones this semester. Last semester there was a difficulty with registration so many of the students that ought to have been in my section weren't able to be. Now we'll have more balance between the sections. I truly enjoy teaching those courses. It's "entry level" theory, but I don't mind it. In a sense, it's fun to be challenged to find appropriate ways to present the material to them. It's as if every class is different & therefore needs to be taught differently. It's sort of fun. I wish I had the quote in front of me, but I love the Sufi master's quote about teaching. It's something to the effect of "the first job of a teacher is to tear down the idol that students make of him". I try to take that to heart....especially in the upper level courses, but even in the elementary levels.
The Music Tech course will be fun, too. There is SO MUCH to cover in that course, but I hope they'll get a good taste of what that world is like. I wish we could go more in-depth, but it's just not possible in one semester. Eventually, I'd like to be able to teach an Advanced Music Tech course....but that's certainly going to be down the line a ways.
I have in past semesters let the Music Tech students watch Tom Dowd & the language of Music. They seem to respond to that very well. They, of course, have absolutely no idea who Tom Dowd was, but they get into the film very quickly. Watching someone work with folks as varied as Ray Charles and Derek & The Dominoes is quite impressive to pretty much *anyone*! There are so many great scenes in that film...so many wonderful aesthetic discussions that you don't even realize are aesthetic discussions (the most beautiful kind!). As much as I hate to show films in class (that's a whole nother conversation!), I'll probably let them watch one of the Classic Albums DVD's as well. The Nirvana DVD is particularly good for me since it has MANY scenes with Butch Vig (of Garbage fame, of course!). He talks about getting Kurt Cobain to double-track vocals (he told Kurt that John Lennon did it...that convinced Cobain to do it!) amongst other things....
Should be a fun semester....