In my own practices, I am able to point out certain things my body does when I play after I read the article about Body Mapping. I am more aware now about my breathing, I now realize that we breathe with both our diaphragm and ribs and how the core support will help correct and enhance out Body Mapping. In turn this will help me in my expression, giving me greater range in expression while I play the piece, since the support that I receive from my core support allows me to breathe more easily. Also, the improvement breathing of my breathing gives me a better sense of control over my body which helps me have more ease in body movement while I play. Before learning about this, I did not know about the effects that my posture had on my musicality and how that also related to my body movement as well. Learning about the places of balance has also helped me with fixing a problem that has been bothering me for a while, which are my shoulders. My shoulders tend to tense up a lot when I play and I kept trying to fix it but had no luck, but now that I learned about the places of balance I tried to sit in a posture that help with the balance and have seen some difference. This will be a slow process to fix this but it has definitely helped with my shoulder problem. From this reading, I apply the information I learned into my practices in order to enhance my performance and help me play my instrument more easily.
Reflection 3: Body percussion video
https://youtu.be/b3YctQHx_eE
Reflection: 4&5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgaYz8YWsO8
The song “Home to me” by N’we Jinan is a song that is about the struggles to get clean water, proper housing and the fight against deforestation. The singers N’we Jinan is a group formed by David Hodges and Joshua Iserhoff who both agreed about the fact that musical opportunities were not always granted to youth in Northern communities. This is how David decided to go to Northern Cree communities in Quebec and encourage the youth through music and education. The songs of this group have been sung by many of the youth that they worked with in Indigenous communities. Specifically, their song “Home to me” is a song that was written in order to sing talk about the continuous struggle with clean water, proper housing and their fight against deforestation for the Grassy Narrows First Nation in Ontario. The Grassy Narrows First Nations is a group of Ojibwe First Nations who are also known as Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek. In their reserve, they have been having trouble with clean water as a company poured mercury into the river leading to many people getting mercury poisoning. Also, they are facing deforestation of the forest within their reserve. The youth of this indigenous group wanted to put out a message for their people, that they should find strength in their land and culture even through hard times. From watching the music video of this song, I thought that they were able to show their beautiful reserve, which is something that they take pride in. By showing their land, they show the beauty which will give strength to their people and encourage them to continue to be strong and protect their land. I also enjoyed that they incorporated the use of Indigenous instruments in the video, I like that they incorporate so many aspects of their culture within the video to show how important it is to them. I also hear the use of their native tongue in the song which I think is something that is very interesting because in regular songs, they would usually only sing in one language. But the fact that they incorporated both is something I find very interesting and meaningful as well. I thought that this song was very emotional as well as spiritual and uplifting because they are giving encouraging messages such as “express what we feel, true conversation and address what is real, connected to the land, we are one with each other, this is our home to discover.” I think that these lyrics give hope and positivity even when times get tough. Overall, I believe that this song is able to convey the feelings of the Grassy Narrows First Nations very well and it is for a very good cause for the sake of their community.
Reflection 6: My Habits and behaviours of OpinionS
I tend to focus on the bad parts when I practice or listen to and evaluate my own performance, I would usually blame or attribute these feelings onto myself since I believe that I am the root of the problem
I usually try to attribute my feelings to my situation and the person whoever it may be, whether it is me or someone else.
Response and interpretation is something that tends to play a part in how I blame my feelings as well as it is something that can add to my reasoning and understanding of how I feel
I tend to describe my emotions by blaming it on a physical sensation. Such as saying that I am irritated because I am tired.
Describing my emotions will sometimes have no reasoning though, sometimes it is just an “off” day for me and I don’t know how to fix my mood.
I definitely feel that I use the word “but” quite often, I tend to give feedback and stand by it because I am quite headstrong and stubborn when it comes to my beliefs.
It would usually seem like I am very straightforward and adamant on people following my advice since I truly believe it will help them.
When I describe an opinion, I will straightforwardly say what I believe, I will not usually say “in my opinion, I really enjoy this movie.” Since I am stubborn I stick to my opinions and defend it, refusing to listening to many other opinions even though I try to listen.
I think I learn that I am very stubborn, I will stick to my beliefs until the very end and it is quite hard for me to change my opinion once I have made it. I am willing to try and understand another person’s opinion, but I doubt it will really change my mind about my own opinion very much.
Reflection 7: Group exercise
For this group exercise, it will be an activity related to listening and music as well. The students will be taking part in a group activity that will make them listen for the time signatures of each rhythm I clap and I will be making them guess what kind of time signature it is.They will be both using their listening and team building skills as well as their musical knowledge. At the beginning of the game I will be starting out with a 4/4 time rhythmic excerpt that will be roughly 2 bars long, something simple and can get the students going. Then I will ask for them to clap it back and ask them what rhythm it is. I will ask them what 4/4 time consists of and then continue on to the next time signature. I will be doing around 3 different time signatures, 4/4 time, 3/4 time and 6/8 time. This will allow them to familiarize themselves with the different time signatures as well have the chance to explain to others in order to further their comprehension on the subject.
Reflection 8
From these two readings, I realized that how the body movements are dependent on the intentions and the contexts that happen around oneself. I think that this definitely applies to me when I am practicing, performing or just playing for my teacher because my posture does change depending on who I am playing for and why I am playing the piano. From observing myself for the last couple of days, I can see that I have a more relaxed posture since there is no one watching me play that will make me tense. Compared to when I play in front of my teacher or audiences, I definitely slouch a bit more since it is more comfortable, but if I am in front of my teacher or an audience, I am very stiff. When I play in front of my teacher or an audience, I tend to scrunch up my shoulder and it seems as if I am shrinking myself. This can affect my playing and my mobility as well, because when I scrunch up my shoulders, I have a harder time moving my hands freely since I do not have enough arm movement. This made me realize that it really does depend on the context and environment I am in for my posture to change, this change in posture also does affect my intentions when I am playing. The change in posture prevents me from being able to convey my intentions when I am playing a piece because when you are tense, you cannot move the way you want to and that affects your intentions with the piece and that effects one’s performance. When it comes to music, the mindfulness of ones posture is something that depends on the context of ones environment and as well, it can affect the intention that one has when playing a piece.
Reflection 9
I had read the article from PBS regarding the group of musicians from the prison in Kingston and how music making is affecting them and how they want to change. The group called the Pros and Cons and many others are able to show the great impacts that the arts can have and how it can be used as a powerful tool of justice and advocacy. From this article I learn the positive impacts that the music group had for the incarcerated and how it can help them and how it can help them re-integrate themselves within the community. The arts are able to help the incarcerated advocate that they still have a place in society, it helps them realize and show people that they have not lost themselves within prison. The arts can help benefit the positive impacts that come with doing the arts, helping the inmates prepare to re-integrate themselves into society as well as having that enjoyment of learning music and creating something that is their own. The arts help the inmates themselves start to interact more with each other as well, “It’s really hard to make friends with people inside. You become very solitary, to see all these guys work together, and cooperate, and have a vision we could share” (Etman, 2017). The arts can help advocate for more interactions with one another for the inmates, give them more human interactions with each other as well as the outside through performances. The arts always come hand in hand with performance, giving inmates the opportunity to advocate that something happy and positive can come from prison. Having that prior community interaction within prison through the arts, whether it may be inmates performing or people performing in the prison. The arts can advocate for the need of the arts and how it promotes more community interaction within prison, helping inmates become accustomed to society once again. We can help them heal and become better through the arts, giving them the outlet to change and become better if they choose to.
Kellie’s presentation was very interesting! I enjoyed her enthusiasm about changing the traditional choral settings that are present into settings that can also accommodate to kids with special needs. I think that this is something that I definitely resonated with when she was talking about this. This is because I believe that giving every student, regardless of what kinds of problems they have or are experiencing. What she was talking about is exactly what I want to try to incorporate within my classroom teaching in the future, I want to be able to give students that safe space so they can express themselves. When Kellie was talking about the many focuses that all the musicologists, music therapists and professors had when teaching and how they were similar was very interesting and informative. Finding out how there are so many things in common show that there are many focuses that changing the choir setting, and just music in general can have on the student whether they have special needs or not. Kellie’s presentation shows just how education and cultural systems should change their methods in terms of dealing with children with special needs. From her changes in choral setting, the children have more control over their impulses and have improved their motor skills. These results show the benefits of interacting with children and people with special needs, how this can change the views we have about them as well. Culturally as well, from Kellie’s presentation, I am able to see that interacting with people who have special needs can benefit both sides. Giving the children a new perspective as well as giving the children with special needs more interactions and human contact, helping them learn how to deal with people. This demonstrates how our cultural views on people with special needs is very narrow, thinking we cannot interact with them. In reality, interacting with them more will benefit both sides in ways we did not think possible.