Music and Technology

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.  –Maya Angelou

The Internet is full of great information regarding the “benefits of music.”  Just write those words in a search engine and you will see volumes of material on the issue.  The following is an example:

     Music Students Are Scoring. Music students are outperforming non-music students on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). College-bound seniors with coursework or experience in music performance scored 52 points higher on the verbal portion and 37 points higher on the math portion of the SAT than students with no coursework or experience in the arts. (Source: The College Board, September 1997) Elizabeth (December 26, 2000)  The Benefits of Studying Music. Excerpts retrieved from http://www.thevirtualharp.com/2009/12/the-benefits-of-studying-music 

I believe these postings certainly leave room for serious thought.  By now many of you have seen my band link in the Coffee Lounge.  I would like to explain why I included that piece of information in a class about eLearning.

Unable to teach, this frustrated student decided to organize a band for several reasons:  there were so many good musicians in this area not working; they had so much to teach me; and music helps relieve my stress, pain and anxiety. Every practice is a classroom where we teach each other new music, chords and chord patterns and create our own interpretations of other artist’s music.  It is an exciting, challenging and fun team effort.  When we perform the music live at a gig, our musical abilities are tested. 

There is another unseen side of the band most people do not see.  Each performance is unique and is recorded by a camcorder, where the video is then put into a software program that allows us to see and hear the parts of our music we need to work on.  Also, we can take the music from these live performances and put them on our website.  The editing process is much the same process you find in a television or movie studio.  It is time consuming and pains-taking work.  When the editing is finished, we have the ability to show a live video of our music; and/or we can put it on a CD or on our website as clips, like those you may have listened to when you visited our site.

Both my husband and I work for a production company called, Rhino Staging and Event Solutions.  We help put up stages, set up lighting and sound equipment and put the instruments in their place on stage before an event.  This is exactly what we do with our own performances on a less grandiose scale.  The sound and staging is done by my husband.  I help the stars with their costumes and do the “running” for the production company.  Once the performance is over, we begin the process of a" tear down."   Much of this work is tedious and physically difficult.

We work for many different people and stars who have unlimited talents and work with a variety of musical venues.  Almost all productions, no matter how small or how grandiose, require an extensive amount of technology.  In fact my husband uses at least four, if not more, software programs to record, reproduce and edit our music.  We know larger musical productions have far more sophisticated and complex programs.  In addition, many of them use the same technicians, lighting and sound crews used to produce “blockbuster” movies.  These people are knowledgable about the many technologies used in these productions; and they are experts in their field.  In the entertainment industry, music and technology are interconnected and one cannot do without the other.

In sum, owning your own band is hard work, highly educational and uses a wide variety of technology.  But the real benefits are seen by each of us at the end of the night.  Our audience has danced the night away and reduced their stress levels while having fun.  We have seen our hard work come to fruition and leave with a sense of accomplishment.   Behind the scenes, we continue to use and stay updated on all the latest technologies.

Beginning eLearning with Joy-9/21/2010

I am beginning my eLearning experience at Bellevue College, in Bellevue, Washington.  I am working on a certificate in eLearning.  This is my first experience with a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).  As I work toward enriching my teaching skills, I hope to create an online course. 

I would like to begin this journey into the Virtual Learning Environment with the following excerpts from Daniel Haughian, (2000), written in a book called, Be Proud of All You've Achieved: Poems on the Meaning of Success, (9th printing, p.43) Boulder, Colorado: SPS Studios Inc.:

     Before you lies a journey we all must travel.  A journey whose length is not as important as the footprints   you will leave behind for others to follow.  A journey that has many paths, and the one that you choose will decide the course your life will take.  You can opt for the easy and well-trodden road, or you can venture down the one rarely traveled... And whichever road you choose to walk, let it show that a good and noble person passed this way..., because the footprints you made in this life showed you walked in the footsteps of love.

My great passion is the field of Criminal Justice studies.  I work as a volunteer in a shelter for survivors of  domestic violence and/or abuse.  The question has been asked whether the violence toward women in a domestic situation, or even a man for that matter, is a social problem or a Criminal Justice problem.  I hope to build my course around that question.

I am equally interested in healthcare and political science issues.  Somewhere in the eLearning journey, I hope to be able to plan classes online in all three areas.  I believe you must have a passion for learning and teaching.  I believe you must have a passion for following the rules of the trade as well.  Maybe one day, someone will write about me, that a "good and noble person passed this way."