Week 2 Blog Post 2: Response to Karl Peterson

 Karl,

Great analysis of the book to the EMDT Program. I couldn't agree with you more when you stated that by taking a different perspective on various projects and assignments that have stumped you, you've been able to find a work around. I can't tell you how many times that I've said, "well THAT didn't work!" As someone who thinks of himself as a fairly creative individual, I've had many visions of projects that have taken on new dimensions since the initial thought or vision. As I work through the details and discover my "inabilities", the project begins to take a different shape and even though it may be totally different from what I originally intended, I think many times it turns out much better than I originally intended. I enjoy this process and through it I get a better sense and admiration of what I've accomplished. It is this process that I believe the Zanders are speaking to in their book.

 

Karl Said,

MAC Week 2 - Post 1 Reading

The Art of Possibility (or should it be the Art of Perspective?)

I have noticed on a reoccurring basis, throughout these last 10 ½ months that I have been in the EMDT program, a reoccurring theme. That theme has been the importance of looking at things from a different perspective. After reading the first four chapters of “The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life” by R. Zander & B. Zander (2000), that is the major theme that I walked away from the reading with. In fact I am a hard time looking at this book in any other light than that. That isn’t a bad thing, this I am certain of. As I have gone through course after course, and run into countless challenges, I have always had something occur that has forced me to take a step back and reevaluate the situation from a different perspective. Every single time this has happened, I have managed to find a way to work through or around the issue as a result. The four chapters of this book have only served to open my eyes to new ways or ideas on how to do this more frequently in my everyday life. I really like the ideas of “give an A” and “game of ‘contribution’”. I think these are fantastic ideas. My hope is that if I am able to implement some of these ideas into my life, I can reduce much of the stress that exists in my life and to try to view more things in life, thusly opening up more possibilities as a result.

Thanks for reading,

Karl Peterson

Week 2 - Blog Post 1 Reading: The Art of Possibility

Benjamin Zander’s TED talk on classical music is one of my favorite TED videos.  I can’t remember when I first saw this, but I have seen it on numerous occasions and have enjoyed it each time.  As I started reading the book, Art of Possibility, I thought I would get a jump on the reading before reading the introductory assignment page in FSO.  My plan of action was to discover what the purpose of the book was and how it was connected to the class as quickly and efficiently as possible.  I had blinders on trying to figure what concrete lesson the book was trying to teach.  In my haste I missed who the author was and why we were reading this book.  So in that frame of mind I had difficulty understanding the purpose and connection of the book to the class.  It wasn’t until I took the time to read the assignment completely in FSO and then finally discovered that Zander was the same person who co-authored the book, it made total sense.  Chapter One Learned: It’s all invented.

As I continued reading through the book I found Chapter 3 to be especially applicable to my everyday life and teaching.  The stories that the Zanders tell do a great job at illustrating the point of Giving an A, as well as to give concrete examples of how to apply these practices in real life. Personally, as someone who tends to be a little bit of a perfectionist, this chapter provided the perfect anecdote to free me from the chains of creative block that has often stalled me from making further progress on a variety of projects.  So what I take away from this chapter is that by giving yourself an A you are in a sense taking away the fear of failure.  Eliminating this fear allows you to explore the boundaries of creativity and expand the realm of possibility.  Often times you just need this extra push of confidence to overcome small mountains. 

In band you can’t really ignore things when they don’t go well.   The kids know when they completely bomb because often times they know how a certain piece should be played.  So sugarcoating a bad performance is not effective at improving performance.  What is important, however is to get the kids to realize what mistakes were made and how to fix them.  It is through this concept that the ideas of Chapter 3 take flight.  Allowing students the safety net of not being afraid to fail will allow them to try harder pieces, explore the range of their musical abilities and teach them persistence despite adversity. (In a performance, despite how bad things might be going the idea of continuing through but being able to adapt and adjust on the fly is crucial)   Giving the students the freedom to do this is important.

Week 1 Blog Post 4: Leadership/Publication - To Present or Not to Present

Cover Page of PresentationZen by Garr Reynolds

It's funny that as a teacher I'm in front of an audience everyday and speaking publicly.  Yet when it comes to choosing between writing a paper or making a presentation my first thought was to write a paper.  I hate speaking or presenting and when given a choice I would rather not.  Why is this?  Perhaps fear of judgment from my colleagues?  Fear of stumbling over my words?  Fear of going blank in the middle of my presentation?  Being a little bit of a perfectionist, I also think that I get a little timid doing a presentation on a project that didn’t necessarily go perfectly.  

I tell my students all the time that performing in front of an audience is a skill that needs to be practiced and the more you do it, the better that you become.  So I suppose I should become a student of my own teaching and take this perfect opportunity to practice something that scares me and something that I need to work on more as well.

Week 1 Blog Post 3: Response to Marty Denson

Hi Marty,

I completely hear you about individuals involved in the "art" of sampling probably do not possess adequate musical skills and thus revert to thievery.

Consider this however, during many classical music eras, especially the Baroque period, the practice of "borrowing" material from other composers was widely accepted and actually considered to be a sign of respect and admiration for the composer from which you "stole" from. Granted I understand that at this level it is quite different when you compare it to today's run of the mill "music producer" creating "mixes" in their parents basement. I think though there is something to be said about music creation today being more accessible to a greater amount of individuals because of technology. With it you bring some not so good art but every once in a while you do get inspiring masterpieces.

Marty Said:

Being involved in the music industry for nearly 34 years and the printing industry for 21 years, copyright issues have always been an important part of everyday conversation for me. The documentary “Good Copy/Bad Copy” is yet another look at the evolving issues and changes regarding copyright laws. The documentary enlightened me as to just how far the concepts of audio sampling has reached. While these individuals have demonstrated creativity with their “Techno Brega” style of manipulating the original works of others, I honestly believe that it is really just form of creative theft. It appears as though the individuals in the documentary clearly recognize that what they are doing is illegal, however, the ways to police this kind of copyright infringement is extremely difficult. Furthermore, I have noticed that the majority of those who practice the art of sampling do not possess any real musical skills and are left with no other alternative but to use other people’s works without permission rather than be original.     

Week 1 Blog Post 2: Response to Michael George

Micahel, I'm sure the current copy right extensions were a result of lobbying efforts from corporate interests and a few individuals that want to control their own interests. I can maybe understand this from their perspective but I agree with you that this has created a stifling system that inhibits creativity and places severe limitations on educators. I wish there would be just a little more common sense approach to this. I think a blend of the creative commons solution and copyright law may help to alleviate the dilemma.

May 5, 2011 4:33 PM  

 

Michael Said:

Wk1 Reading: Copyright Issues Part 1: Intro to Copyright

The current state of copyright law in the USA makes me very angry. As pointed out in the videos and reading, copyright law is specifically mentioned in the Constitution. However, Copyright was meant to provide the owner a ‘limited monopoly’ so that they could benefit financially from their creation. However, Copyright law now extends to 100 years for corporations or the authors life + 70 years. This makes absolutely no sense. The reason our forefathers created a system where copyright expired was to encourage authors to make the next cultural contribution. This is the key. As a copyright holder, in exchange for benefiting our culture you receive a limited monopoly on your work as payback. However, in our current system, you can pass your copyrights onto your grandchildren and they can generate license fees. Are we creating a class of ‘idle rich’ that produce nothing? Limiting copyright length would also benefit the remix culture because copyright would actually expire on older works and they would be freely usable. At the rate we are going, Copyright can soon be renamed to forever-right since congress continues to extend its length.

Week 1 Blog Post 1 Reading: Copyright

Music Print Copyright: What’s fair use?

Although we have talked a little about copyright previously in this program, I really appreciate the in depth lessons, videos, articles and discussions on copyright.  I think it has helped to clear a lot of questions and uncertainties.  It seems like we should have had this in month 1 or month 2. 

Music stand photo by _e.t retrieved May 4, 2011

from http://www.flickr.com/photos/45688285@N00/119402174/

I think I still have one lingering question regarding music print copyright.  The question has to deal with photocopying printed music for students to use in lieu of the original parts.  Is it legal to make photocopies of printed music for student use?  This would entail making multiple copies of the same part. This discussion is often had within the community of band directors, as we all seem to believe that we are violating the law and will be hauled off to jail should they ever catch us or decide to seek legal compensation.  There also seems to be a wide variety of opinions and anecdotes about what constitutes Fair Use, so I’m interested to get more opinions and to know really what is legal and what is not.

There are several reasons for why band directors would make photocopies:

1.     Student responsibility and treatment of sheet music falls way short of what is needed to adequately preserve the original music.  Printed music by itself can last for many years and be enjoyed by many generations of students, however in the hands of students you may be lucky if it lasts 2 years.  (Yes even with speech after speech about responsibility and proper handling) 

2.     As a band teacher I also want to encourage my students to write in their music to place reminders about tempo changes, key signatures, dynamics etc.  The act of writing helps them in the learning process.  However if students receive already written in music then that sort of defeats the purpose, and there is always the possibility of errors from previous students or changes made by the director.

3.     The cost to purchase music for a band or orchestra ranges from $50 - $100 per piece.  Within this piece there generally is not enough parts to provide sheet music for every member of a particular section.  For example you may have 8 clarinet parts in a score but have 20 clarinets in your band.  This is clearly not enough even for students to share.  They also need music to take home to practice as well.  At the middle school we generally perform for each group between 12 – 20 pieces in a given year, depending on the group and may have up to 6 different groups.  So you might imagine the cost to purchase and maintain music could reach into the 10s of thousands.  Of course there is no budget to purchase music in most districts (at least in California) so music needs to be purchased through fundraising.  This creates a powerful motivation to want to make copies in order to preserve the original music and protect the investment.

Sheet music store sign photo by lucas.  Retrieved May 4, 2011 

from http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucas_gonze/3920271508/

These reason of course are not valid legal reasons for making photocopies but just helps to enlighten you on the dilemma.  I would like to know definitively if making photocopies of purchased music for student use falls under Fair Use.  I tend to believe that it meets the parameters set by Fair Use, however there are quite a few colleagues who believe that the law is black and white and that massively reproducing copyrighted music is not legal and that those who are doing it are breaking the law.

Welcome back to my blog EMDT Colleagues! Month 11 MAC!

This post will officially begin the new course, Media Asset Creation, for the Full Sail EMDT program.


Thanks for checking it out!