This is a Details Page. It's very long, so I recommend that you first read only its Introduction (describing the benefits of playing a colorized keyboard) and Tips for Using It and (to get a “big picture” overview of strategies for making melodies) a Summary Page.
But I do realize that the total effects will be a mix of positive & negative, with pros & cons. I've described some beneficial effects (the positives) and limitations. In the future (July and beyond), I'll say more about both positive & negative, and will explain why I want to learn more from music students (by observing their playing, and talking with them) and from music teachers by asking “what do you think about the pros & cons?” and “how could this method — by teaching one-hand melodic improvisation with a colorized keyboard — be effectively combined with other methods?"
my bio: I'm Craig Rusbult, an enthusiastic educator with a PhD (in Curriculum & Instruction, from U of Wisconsin) who is excited about possibilities for improving our thinking-learning-teaching and living, has written web-pages in a variety of areas during life on a road less traveled. I've had a long personal history of enjoying music, having fun with it. { Why do I think all of us are teachers who should be enthusiastic about education? }
the links: This page has many links, and you can know “where you're going” with color-cues. There are links without color-shading (that keep you inside this page) and links with blue shading (these go to part of my original page about music, which I'll call my Other Page) or with purple shading (to other pages I've written) and gray shading (to pages or videos made by other teachers). / a links-tip: If you want to wander away by exploring with link-clicking, yet easily return to “where you are now,” a useful strategy is to right-click on a link and choose “open in a new tab” and then – when after wandering you want to return – simply close the new tab and continue reading “where you were before” in the old tab. Or just use the browser's Back-Button until you return to where you want to be. [[ iou – Soon, in late June, yellow shading will show “extra” music-pages that are closely related to this page.
using this page: It's large, so you should read summaries and make choices.
read summaries: The Introduction – now in another page – gives a “sales pitch” to explain the what-why-how of using a colorized keyboard for improvising, for learning & teaching. Three summaries are very useful for giving you a quick “big picture overview” of many fascinating ideas – plus links to “where you can learn more” – so you can learn a lot with a little reading: • my favorite is a Summary Page, but I also like two Detailed Tables of Contents (they differ in content & style, but are similar in many ways) in this BIG Page and my other BIG Page.
make choices:
Why? This page is extremely large, is like a website inside a web-page. When you use a web-site, you choose the pages you will visit. You should use this web-page in the same way (because it's "a web-site") by choosing the page-parts you want to visit – you can read the parts in any order – and often by choosing the sections within each part.
How? You can know the options-for-topics by using either Table of Contents — for Parts or (to get summaries that will help you know-and-decide) for Topics — and deciding whether to click a link so you can learn more.
How? If you do jump around the page to visit its many parts, to avoid “feeling lost” you can know you're in another page if the link has colored shading, and inside this page you can know “where you are” by the box-borders and background-colors, as explained in the...
Brief Table of Contents for PartsYou can read these Parts in any order: Introduction (what-why-how in another page with purple border),
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Strategies for Improvising experiments produce experiences and learning: The main way to improve your improvising is to learn by doing, when you do musical experiments (you try new musical ideas) to produce new musical experiences so you can listen-and-learn. { In this section, imagine from two perspectives with "you" as yourself or a student. } How? To produce experiences that are more effective for learning, you may find it useful to... play in different ways: My Other Page has five tips for learning more by playing in different ways, while expecting to improve, seeking new adventures, playing sometimes slow but sometimes faster, by thinking or not-thinking, with objectives for learning and/or performing. • develop-and-use a better growth mindset: In all areas of life (including when you "try new musical ideas") you can learn more effectively when you develop & consistently use a better growth mindset, so — when you ask yourself “how well am I doing in this area?” and honestly answer “not well enough” — you are thinking “not yet” (instead of “not ever”) because you are confident that in this area of life (as in most areas, and all of the most important areas) you can “grow” by improving your skills, when you invest intelligent effort.* An effective growth mindset combines honest accuracy (in self-perception) and optimism (about being able to grow & improve). • develop-and-use an adventurous attitude: When a person is beginning to improvise music, it's an unfamiliar activity, maybe uncomfortable, and you may not feel confident. You need a growth mindset – plus wanting to learn from new experiences, no matter what happens – so you will have an adventurous attitude, will continue seeking new experiences. / One way to feel more comfortable, and feel more creatively free, open to exploring new ways of making music, is to improvise in low-risk situations, like when you're alone and nobody (not you or anyone else) cares about the quality or klunkers. A feeling that “no matter what happens, I'll be ok” will help you relax. You'll feel more free to do the creatively-risky experimenting that produces new experiences and new learning. {experiences: getting more & learning more - learning from all experience (both failures and success) - performing and/or learning} / Another way to feel more comfortable is to use a colorized keyboard so you'll have easy-and-intuitive recognition of the chord-notes you can use to form harmonious melodies. You'll enjoy hearing the melodies you're making, and this positive feedback (with immediate gratification) will motivate you, will help you feel more confident in your ability to make music that is interesting and enjoyable. • play free and play along: It's very useful to sometimes play free and sometimes play along, because each produces a distinctive kind of experience, and each is useful in different ways. When you play free-and-slow, you have more time to think & play & listen; this makes it easier to freely experiment, to creatively “try things” by combining note-sequences in a variety of ways, helping you discover how to improvise different kinds of new melodies and new rhythms, to make music that's interesting-and-enjoyable. When you play faster – but not necessarily “fast” – with other musicians (recorded or in person) so you'll have rhythmic accountability, this helps you develop the disciplined skills of playing rhythmic melodies with accuracy and continuity, as explained in playing slow and faster. • play while thinking or not-thinking: [[ iou – I'll develop this in early July, re: using thinking strategies to regulate metacognition, to control whether to use it and (if yes) how to use it, plus connections with free playing and playing along. ]] • define objective(s) for performing and/or learning: • What? When you want your best possible performance now, you have a Performance Objective. But with a Learning Objective you want your best possible learning now so you can improve your best possible performance later. For example, compare a basketball team's early-season practice (with a Learning Objective, wanting to learn NOW so they can perform better LATER) and late-season tournament game (with a Performance Objective, wanting to play their best NOW). / The title is "and/or" because your highest priority can be to maximize your learning now, or your performing now, or some combination of both. • How? You can "perform better later" in two ways. First, if you have learned from experience, your potential performing has improved, so you can do better. Second, this potential must be actualized by converting “can do better” into “are doing better” with high-quality actual performing. How? In a basketball team's late-season practice their main Learning Objective is to promote better performing in the near-future tournament game, by doing the learning (in practice now) that will improve performing (in the game). You can use a strategy of “learning to perform” in any area of life, including your musical improvisations. { more and more } • What and How? [[ iou – during June I'll describe dedicated practice (of various kinds, including physical practice when you physically play and mental rehearsal when you imagine playing) that is purposeful practice with goals for intentional learning. I'll distinguish between two kinds of goals for "learning to perform" when the goal of performance is either to skillfully duplicate pre-composed music (it's the assumed goal in many youtube videos) or to skillfully improvise self-composed music (it's the main goal in this page, although improvising can include an old melody (pre-composed, which you should be able to play as-is by duplicating) that is paired with new melodies (self-composed variations of the old melody). ]] Hearing Music and Making Music What? An easy way to enjoy is by listening to music when it's made by other people. You also can enjoy making your own music. What? For most people, listening is the main way we enjoy. But this hearing music can be supplemented by making music, and both ways can bring us joy. / Every person is unique, with their own personal preferences for experiencing music. What kind of person am I? IF I was forced to choose, instead of listening to only my own music I would prefer only the higher-quality music made by other people, in the creative combinations (of melody, harmony, and rhythm, plus arranging) they have cleverly invented. But this IF isn't a reality that limits me. I don't have to choose, so I enjoy hearing their music and making my music. Both kinds of music are sources of joy for me, in different ways. I'm sure you also enjoy the music of others, and maybe you already are enjoying (or will enjoy in the future) the music you make. { if you're curious, in my youtube-channel you can hear some of my favorite music – and see videos of my juggling & our cute dog. } How? You can... listen to the music of others “live” in person, or (more often) with a time-shifted recording. make your own music by using your internal instrument (voice) or an external instrument (keyboard,...). It's easy to make music by using your voice, with or without words,* because singing is an efficient connection between thinking and doing, with easy-and-intuitive translating of your musical ideas (imagined by you) into musical sounds (made by you). You also can have an intuitive translating (of ideas into sounds) when you develop skill in playing a keyboard, or another instrument. You can use the differences between instruments – each has a unique sound and music-making capabilities – by creatively experimenting with different instruments, including your voice, and exploring the possibilities of each; don't limit yourself to what is possible with other instruments, because each music-making instrument allows different types of musical improvisations, and inspires them. I think it's especially useful to combine explorations using voice-without-words and a colorized keyboard, because each instrument inspires different kinds of melodies. There will be two-way mutual transfers between them, with each helping the other improve. / Among expert musicians the most common music-making method is using popular chord progressions. You can practice doing this – and learn from your experiences, to improve your skills – by playing along with videos. * When I want to sing a familiar melody as-it-is (with no changes), singing it with the lyric-words is easy and works well. But if I want to creatively modify the melody with intuitive translating of ideas-into-sounds, I find that when singing “tones without words” — e.g. by simply starting every note with “d” or (for smooth legato) with “h” or with only a vowel (no consonant) — it's easier (for several reasons) to intuitively release fresh new ideas, with creative music tending to happen more often. Many Ways to Play Music What? There are close connections between improvising and composing. When we think flexibly about the timing of music making, we can view improvising as real-time composing, and composing as slow-motion improvising; also, with composing there is a preserving of the musical results — in memory(s) or with “sheet music” or in other ways (like the note-numbers I use for my melody-examples that illustrate melody-making strategies) — so the musical composition can be reproduced at later times. Transitions from improvising-to-composing can be easier if you record your improvisations so you can listen-and-preserve afterward. When a self-composed improvisation is preserved, it becomes a self-composed composition that (from the time-perspective of someone who reproduces it later) is a pre-composed composition. { synonyms: This page is about improvising melodies, but verbs with similar meanings are composing, designing, inventing, creating, playing, and making melodies. } How? You can play a pre-composed melody by “reading it” from sheet music, or “playing it by ear.” In both ways, your playing requires using memories of various kinds, combining them with complex interactions. { Similar complexities occur in cognitive-and-functional knowledge that develops when interactive experiences produce interactive memories.} In both ways, your melody-playing skills will increase with practice, and with "an intuitive translating (of ideas into sounds)" when using an instrument. How? If you want to make music, you can do this with pre-composed music or self-composed music, when you... • play a melody: While you're listening to a song, you can play along with it – using your own vocal instrument or an external instrument – by just playing the melody as-is (in its pre-composed form) with no changes. You can play along with others (live or recorded) or just remember a melody and play it by yourself. Or instead of these two ways to “play by ear” (with others or by yourself) you can “read sheet music” to play a pre-composed melody, by yourself or with others. {playing by ear and improvising} • improvise melody-variations: In a common way to improvise, you begin with a pre-composed melody; then you modify this melody by changing some of its notes, or adding notes or removing some, or emphasizing notes differently (than in the original), by making the note-spacings closer together or further apart, or harmonizing with the original melody, or changing its rhythm, or... any other way you want to modify the old melody and invent a new melody that you form by combining the pre-composed melody with your own self-composed variations. / terms: Usually a single song contains multiple melodies (two or more) so you can do multiple improvisations, by modifying melodies to produce variations of melodies that are melodies-variations. • improvise harmonious melodies: Play along with a chord progression, and during each chord you improvise by playing notes (both in-the-chord and out-of-chord) that “fit well” with that chord. This is the main method for playing a colorized keyboard, by using its red-blue-green to guide your inventing of harmonious melodies. / You can play a chord progression and “hear the chord changes” in two ways, either while you're playing melodies or while you're hearing chords by playing along with a recording (a youtube video or another kind) or when playing with other musicians in a jam session, or — if you have invested the time required to learn two-hand keyboard — by playing both chords (with left hand) and melodies (with right hand). • combine old and new: You can improvise melodies that combine old melodies (pre-composed in a song, as-is unmodified) with the self-composing music you are improvising by playing variations of these melodies and/or harmonious new melodies that feature chord notes but also include non-chord notes, in chord-melodies plus scale-melodies. This combination is a common way to improvise, when musicians begin with old melodies (within a song they like) and invent new variations of these old melodies (i.e. new versions of the old melodies) along with harmonious melodies that “fit well” with the song's chord progression. enjoy pre-composed and self-composed: You can enjoy pre-composed music by just listening, or also playing along with it, by ear or with sheet music. And you can enjoy making your own self-composed music with improvising, by modifying an old (pre-composed) melody and/or by improvising a new (self-composed) harmonious melody. {4 ways to improvise} |
Part 3 – Music Education
Below, three “green boxes” describe...
• Evaluating the pros & cons of teaching with a colorized keyboard – by first acknowledging my need to learn more from students (by using Reality Checks) and from teachers, and then making current claims (tentatively, planning to adjust when I learn more) about four benefits of combining my method with other methods.
• Learning (from my two pages - with and without a keyboard - from your discoveries and my explanations) and Teaching.
• Music Education for the Young and Old – with Many Similarities, plus Big Differences.
And a teaching-related page is...
Designing-and-Using a Lighted Keyboard examines high-tech options for getting the benefits of low-tech colorizing, and making it easier to "scale up" when using multiple keyboards in a "keyboard lab" for a K-12 school or senior living facility.
iou – Later, maybe in October, I'll "do something" with these two paragraphs — they will be condensed & revised, and maybe moved elsewhere — but until then, here they are as-is:
learning and teaching:
How? for learning (when you're a learner): A novice can “learn by discovering” by finding patterns in the colors (red, blue, green) of a colorized keyboard and then finding ways to use these patterns for playing harmonious melodies. The self-discovering is even easier for a person with some musical experience. But usually it's better if your learning from discovery is combined with learning from a teacher who can guide your discovering, and (by explaining) share their understandings. Learning from a teacher can happen by reading this page (with stop-and-go reading) or another page, or in a video, or you can learn from an in-person teacher with personally customized coaching that includes a lot of listening plus occasional commenting. { learning from discoveries plus explanations } { also: before and/or after in-person coaching, many useful melody-making strategies are in my Summary Page }
How? for teaching (when you're a teacher): During a student's process of learning how to improvise more fluently and musically, a teacher can be a “guide” – helping a learner make discoveries – and also give tips, describe principles, and explain. Although many teachers are skilled musicians, this isn't necessary. A teacher does need some keyboard skills — just enough to show the possibilities a learner can explore (and some basic “ways to show” are easy for a teacher to learn) — but a skillful teacher doesn't need to be a skillful musician. A teacher also needs some knowledge of basic music theory — just enough to help a student recognize the musical patterns, and help them convert their knowledge of music into their making of music — but not a lot. (although many teachers do know a lot.) { more: Later, this Big Page describes what a teacher needs to know-and-do so they can be an effective coach with their guiding of explorations and teaching of theory. }
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Learning and Teaching I've invested a lot of time in developing two pages about making music. Each page has a different focus, being written for people whose main goal is to improve the skills of other people (as teachers) or themself (as learners). • for teachers: The page you're reading is intended mainly for people who want to help others improve their skills with improvising music, in the differing contexts of a K-12 school or senior facility. It's for people who mainly want to teach. (and also to learn) • for learners: In a much bigger page – about Improvising Music (by using Creativity plus Music Theory) – the focus is helping a musician who wants to improve their own skills with improvising music. It's for people who mainly want to learn. It offers clear explanations for beginners and fresh perspectives for experts. You can get a feeling for the Other Page – with a quick “big picture” overview – by browsing its Table of Contents. Learning plus Teaching: But despite the differing focus, there are many similarities & overlaps, due to the connections between learning and teaching. One aspect of teaching a skill is to know it yourself; this page will help you know music theory, and play music melodies; then while you're teaching others, you will be learning. Learning helps you teach, and teaching helps you learn. This page helps you in both ways, and so does The Other Page, although it has less focus on teaching. Each page will help you understand music more thoroughly, explore it more deeply, and play it more skillfully. When both kinds of knowledge – music theory & music playing – are improved for you, both will help you do improved teaching. Learning with (and without) a Colorized Keyboard My Other Page is designed to help any musician – whether they play keyboard or another instrument – improve their learning and playing, so in that page I emphasize the value of using a colorized keyboard for learning, whether their main playing is done with a keyboard or another instrument. If you never play a colorized keyboard, can it help you understand music and make music? The Other Page answers Yes (for understanding) and Yes (for making) because "Whether you want to make music by using a colorized keyboard or a black-and-white keyboard, or another instrument (guitar, trumpet,...), the diagrams [of a colorized keyboard] can help you in two ways, when [as in Part 1B] you learn logical musical patterns [to understand music with music theory] and play beautiful harmonious melodies [to make music]." How? You can use colors either by seeing the red notes (and blue notes, green notes) on a keyboard you have colorized (how?), or finding these notes on an un-colorized keyboard, or translating the keyboard notes into the notes of another instrument (saxophone, guitar,...). In this page the color-diagrams also will help you learn-and-play, no matter what instrument(s) you play, whether you're seeing, finding, or translating. But there is a difference in the pages. Here I'm strongly recommending that you {and others, especially students} do play a colorized keyboard, because you'll get valuable benefits. The experience of playing-with-colors will help you {or them} learn music theory (because it's easier to see the most important patterns of notes) and will make it easier to play more skillfully because the colors make it easy to intuitively-instantly know the chord notes in a harmonious red chord – they're all of the red notes (no more, no less) – or in a blue chord or green chord. This intuitive simplicity will help you {or them} immediately make harmonious music. If you're teaching people who are young or old, or in between, the satisfactions of immediate rewards make it more likely that they will be motivated to continue making music. So if you're interested in teaching others, I recommend that you fully utilize the benefits of a colorized keyboard by playing it and letting others play it. / You can learn about using harmony to make melodies with minimal theory (in Part 1A), and then with more theory (in 1B) so you'll understand the language of music. three other pages: In addition to these two main pages about improvising music, I've written three others. • The Math of Music explains how interactions between the physics of music and physiology of humans produces the harmonies – both simultaneous and sequential – we like to hear. {how physics-and-physiology produces harmony} • how to get a keyboard and colorize it. • a “keyboard page” has practical information about... how to use the most-useful buttons on complex Yamaha keyboards — including their “split keyboard” so two people can play side-by-side in a duet or one person can alternate two “voices” during a song (e.g. with call-and-response or in other ways), plus their internal recordings of chord progressions that you can “play along with” either duet or solo) to supplement external recordings of chord progressions — and more. [[ iou – during late February, I'll describe the "and more" with some details. ]] two ways to improve (by reviewing old plus learning new), two ways to learn (by your discoveries and my explanations) In my Other Page a question – "How can this page help you improve your understanding of music theory?" – is followed by these two paragraphs: • "improving by reviewing plus learning: ... You can improve in two ways. If you know a lot now, for you most of this ‘Music 101’ will be basic concepts you already know (although you may see some fresh perspectives on what you know), so most of your improving will come from reviewing; of course, reviews can be useful to solidify your musical knowledge. At the other end of a broad range, if you don't know much now, most of your improving will be learning. ..... [ This is followed by descriptions of reviewing by experts and learning by novices, plus learning & reviewing by both. ]" • "your discoveries and my explanations: In the sections below you can learn music theory (it describes musical patterns in the relationships between notes) in two ways, by your discoveries [as in Stage 0 of Part 1A] and from my explanations [in Part 1B]. How much of each? You can choose. ..... [ This is followed by descriptions of how you can choose. ]" two ways to teach, by explaining and guiding: You can help others learn from your explanations. And you can guide their discoveries. / Many fellow teachers think discovery learning can be an effective way to learn, with a process that is enjoyable and personally satisfying. I agree. [[ iou – In late-February this introduction will “connect” with my introduction to “what a teacher should know-and-do” so they can be an effective coach who guides discoveries (as described in this section) and teaches theory (described later). ]] two ways to communicate: Both ways to teach – by explaining and by guiding of discoveries – can be done by communicating through writing (stop-and-go reading can be especially effective) or in person with customized coaching. your in-person guiding of their discoveries: When you're with someone who is playing a colorized keyboard, you can do personally customized teaching. You may want to mostly just watch and listen, after a general encouragement to “try new things” and “let your playing be guided by the colors.” But you may want to make specific suggestions, like “try doing .” Different approaches — with guiding that varies thru a range from minimal (mostly just encouraging their explorations) to significant (with specific suggestions) — will have different effects on learners, with “what's best” depending on the situation and the goals of a learner. [[ iou – I'll say a little more soon, in mid-January, by using what I'll be learning from experiments (and thus experiences) with people who are playing-and-learning while I'm trying different ways to guide their process of discovery learning. ]] learning how to teach: You continually learn from your experiences — by using Reality Checks & Quality Checks to evaluate-and-modify your designing of instruction and your personally-customized coaching to guide the process of “experiments ➞ experiences, listen and learn” for students — so you'll improve your strategies-for-teaching in ways that improve the process-of-learning by your students. |
Music Education for the Young & Old: Many Similarities, plus Big Differences There are major similarities in the ways that all people (whether young or old, or in-between) make music, and in our educational methods (with our principles, strategies, activities) for helping them make music. And there are significant differences. During late-2023 I'll be learning more by interacting with both age groups, but now (with my knowledge as-it-is) here are some thoughts: • a major similarity is the quick gratification (almost immediate) – for both young & old – of being able to quickly begin making harmonious music when they use a colorized keyboard. { I think this claim is justified, but don't yet have much evidence for it. } • listening to music and playing music produces benefits (physical, mental, emotional, social) that are mostly similar for young & old, but there are differences; for the young, with central nervous systems (brain,...) still developing, making music helps them more fully develop into what they are capable of becoming; for the old, it can preserve (or restore, or improve) what they already have. • a career in music is possible for young people (with some dreaming about playing Carnegie Hall, being a rock star,...) although it won't happen for most; but even thinking about these possibilities is unlikely for most old people, who (like most young people) will be satisfied if they just enjoy making music for themself or for those in their community. • having time to invest is more difficult for young people, because music is “in competition” with many other activities, so time investment often is easier for old people who are more likely to “be bored” instead of being swamped with numerous possibilities for competitive time-using activities. • coping with the technical complexity of an electronic keyboard, with numerous decisions to make and buttons to push, usually will be easier for young people who feel confident with modern technologies due to their experience with phones-tablets-computers; by contrast, I think many older people will feel less comfortable (maybe overwhelmed), will be less able to cope with the complexities, or even to try. For both age groups, leaders (teachers in K-12, activity directors in senior centers or facilities) can help by “setting up the keyboards” and responding to questions; I've made an ideas-page with useful information for them. • ergonomic principles are especially important for seniors — who are more vulnerable due to their older tendons & cartilage, and often rheumatism — to avoid damage with over-use injuries (to wrists,...) while playing keyboard or other instruments, but also should be considered for K-12. • the number of musicians (and players-per-keyboard) is usually more with K-12; in senior facilities, I think (but could be wrong, and it will vary with situations) there will be more time for personal attention & customizing. And in K-12 the intention is teaching for all students, while in a facility the main intention is facilitating for some seniors, by making the process easier for those who are curious, are wondering whether they want to (and will be able to) make music. • the process of introducing new ideas might be easier in senior facilities. Maybe decisions-to-adopt will be easier with seniors, with less red-tape bureaucracy & hurdles due to inertia, with more freedom — by the staff in each facility, or by companies (with many facilities) who want to offer additional “musical benefits” that will be appealing for residents — to decide their musical activities, compared with various kinds of rigidities in K-12. my justifiable humility: But for this "introducing new ideas" process – and for many other comparisons above – my humble disclaimer is that “I think” or “probably...?” or “maybe” because I'm not sure. As described in the section's intro, "I'll be learning more by interacting with both age groups" and then I'll know more. |
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Einstein did express a principle of appropriate simplicity, although not with the words that usually are quoted. As explained by Quote Investigator and Nature, "Did Einstein really say that? ..... Some [of the many quotations attributed to Einstein] are edited or paraphrased to sharpen or neaten the original." |
getting a keyboard and colorizing it
iou – Soon I'll write an introductory overview here, about my “do it yourself” page that describes a two-step process: first, get a keyboard (if you don't already have one, buy one); second, colorize the keyboard.
three features that (IMO) should be available:
iou – And I'll write another overview (for the last part of the do-it-yourself page) describing why I want to get an electronic keyboard (how?)* with three features that would be musically valuable due to the many benefits of using my system for red-blue-green colorizing of chord-notes and the pleasant harmony produced by mathematically-logical just tuning and the creative artistry facilitated by musically-logical transposing.
* How to get this kind of keyboard? If a musician wants one (or more) of these features, three possibilities are to... find a keyboard that now has the feature, or motivate a company to design it into a keyboard, or find a “do it yourself” way by using MIDI & software.
The three features I want (with details in the DIY-page) are a keyboard...
• that “lights up all chord notes” (across the whole keyboard) for each chord being played – e.g. when playing in the key of C, for the main major chords (C,F,G - I,IV,V) or a minor chord (Dm,Em,Am - ii,iii,vi) or other chords. The resulting benefits would be similar to my red-blue-green colorizing (with labels) but in many ways lighting would be better; and in a few ways colored labels are better. / How to get this? Many companies now make a “lighted keyboard” but afaik the lights are used only in other ways, including lights for a few chord notes but not all chord-notes. Soon I'll be learning more, to discover if any current keyboards can do this as-is, or if any companies want to design-and-manufacture it by using only software changes (this might be fairly easy & cheap) or with hardware changes (that would be more difficult & costly).
• with buttons that let you choose between Equal-Tempered Tuning (this is useful in a wide variety of situations, so it's typically the only option when playing an electronic keyboard) and Just-Intonation Tuning (with musical benefits in a few situations, especially when playing in a single key – like C Major with a colorized keyboard – either solo or with other instruments that can play just tuning). The important benefit of Just Intonation is being able to hear harmonies that are more harmonious instead of the “compromise harmonies” of Equal Temperament, with overtone-interactions between notes that are designed to be intentionally out-of-tune.
• with buttons that let you numerically change the key by going 1 semitone up or down (it's the standard way, is usually the only way) and also (as an option that should be provided) logically change the key by going up 5 semitones (from C to F) to “add a flat” with a “Flat-button”, or go up 7 semitones (from C to G) to “add a sharp” with a “Sharp-button”, thus giving a player two musically-logical ways to change the key, as in a Circle of Fifths. {note: You can add a flat by going either up 5 or down 7 to get F, and you add a sharp by going up 7 or down 5 to get G.} This extra option would be useful in some musical situations, including
Scientific Research (about the benefits of music)
I've begun searching, and there is a LOT of research. Instead of trying to summarize it here, it's done better in another page, Scientific Research about The Many Benefits of Music. But here I will mention...
One example from personal experience, also confirmed by scientists. It's how Synchronous Running with Tempo Music typically produces (for most people, including me) physical-emotional-mental-motivational benefits, with improved physical performance, emotional enjoyment, mental attitudes, motivated perseverance.
working with other educators
The page-intro describes my goal of "working cooperatively with others, to help people of all ages — but especially seniors [in living facilities & community centers] and K-12 students [in classrooms, schools, districts], the old and young — increase their enjoying of music" by improving their improvising of music, in many ways but especially by using a colorized keyboard.
In the homepage of my website about Education for Problem Solving, the following paragraph is quoting from a section that describes my approach to working with other educators.
co-creating better education: A section about Working Together explains why "I want to work with other educators – and doing this as a free volunteer will be fine with me – to develop our ideas for how to help students improve their creative-and-critical thinking skills and their effective using of problem-solving process in all areas of life" because we think "strategies for improving our problem-solving education are worth developing and (by converting our strategy-ideas into classroom-actions) actualizing. To do this developing-and-actualizing, collaboration is necessary because although I have some understandings and skills, I need help from other educators who have developed other understandings and skills,... who understand the perspectives of classroom teachers [and students] more accurately & thoroughly, or are skilled activity developers, and have other kinds of useful experience & expertise, so that by working together with coordinated cooperation, creatively combining your understandings-and-skills with mine, we can design curriculum & instruction that is a good match for how students like to learn (and are able to learn), and how teachers like to teach. ..... I want to see my ideas actualized in practical ways, by combining them with your ideas, working together to achieve your goals."
more: You can read the full section about "Working Together" in a full-width page (it's useful for a small-screen phone or tablet) or (better with a large-screen monitor) on the right side of a two-frame pair.
actions during late-2024: I'll continue doing experiments that produce experiences. I'll be contacting people who work with seniors, e.g. activity directors in senior living facilities or community centers. And I'll be communicating with professors in OSU's Music Education, and with scientists & educators elsewhere. All of these actions will help me learn more about teaching the young & old, and will help the teachers I'm working with. { iou – This paragraph will be updated when things begin happening. }
* As described in Learning and Teaching, I'll "begin investing more time in doing experiments that produce experiences... so I can learn more, can understand more thoroughly and accurately. I want to observe the actions of people (young & old) while they're playing, and communicate with them. I will use these experiments to do Reality Checks ... that will give me feedback [when I observe how people respond to playing the keyboard, and to the different ways I guide their musical explorations] for how closely my thinking (about “how the world works”) matches the reality (of “how the world really works”). Then I can use this feedback to modify my thinking so it more closely matches reality." Basically, these experience-producing experiments "will provide logical evidence-based justification for [or against] my claim... that people can immediately play music that sounds pleasantly harmonious, is interesting and enjoyable, so they will be motivated to continue doing it." And I'll be learning from teachers who know more than me, in many important ways.
Improvising Music and Conversation
What? In August 2022 this page had two proposals, to help people improvise music and conversation. Now it's just one proposal, for improvising music.
What? I've eliminated only the proposal for using MY ideas about conversation. But I think we should use the conversation-ideas of OTHERS. I continue to think that conversation activities will be extremely beneficial for seniors (and also for K-12 students) IF these activities are designed by people who have more expertise than me,* and IF they are done well by the activity directors in senior living facilities or in senior community centers. Or by teachers in K-12 schools. / * I think the conversation activities I've described (in another page) might be useful, but the designing of activities plus evaluations-and-decisions (about the kinds of activities to do) should be done by experts. One of my ideas is to design "conversation activities for seniors that – using the metaphor of a bicycle wheel (with center-hub, spokes, rim) – supplement center-to-rim interactions (typical) with around-the-rim social interactions (better in many ways). I've been thinking about how useful this kind of conversation-facilitating activity would be for seniors in living facilities, but it can be adapted for seniors in other situations, and for younger people in a K-12 classroom or elsewhere."
Why? My change of mind was due to a recognition that talking-activities should be done well – or not done at all – and doing them well would be difficult, plus my own justifiable humility in this area. / • All conversation activities should be done well because conversation is relationally important, so it's personally important; it can be “high stakes” emotionally, for people of all ages.* • Due to the complexities of people and our conversations, doing conversation activities with consistently high quality — for most persons (who as a group have a wide variety of backgrounds, personalities, abilities) in a wide range of situations — would be difficult. • And conversation education is an area where I have much less expertise, compared with music education where I feel more confident. {* e.g. the main activity in my conversation-page might be a high-stress experience, like an intense “speed dating” session for singles.} / For these reasons — because conversation activities would be personally-important & difficult, and I have low expertise — I want to approach conversation education cautiously, by sharing ideas (with appropriate humility, due to my respect for those who have more expertise & experience) and asking “what do YOU think?”, by contrast with my confident sharing-of-ideas in music education. {some ideas for possible conversation activities are in another page}
iou – Soon, maybe in January 2024, here I'll describe some ideas (with quotes & links) about the importance of conversation, and difficulties in doing it well.
Educating Yourself and Others: Why am I enthusiastic about education? It's because one exciting aspect of living (in our everyday experiences of thinking-and-doing) is education, when it's broadly defined as learning from experiences. With this wide view of education, every person is an educator-of-self (is a learner, doing internal education), and often is an educator-of-others (a teacher, doing external education).* You are being a teacher whenever you help another person get more life-experiences and/or learn more from their life-experiences. During our daily living, every person sometimes does informal teaching. But instead of viewing our actions as “teaching others” a perspective that's better because it's more humbly respectful (and more accurate) is “helping others learn” by their own actions, with us merely serving as facilitators of what they are doing. We usually do this “teaching” by just living in ways that make their experiences more personally beneficial for learning, more effective in helping them develop their whole-person potentials. { more: a broad definition of problem solving and improving whole-person potentials with whole-person education and producing more experiences with more learning plus teaching with empathy so – as in my favorite movie & my sister's ideas – we can help others achieve their goals. } * Although "every person is an educator [of self & others]" and "every person sometimes does informal teaching," those who choose teaching as a profession typically do it with more expertise, and they deserve great respect due to the importance of what they do and their skill in doing it. } |
some personal history
a summary: I've had fun with music.
My early experiences were listening to music on the radio, plus my father's collection of vinyl records.
Then I began playing pre-composed music with trombone in school bands, 5th grade thru high school, in small-town Iowa and Anaheim CA. Our family's move upgraded me from one of the worst junior high bands (in Iowa) to one of the best high school bands (in California) where I enjoyed being a small fish (just one of the Second Trombones) in a big pond. My experiences were enjoyable but shallow — with very little thinking about the music, simply playing whatever was on the sheet music in front of me (or in my memory), never playing by ear or improvising — without much understanding. Then I began having...
experiences with improvising:
After moving to Seattle in 1970 for graduate school (in Chemistry) at my first UW, I began playing self-composed music. At first, with my trombone I “played along” with songs I had tape-recorded (from vinyl or radio) or was hearing on the radio, playing the melody (by ear) or improvising melody-variations, or playing supportive functions that were a bit like a typical bass line or the kind of “second trombone” supporting role (by modifying the melody and/or harmonizing with it) but with less precision-and-consistency than in the parts I played in high school, that had been carefully pre-composed in the arrangement (composed for all instruments) being played by our band. The music I played was only moderately skillful, but I enjoyed the exciting new musical experiences that were produced by my experimenting.
The next summer, jam sessions with Harold & Charlie (playing clarinet & trumpet) included improvising with songs (mainly Dixieland Jazz) and with 12 Bar Blues, a chord progression they taught me. I was fascinated by the elegant beauty of this chord progression, and I enjoyed the process-and-result when we used this framework for improvising. Even though I didn't understand much about “the theory” (just knew the basics), what I knew was enough. I recognized that by using music theory we could coordinate our improvised melodies, cooperating to make interesting music, and it was fun. { Another favorite kind of jam session is to sing familiar songs with others — by singing each melody as-is and with improvised variations — to take advantage of the familiarity, plus our intuitive translating of musical ideas into musical sounds with singing. }
During the next few years, in the early-70s while living in Anaheim I explored possibilities for using chord notes (plus non-chord notes) by experimenting when playing trombone, and making visually-logical representations of “spatial thinking” for trombone. A decade later I was inspired to think about how to creatively use sliding-between-notes when I heard a beautifully artistic use of “long sliding” by Urbie Green* that illustrates using the special features of different instruments. In a store for used LP-records, his album caught my attention because in 1972 during a two-month road trip (from Seattle to Madison-and-Milwaukee, then back to Anaheim) I heard him play in a Chicago bar, was impressed by his trombone artistry, by what he could do with the instrument. { I've developed a wide variety of “visual representations” that include some for keyboards with “red-blue-green” and more. }
experiences with music education:
Some of my adventures during life on a road less traveled were learning about music and teaching it.
In Fall 1975 while living for a few months in Eugene OR, I met Joe Kasik at the Saturday Market where he sold the bamboo flutes he made. He showed me some “how to do it” principles at the market and then in a workshop in his home, where he and his wife had a back yard ending with the Mackenzie River. After returning to Anaheim, for two months I made bamboo flutes and sold them at weekend markets in Orange County. To help people play better, and sell more flutes, I wrote a 4-page booklet about making music by playing song-melodies (plus variations) and by improvising with chord progressions. I soon returned to Seattle and bought a melodica; as described by Wikipedia, I added "a long flexible plastic tube" so I could "play the keyboard horizontally" while seeing the keys that I had labeled (red blue green), thus making (in the late-1970s) my first colorized keyboard. For two years, 1980-81, I taught workshops on playing kazoo (to make music by humming, which is almost like intuitively singing without words) for Seattle's largest-in-USA Northwest Folklife Festival and this led to forming a creative kazoo band, led by a skilled accordion player. {my many musical instruments}
In 1989, I returned to graduate school (in History of Science before moving on to Curriculum & Instruction) at my second UW, in Madison WI. For 3 semesters I was a Teaching Assistant for a course (Physics in the Arts) that included color mixing – as in my concept of “splitting out the white” – and photography, plus music theory that showed students why major chords have a pleasant sound, due to the physics of sound and physiology of humans. It's interesting that our ears hear two simultaneous notes as the same two notes but with harmony (or dis-harmony), but our eyes see two simultaneous colors as one new color. This was one more experience that helped me learn about music, so I can help others learn.
I'm an enthusiastic educator (why?) who began teaching as a tennis instructor (for City of Anaheim) during high school. Since then I've taught lots of chemistry, plus physics & calculus, ESL, juggling (with different quality-of-teaching for tennis & juggling)* and ballroom dancing and problem-solving strategies. I've written a lot about improvising music (by using creativity + theory), now am beginning to do more teaching-and-learning in person. / * Although I had similar levels of “private skill” in both, my “public performing” was better in tennis, but ironically my “public teaching” was basically a failure for tennis but a success for juggling. I've enjoyed both activities, in different ways at different times in life. Playing tennis was an important part of life in high school and (to a lesser extent) in college and beyond. Later, learning how to juggle (in 12 years, 45 minutes) – and then teaching it in UW Experimental College – has enriched my life in many ways, leading to a variety of fascinating adventures that otherwise would not have happened.
While learning more about education, I've grown to appreciate the value of learning by discovery. But this should supplement (not replace) learning from explanations, because when both are used well in a creative combination, this can be more synergistically effective – for having fun, and learning – than either pure-discovery or pure-explanation by itself. { As an educator, one personal goal is to balance “all would be best” fanaticism: "Although sometimes the rhetoric of enthusiasts makes it seem they are claiming ‘if some is good, more would be better, and all would be best’ (where 'all' is the approach they advocate), most educators agree that we should avoid the uncreative restrictions of rigid "all would be best" thinking (based on either-or assumptions) because eclectic instruction usually works best, especially in the long run." Therefore, we should try to creatively combine instruction methods for keyboarding and more generally. }
In 1997, I condensed my PhD dissertation (about teaching Scientific Method in Science Education) and made web-pages that I self-published on the web, eventually generalizing the ideas beyond science (into other areas of life) and developing a website about Education for Problem Solving. A year later I wrote a page about Musical Improvisation, and have continued developing it. The Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) shows this page in 2004 (fairly short, with 5.7 screens) [[ iou - in July, I'll make a few links for times between 2004 and NOW when my Other Page is 48.5 screens, is “a website inside a page” and this page is similarly large. ]]
In early-2013 I moved from Madison to our family home in Anaheim CA, to serve as caregiver for parents. Dad passed away (three weeks after an unexpected “no previous history” medical complication) in late 2013. Then until mid-July 2019, Mom was generally healthy, fairly independent, able to walk around the house without help, with minimal pain. Then she injured her lower back while bending over to remove shoes, and life was not the same for her; she never again had a day without severe pain. After 10 days of me (and a part-time nurse) trying to cope with the new situation in our house, Mom left the house and had strong pain medicines plus well-trained helpers in facilities (medical, nursing care, residential) for the next 4 months, the rest of her life. A few weeks after a minor heart attack she died at 95, the end of a long-and-good life, with her & Dad (who had died at 91) helping others have good lives.
inspirations for activities in facilities: My sister and I decided that the best residence for our mother was Sunrise Senior Living of Huntington Beach, and overall we were very happy with the high quality of everything. Connie (sister) visited almost every day. So did we (me and the dog of Mom-and-me), and I observed the daily “recreational activities” of Sunrise. Then later (when Mom was no longer there) I imagined how they could do activities in ways that would be more beneficial for the residents, and more fun. These thoughts have led to my two proposals, for improvising music and improvising conversation; I feel confident about music (although with questions), but for conversation I'm justifiably humble so for it I'll just share some ideas, and ask experts “what do you think?”
Yes, music has been fun for me. Now I want to help others also enjoy music in more ways, more fully.