Sunday 20th August - Lionesses, and Learning more about the moon

 Lionesses, football, National Football Fever...

I guess a lot of church-goers were conflicted this morning; go to church or watch the footie? I could have had the best of both world; put the football on TV while joining with the church live stream on the laptop. It was an easy choice for me - I'm not that interested in any kind of football, so I joined the church (and also did cross stitch). I did wonder about the propriety of the whole church congregation decamping to the local pub to watch the match, and following it with either a 'service of celebration' or a 'litany of lament'...

I was thinking about how I go about learning new things. About this moon going round the earth going round the sun. It is just too much to take in all at once, so yesterday I focused on just a few facts.

Now I am comfortable with the idea that the moon rises in the east or thereabouts and sets in the west or thereabouts.

And with the way the times of moonrise and moonset shift by about 50 minutes later each day. 

So, surely, there must be a period when the moonrise and its subsequent journey across the horizon must be during our day time... ah, that explains about the a new moon, I think, when the moon is on the other side of the Earth all night, and too close to the sun to be seen during the day. Aha! Today's new fact!    

What will I learn tomorrow?

Getting the hang of the moon's peregrinations is a similar process for me as learning to play a new piano piece. It is a pretty big task to learn the notes, fingering, rhythm, expression and articulation all in one go, so it has to be broken down into steps, making sure notes are known, which finger goes where, and when, and how, bit by bit, revising and remembering each element until they all combine into a complete understanding.

Tuesday 14th April - What day is it?

That was a question posed on twitter (humouroursly, I hasten to add) this morning.

Every day seems like 'today' at the moment...

Although today has already had its moments. We both felt a bit 'hustled through a hedge backwards' by the end of the morning;

The catflap has been playing up for a couple of days. New battery time? No, that didn't sort it. The latch was operating at random intervals regardless of whether there was a cat anywhere near.

Himself spent a gruelling half hour changing batteries, doing factory resets and generally fiddling about with the contraption - uncomfortable work when you are crouched down at cat-flap level. Then we both spent a hectic time trying to re-programme the catflap. The cats are microchipped, and it is this that unlocks the door. So we have to catch a cat (easy, the frst time, just nab it while it is asleep) and then feed it through the flap several times in each direction to register the chip. This gets trickier as you go on. At least He had removed the contraption from the back door so we could contain the cats in the sitting room and work in the warm.

This process proved unsatisfactory. Well, to be blunt, it didn't work - replacement catflap time. Luckily the nearest pet shop had something that would do the job in stock. so He nipped out and returned in triumph.

'Right', he said, a short while later, 'just grap a cat and we'll get this sorted.'

Yeah, well, I'd just started a pre-scheduled zoom session. The first participant was greeted to the sound of extrememly cross cat and both of us making 'persuasive noises' of the 'oh just go through you stupid animal' type. Then, with one hand on the screen and another on the cat the phone went, because the other participant had lost the email with the password for access...

Oh well, we got it done - everything - catflap now installed, zoom call accomplished and password re-emailed.

First thing this morning, when I was still at the breakfast-in-bed stage, and all these excitements where yet to arrive, I watched this tutorial

http://koosjekoene.com/working-with-a-fountain-pen-and-soluble-ink/

and thought - 'that looks easy enough'

and it is;

I drew that while I was waiting for Himself to pause from fixing the new catflap and work out why my connection to the zoom meeting had dropped, and how to restore it.

Later this afternoon, I added to my collection of learing to draw figures

and I'm pretty chuffed with this too. Especially as several art teachers at several schools informed my that I was no good at 'art', and I believed them. I rather think this comes into the same bracket as telling people that they are 'no good at music'. Sure, some people are 'naturals', 'pre-wired' to be able to do it. Like some people (most, actually) can sing in tune, just like that.

Drawing, for me has just been a case of learning how to do it, and then being accepting of the results.

Singing - to an ordinary, everyday standard, is first and foremost about listening to the sound you are making, properly, which often needs to be taught. I'm coming to the conclusion that drawing, to an everyday, ordinary standard, is first and foremost about learing to look at what you are doing, properly.

Like cooking. Read the recipe and do what it says? Learn enough technique to be able to get along?

I'm 'cooking' supper tonight - baked beans on toast, reasonably within my current capabilities. I've also put the last egg to good use - it was a bit too elderly for me to want to eat it boiled or fried, but baked in a cake for an hour and a quarter should render it harmless enough.

14th October - Here goes another week

I've been rattling away on this keyboard all afternoon, apart from the occasional pause for a cup of tea - and I think it's time for one now. We've had to be a little careful with water all morning as somehow an 18" water main (imperial measurements?) burst over towards the next village, and the water pressure slowed to a trickle. It is back now.

I got up just in time - another half hour and I might not have been able to move. As it was, I felt definitely creaky until I made it into the kitchen.

What was I doing all afternoon?

I'm a bit behind on my on-line creative writing course, so had to catch up with a couple of writing exercises. We are supposed to be setting ourselves up to write a short story in week 8 (this is week 6) of 750 to 1000 words. After five and a half weeks of how to create characters, we are now ready to plan The Story.

I'm keeping track of the various characters I've created so far on a new blog;

www.writeanotherstory.blogspot.com

so if you are curious, now's your chance. I set it up because a friend who is a wonderful sounding board for all these ramblings said I should combine all the snippets into a magazine style format. Done.

What did I do yesterday?

Went with Daddy to a Masterclass on The Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss, given by Dame Felicity Lott at Champs Hill. It was most impressive. I'm not a Strauss/Wagner heavy on the Grand Emotion music lover, as a general idea, but as a friend who was also there said, it makes a difference 'when you get your ear in', as it were. It was definitely a handkerchief moment for the very final phrase;

Wie sind wir wandermüde--            How weary we are of wandering--
Ist dies etwa der Tod?                     Is this perhaps death?


Perhaps not so surprising, when I had been to a funeral the day before. Although the funeral was for someone I didn't feel any close connection to; more a case of supporting the family.

Much of the time this afternoon has been spent trawling through photographs to illustrate the various characters. I needed a scruffy dog, and had a couple of goes at drawing one.

I rejected

plenty scruffy enough, but too gormless, in favour of this one.

  
And I have been salvaging cuttings from a couple of flowering succulent house plants which are in their death throes from lack of water. I've no idea what colour flowers these will have when they grow up. They are from the plant in the back bedroom;

So far they seem to be doing all right. There are two more little vases on the bathroom windowsill of cuttings growing their roots. Guess what everyone will be getting for Christmas?

Tuesday 7th August - A Time for Learning

One of the most important aspects of the long Summer holiday is it gives me a chance to learn something. This Summer I've become fascinated by water colour painting, and have been immersed in Youtube video tutorials, particularly Rick Sucowicz and Angela Fehr.

In one of her posts, Angela made reference to the 'Competence Ladder', which I had either forgotten or hadn't come across (at my age one can't be certain...)

Here is wikipekdia's definition;

1. Unconscious incompetence

   The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit. They may deny the usefulness of the skill. The individual must recognize their own incompetence, and the value of the new skill, before moving on to the next stage. The length of time an individual spends in this stage depends on the strength of the stimulus to learn.

2. Conscious incompetence

   Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, they recognize the deficit, as well as the value of a new skill in addressing the deficit. The making of mistakes can be integral to the learning process at this stage.

3. Conscious competence

   The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration. It may be broken down into steps, and there is heavy conscious involvement in executing the new skill.

4. Unconscious competence

   The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become "second nature" and can be performed easily. As a result, the skill can be performed while executing another task. The individual may be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

   So obvious, really, but nice to see it set out so clearly.

   
   

   The other thing I am learning about is gardening. 

   'That camelia needs to be in the shade' says James, in passing (he's here again; another fence panel has gone in, and he's about to start on next-door's conifers.)

   
   

   'Is that skimmia in ericaceous soil? No? That;s why its leaves are going yellow.' I repot  it in some ericaceous soil that has been waiting for the camelia.

   
   

   I guess that I'm at all different stages;

   
   

   probably 2 or 3 for water colour painting, gardening, knitting, sewing, novel writing

   
   

   3, heading for 4 with playing the harpsichord

   
   

   4, with the piano, and teaching it, but in danger of sliding backwards if I don't do some serious practising in the very near future!

   
   

   I consider that being a continuous learner is a staggeringly important part of being a good teacher. Each skill acquired adds a greater dimension to what one already knows, and expands the experience of learning, and enables one to reach further into the mysteries of effectively imparting  and sharing skills and knowledge.

   
   

   This is such a Big Thought that I haven't yet managed to codify it into a set of simple statements like the ladder of competence above. But I expect someone else has!

   
   

   In the meantime, just remember that all the new crafts and skills I embark upon during the holidays are, in a big way, play, but also, in a bigger way, part of a life of learning and discovery, which started within minutes of my birth.

   
   

Friday 6th November - It's harder than it sounds. Or Looks.

I'm wrestling with this as the moment.

well, not the original manuscript; not even a nice copy in a book. I've downloaded it from an "out-of-copyright" sheet music site.

I'm learning the slow movement in my harpsichord lessons, at such a slow speed that even a tortoise would struggle to keep in time.

Oh, didn't I mention that I'd become the proud possessor of a digital harpsichord? Digital, because the real thing would take up the WHOLE of the dining room and needs constant "fettling" and tuning, whereas the digital version is the size of a small side-table and copes with changes in temperature and humidity without becoming all temperamental (that's an "in" joke).

When I turned up for my lesson, my teacher had been called away to another class, so I spent the hour practicing.

By the end of the hour I was able to place the first line - that's the bit before the tune starts - they way I wanted it. And it took the whole hour to achieve it.

Eventually, it might sound like this? Well, one can dream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIhteTLwwqs

Keep listening; he does the Goldberg Variations next...

Thursday 1st August - Reading, and Crashing my Kindle

   

 

When I get the opportunity, (which is not as often as I would like), I'm reading "Cultural Amnesia" by Clive James at the moment. It is an astonishing book. Each chapter has a different person as a starting point, and then you are finding yourself wandering down all kinds of paths to new places and sudden viewpoints. I have shown both editions of the book: the earlier one (on the right) is subtitled "Necessary Memories from History and the Arts". The later edition has "Notes in the Margin of My Time" on the cover.

What do I mean - "when I get the opportunity"? It's the kind of book that you need proper brain-space to read. It's no good at all treating it like a penny-dreadful, or even a pound-quite-good-page-turner. It is a Proper Read, not to be squandered on a half-attentive mind. So that puts it out of reach most days and most nights.

I'd always thought that Clive James was a clever man but this book is dizzying. I am being so EduCated that I'm thinking of changing my name to Rita.

I read it on my Kindle, which makes it very easy to highlight passages for future follow-up. Too easy; last week, my Kindle starting crashing and suddenly shutting down because of the size of the "My Clippings" file which stores all the references.

What do I find to highlight? Well, I now have a long reading list of poems and novels to read, and a kind of feeling that it would be better if, like him, I could read them in the original Spanish, or Italian, or French or German. He recommends having parallel texts in English and the native language. I haven't done that  kind of thing since reading Chaucer for O-levels.

That will mean buying lots of books, of course, unless I get another Kindle...

So I have two routes for future café/train journey/hospital reading interludes:

The techy solution will require 2 Kindles and my phone. Kindles for parallel texts, phone for writing notes (mines a Samsung thingy with a pen-thingy and "Docs-to-go" Works well enough - I typed most of this blog entry on it, and emailed it to myself for finishing off later. However all these devices will continually slope off into hibernation mode given half a chance, unless you keep joggling them.

The steam-power solution requires two books, two dictionaries (one in English, one in the foreign language) notebook and pen. They will all be better at staying awake, but now I'm talking about kilos of stuff to lug around with me. hmm again.

Thought needed.

Oh, and by the way, here's a solution to an over-filled "My Clippings" file on your Kindle.

Go to  https://kindle.amazon.com/your_highlights (that's an underscore between "your" and "highlights"). You will need to log on to your amazon account, and then you can get at "My Clippings", and select what you want to keep. I copied and pasted it all into a Word document to sort through and organise later. The blog post that I discovered this info from suggests you can use your "Evernote web-clipper" to save your file - but I don't know what that is. So Word it is for me. 
 

 

Saturday 25th May - Invalid, Disabled, Paralysed

I've always been aware of the two-edged meaning of the word "invalid". I can remember those funny little three-wheeled cars that people used to drive around in. I have a feeling that they were barely road-worthy, with a horrible tendency to fall over if one drove them with verve or spirit, (qualities which "invalids" were not supposed to possess anyway). I suppose they were a lot better than what had gone before - i.e. nothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invalid_carriage



It was the alternative meaning of "not-valid" that I found so offensive in this context, and I would have thought that many disabled people would have taken the same view.

 

http://www.wheelpower.org.uk/WPower/index.cfm/what-we-do/our-sports-associations/

 

The 2012 Paralympics did a lot to reframe the way in which "disabled" people were viewed. 

 

The modern tendency is to focus on "ability" rather than "dis-ability", to look at what someone CAN do, rather than what they CAN'T do. We look for ways around mobility or functional problems so that horizons expand, rather than contract.

 

I have NEVER thought of my mother as being "disabled", or an "invalid" as a result of the stroke. In the hospital, they referred to her left side as being "disregarded", rather than "paralysed". This phrase caught me by surprise, but makes perfect sense. Not only that, it gives hope for the future.   

 

My understanding of what happens after a stroke is based on the real-life experiences of my friends. So I assumed, right from the very first day, that each "state" that my mother was in - semi-conscious, or confused, or suffering from cramps, or unable to sit up, or unable to stand, was temporary, and that over time she would move on to the next stage. Progress would be partly from natural healing, and partly from effort of will, partly from sheer bloody-minded determination, and partly from rehabilitation. 

 

She is much more "able" now that she was even a couple of months ago.

 

For example: her handwriting is legible and she writes letters to friends and family every week. She can read a whole novel and manipulate the pages of the book. She can sit up unsupported. She can take my father, step-by-step through cooking delicious meals. Her right hand is extraordinarily dexterous (is that a tautology?). She does her own makeup, styles her hair herself, every day. 

 

The most recent development is that she is able to lift her left knee - it takes a huge effort of will at the moment, but I am sure that it will become easier as she practises. It must be something like learning to play a difficult chord in a new piano piece - to begin with, one has no control over the notes that you are trying to play, but with patient repetition, the movements become more familiar, until eventually one can play the chord without any thought. 

 

Paralysed?

Disabled?

An invalid?

I don't think so. 

 

Let's go for

 

Disregarded left side (which seems to be coming back a bit)

Reduced mobility (which seems to be improving)

Invalid - NEVER!

 

   

 

 

Friday 10th May - Life lessons from a music stand

The folding music stand is a an ingenious geometric arrangement of metal strips, hinged and pivoted and swivelled beyond what is sensible.

When the geometry is treated with understanding and respect, they last forever. (I got mine back in 1967 and it is still fine. The aluminium is no longer shiny, but it still works perfectly.)

These blue music stands have lead a harsh and brutal life in one of the primary schools I teach in. The metal is not rigid enough, and the children are too impatient, so they just cram and force and contort the shapes and then it's "Miss, it won't open/close!".

 

The one on the right was still just about functional but the other two were clearly suffering.

It took a little while, and certain amount of tender manipulation of the tired and wearied joints - I'm talking about my fingers as well as the ones on the music stands - but I finally managed to smooth things out without getting too bloodied in the attempt.

 



 

Even so, they are all looking more or less the worse for wear. Hopefully they are not yet ready to be scrapped, junked, discarded. Yet.

 

So what are these life lessons that I was going on about in the heading? I leave that to you to draw your own conclusions!

Tuesday 22nd May - Mindful teaching, mindful learning

I've feeling a lot more cheerful about my music teaching at the moment.

For a while now (seems like years, maybe it has
been?) I've been trying to get my music students to learn with the same focus and attention that I use when teaching them. I had never realised that focused learning is not a natural skill/ability, until the time that I was struggling make it possible for someone to play a fragment of Bach (the Musette in D from and Anna Magdalena book, bar 12, if you are interested). The challenge was for her to play the four semiquavers with the vital combination of correct fingering, notes and rhythm. Finally, after many attempts, breaking it down into smaller and smaller steps, going through it slowly, finger by finger, she managed it. "Great! Well done!" I enthused. "Now, what did you do that made it succeed this time?". I was hoping that she would have gained some useful insight from all our work. "I dunno." was the dispiriting response. She had just thrown her fingers once again in the general direction of the notes and hoped for the best. Rather like throwing all your china into the cupboard and hoping it will end up in neat stacks on the shelves. All that effort, all that patient, careful teaching, explanation, demonstration, repetition - wasted.

Well, not wasted. I learnt something from it, even if she didn't. I learnt that students , whatever their age, don't have an innate ability to make a conscious decision to learn something; that most people haven't developed the "mental muscles" for learning, and that teaching them HOW TO LEARN is ninety percent of teaching the average student how to play the piano.

So, why am I feeling more cheerful? Well, an increasing number of my pupils are now showing signs of having begun the process doing "mindful learning", or developing "mental muscles". They make their own connections between notes, make their own conscious choices about which finger plays what in scales, they remember sharps and flats without needing them written in the whole time.

Yay! Celebrate! They are learning skills that will transfer to all other aspects of learning. Result! Rejoice!

Hope it lasts....