Learning GarageBand Part #6

For this week’s focus on my recording project, I recorded vocals for my cover of “I’m Yours.” I began by setting up the recording, which required: plugging the microphone into my VoiceLive Touch 2 interface, plugging the interface into my computer, and opening up my GarageBand recording.

Once I recorded the vocals, I found that they sounded very dry – there was no room ambience or natural reverb transmitted through the microphone. Because of this, I added reverb and ambience to the vocal track through GarageBand. Ambience is the sound of a specific location or space. It gives a natural sound to the recording by adding some slight ambient noise to the otherwise silent background.

I also adjusted the EQ levels, raising the high EQ slightly, keeping the mid EQ the same, and lowering the low EQ level slightly (as shown in the photo above). I also added compression in order to create a more level volume throughout the track (by lowering the volume of any note that peaked in volume).

For all of my edits, I wore headphones to find levels that sounded appropriate for the style of the song.

A reference I used this week was:

Ambience (sound recording)

November 2, 2018 0

Lead Guitar Practice Summary #5

Lead Guitar Practice Summary #5 video (Part 1):

https://youtu.be/tqBjlrZH7-o

Lead Guitar Practice Summary #5 video (Part 2):

https://youtu.be/qhffVlg8XCM

For my lead guitar focus this week, I practiced bending the strings. There are two main types of bends that I practiced: half-step bends and whole-step bends. Half-step bends are bends in which you aim for the note that is a half-step (or 1 fret) above your starting note. Whole-step bends are bends in which you aim for the note that is a whole-step (or 2 frets) above your starting note. It takes a lot of practice to precisely hit the desired note, and whole-step bends in particular require quite a bit of finger strength. To help with the strength aspect, you can line up the rest of your fingers behind the finger hitting the note, so that they can assist in the bend. You can also work your thumb around the guitar neck to help with leverage.

To further my practice on bending strings, I could learn specific songs that incorporate bends, I could incorporate bends into scales that I already know, and I could practice achieving the desired note more quickly and accurately.

A resource that I found helpful in learning about and practicing bends was:

October 24, 2018 0

Learning GarageBand Part #5

For this week’s focus on learning GarageBand, I recorded electronic drums for my cover of “I’m Yours,” and played around with how compression, reverb, and EQ adjustments affected the overall sound. Attached are two images to show the levels of these effects that I ended up with.

In the lower image, the specific frequencies that are raised give some punch to the bass drum, snare drum, and hi-hats/crash cymbal (from left to right). Dragging those frequencies to the left or right changed the emphasis of the sound of each of these instruments, but this placement sounded best to me. Before recording the drums, I had to adjust the individual volumes of the bass drum, snare drum, hi-hats, and crash cymbal to create a nice balance between them.

As I have read over and over again in my research on mixing instruments, there is no formula or correct way of doing it. It is highly subjective, and the best way to know what to listen for and to get better at finding a great sound is to practice mixing lots!

A resource that I used for this part of my recording was:

A Complete Guide to Mixing Drums

October 24, 2018 0

Learning GarageBand Part #4

This week for my tech inquiry project, I recorded the bass line for the short cover of “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz that I will be making. Bass is not my strong suit, however I used to play it in school band so I can “fake it” pretty well. But because of this, I wasn’t able to record the full track in one go. So I used the feature in GarageBand that allows a person to start the recording part way through (at the beginning of a beat), and continue on from what has already been recorded.

For the bass mix, I edited the compression, reverb, and EQ levels (as I did with the acoustic guitar mix). The top photo above shows the final mix for these effects. As well, I adjusted the EQ in a very specific way (not just through dials for high, middle, and low EQ, but for specific frequencies). I listened through good headphones to the track and played around with which frequencies brought out a nice sound (and raised them in volume), and which frequencies brought out an unclear or muddy sound (and lowered them in volume). My specific EQ frequency adjustments are shown in the lower photo above.

A resource I used for this part of my recording was:

Mixing Bass

October 19, 2018 0

Lead Guitar Practice Summary #4

Lead Guitar Practice Summary #4 video (Part 1):

https://youtu.be/7H9LNhavxRQ

Lead Guitar Practice Summary #4 video (Part 2):

https://youtu.be/_LkTf_Fkhe8

For this week’s lead guitar learning, I practiced minor pentatonic scales. Again, pentatonic scales are a very useful basis of notes to know for soloing (especially in rock music), so these minor scales could be handy for soloing in minor keys. I learned and memorized the minor pentatonic scales in the keys of: E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. To further practice pentatonic scales, I could play them in more octaves, as well as play them faster.

As well, I learned my first lead guitar part for a song: “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5. This guitar line incorporated up and down picking strategies. If a 4/4 bar is counted as 1e+a 2e+a 3e+a 4e+a, the numbers and + signs should be down strokes, and the e’s and a’s should be up strokes. So the rhythm and picking pattern proved to be a challenge. I could further practice this guitar line by speeding it up to the tempo of the actual song.

My resources this week included:

Guitar Scale Tabs
“Girls Like You” Guitar Tabs

October 17, 2018 0

Visual Journal Entry 3

An activity that we did in our Multiliteracies class last week struck me as an effective and memorable approach to teaching. Each student brought one object (or photo of an object) to class that could be used in the classroom to represent a particular concept or subject. As I am a biology teacher candidate, I brought a photo of my Aloe Vera plant. This plant is succulent, green, majestic, thick, and fleshy. It produces a liquid inside its stems that, when released, can be used for cosmetic or medicinal purposes. I chose this plant because it represents many biological and cross-curricular concepts. It is used differently in different socioeconomic and sociocultural settings, tying in its biological relevance to its cultural relevance.

An idea for teaching stemmed from this class activity. A class partner and I thought it would be interesting to get students in a biology classroom (for example, Life Sciences 11) to take a picture of one plant in or near their home that they felt a connection to. Once in class, they could share the picture with the class and explain why they picked that plant. Then, taking each student’s plant, the class could be spent classifying the different organisms as sexual or asexual reproducers (a content area for Life Sciences 11). This type of classroom activity allows for student inquiry as well as content-related learning.

October 16, 2018 0

Learning GarageBand Part #3

For my tech inquiry project this week, I recorded the first instrument for my cover of “I’m Yours.” I recorded acoustic guitar by plugging it directly into my audio interface, which ran directly into my computer. Having set the tempo and time signature for the song last week in GarageBand, I was able to listen to a click track through headphones to keep my playing at a consistent tempo during the recording.

I then explored the various editing options within GarageBand to make my track sound even better. I used three different effects on my guitar track: 1) compression, 2) EQ adjustment, and 3) reverb. Compression smooths out the track by lowering the volume at any point when the instrument is too loud, and raising the volume when the instrument is too quiet. EQ is short for equalization, and one can adjust the high EQ, mid EQ, and low EQ on a track. Lowering the high EQ on a track will lower the volume of the higher pitches on the instrument, lowering the mid EQ will lower the volume of the middle pitches on the instrument, and so on. Finally, reverb is a very popular effect used for many instruments as well as vocals. It enhances the sound of the instrument to sound like it is being played in a particular kind of room or environment; that place can be anything from a studio to an auditorium. Different levels of reverb are appropriate for different kinds of music.

Attached is a photo with the compression, EQ, and reverb adjustments I made to my acoustic guitar track.

Reference I used to help find and learn about effects in GarageBand:

GarageBand – Add and edit effect plug-ins

October 12, 2018 0

Lead Guitar Practice Summary #3

Lead Guitar Practice Summary #3 video:

I focused my lead guitar practice this week on major pentatonic scales. Pentatonic scales are five-note scales that were created based on them naturally occurring in music. The notes in the pentatonic scale of a particular key signature are useful to get accustomed to because they can be a musician’s basis for soloing. They are the most commonly used scales in rock music solos. Therefore, I think it will be really useful for me to practice and memorize these scales.

In my practice this week, I learned the pentatonic scales in the following keys (and memorized them): E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Once I memorized the basic pattern for one, it was fairly easy to memorize the other scales because they all consist of the same finger pattern, simply starting on a different note. The video above shows my progress on these scales.

References I used to enhance my learning about pentatonic scales:
Pentatonic Scale
Five notes will change your life
Guitar Scale Tabs

October 12, 2018 0

Blogging, Trello, and Twitter

Three key technological elements to my learning this semester have been: blogging, using trello, and using twitter. Two of these are completely new to me (blogging and trello) and one is familiar (twitter). As a future teacher in this age of technology, it has been great to get some hands-on experience with different elements of technology I can potentially bring to the classroom.

In my personal experience of blogging so far this semester, I have found it to be very helpful in solidifying my ideas and tracking my progress in my different courses. Because my blog can be read by anyone, I feel pressure to write down my ideas clearly and concisely. This pressure helps to solidify my thoughts and experiences; I am sharing with the world what I have learned, and by doing so, I am learning it better. I have found that blogging also helps to curate information about certain topics. Through the “categories” feature, I can search for a specific topic and see the things that I have learned on that topic all curated onto one page.

In my use of trello this semester, I have found it to be a game-changer for organization and time management, especially when working on inquiry projects. Since I will be trying to incorporate inquiry projects into my own teaching, I am looking forward to introducing trello to my students. Trello allows a person to create online “post-it” notes, listing all of the steps they would like to take in figuring something out or answering a question. They can set a due-date for each note, and drag each note into one of the three categories: “to do,” “doing,” or “done.” Trello has been so helpful for me to stay on track with my inquiry projects this semester.

Finally, twitter has proven to be a very effective way to get class-related information from both the teacher and classmates. By using a class-specific hashtag, twitter curates the information that is relevant to my tech class into one stream. This is a useful tool to share videos, articles, or anything else relevant to a specific class.

October 11, 2018 0

Visit to PSII

In class last week, we had the opportunity to visit the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII), a high school where students get to learn in a mainly inquiry-based manner. It was really interesting to witness this type of open pedagogy, as it was different from when I went to high school and learned in a more lecture-style, note-driven manner. I found that the inquiry-based teaching method at PSII allowed teachers to take into account the student’s pace of learning, style of learning, and interests. Some of PSII’s core values are shown in the image attached, including: open inquiry, consilience, co-construction, emergent curriculum, learning versus learning about, learning happens everywhere, and competency-based assessment.

For one of my own inquiry projects this semester, I am trying to answer the following: how can teachers incorporate inquiry-based learning into a math classroom? At PSII, I learned multiple methods in which inquiry led to mathematical learning, such as students making a movable robotic arm, students creating video games with coordinates, and students working with statistical significance in other subject areas.

A method of teaching math that I found particularly interesting was to ask really open questions, such as “how does one find the diagonal of a cube?” It incorporates so many elements of the curriculum into one question, and causes students to really think about math versus being given the information upfront.

The classroom observations and conversations that occurred at PSII were fascinating and gave me a whole new level of comfort with incorporating inquiry into my future teaching.