Education environment music: cultural survival
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The Sonic Casualties of Climate Change, Pt. 1
Africa is an entire musical universe; I could (and no doubt will) show you stuff for hours. But some of the most beautiful and emotionally affecting singing I know of comes from the B’aka Pygmies of Cameroon, who yodel polyrhythmic songs of love and respect for the forest that gives them life:
DAKAR (AlertNet) – An increase in sea level and a drop in the quantity of rainfall linked to climate change could destroy Cameroon’s biodiversity, disrupt businesses and uproot hundreds of thousands of people in the west-central African nation, Cameroon Tribune newspaper reported on Thursday.
Education humor Personal photoblogging: costumes dinosaurs kids
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What We Did On Halloween…
…Ta-daa!
My daughter stood out from the menage of Harry Potters, Cinderellas, Fairies, Ghosts and Goblins.
My daughter was a Parasauralophus.
For purposes of comparison, here is an image of an actual Parasauralophus:
Our Parasauralophus was made with plaster-impregnated gauze wrapped around two balloons. The whole head was mounted on a Sono-Tube with slots cut for her arms. The eyes are rubber bouncy balls. Looks pretty good to me.
Education India Indian music music Personal vocalists Warren's music: promotion
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Education music: gamelan prison reform
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This Makes Me Happy
My vocational connection with academic ethnomusicology is pretty tenuous most of the time, but I get the SEM Journal every quarter, and it’s one of my small continuing pleasures, being constantly full of really really really interesting ideas and equally cool music.
The Fall 2010 issue of Ethnomusicology led off with a piece that gave me a morale boost. Let me tell you about it; it will make you feel better, too. We all need Good Vibrations, and Maria Mendonca’s article gave me some I’d like to share.
Gamelan in Prisons in England and Scotland: Narratives of Transformation and the “Good Vibrations” of Educational Rhetoric
And it leads off:
“Good Vibrations,” an education project featuring Javanese gamelan, has taken place in different formats in a variety of prisons in England and Scotland since 2003, developing with considerable success.
{snip}
As far as the prisoners and gamelan tutors are concerned, participation in the project can be seen to build self-confidence and develop social skills that help individuals to cope with life inside, and which may lead to more long-term changes. From the prison educationalists’ viewpoint, the numbers are convincing: an unusually high percentage of the participants in the gamelan prison projects (who are often drawn from the most marginalized prison populations) go on to be involved in more traditional education courses in prison. From the prison authorities’ and governments’ perspectives, involvement in education in prison has been statistically proven to combat re-offending, which is an enormous financial (not to mention social) problem in an overstretched prison system.
In other words, this is a very successful program.
Statistics from recent projects suggest that the gamelan projects have been particularly effective in this respect, with over 50% of participants (none of whom had formerly been involved in prison education) continuing to other, more mainstream education classes.”
Let’s stop for a second. Do you know what a gamelan is, or am I not making sense?
Here’s wiki to help:
A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included.
The term refers more to the set of instruments than to the players of those instruments. A gamelan is a set of instruments as a distinct entity, built and tuned to stay together – instruments from different gamelan are generally not interchangeable.
The word gamelan comes from the Javanese word gamels, meaning “to strike or hammer”, and the suffix an, which makes the root a collective noun.
Perhaps you went to a college that owns a set of gamelan instruments. I teach in a room full of them, an interesting experience in resonance and echo. If you’ve heard the music, you’ll remember it: curiously (wonderfully!) tuned rhythmic chimings full of hypnotic patterns and sinuous melody.
I’ve heard a fair bit of gamelan music; you can’t be even an en passant ethnomusicologist without hearing a lot of gamelan. Aside from the beauty of the music and the tangibility of the instruments, the form is also popular because many of the orchestral parts don’t require virtuoso technique, but simply careful attention and calm mindfulness — traits which the music’s structure reinforces.
I’d never imagined anyone could get this music into prisons.
What a truly wonderful idea…I thought to myself, as I looked up Good Vibrations’ website, and read:
Good Vibrations is a registered charity (number 1126493) that helps prisoners, patients in secure hospitals, ex-prisoners and others in the community to develop crucial life and work skills through participating in intensive Gamelan (Indonesian bronze percussion) courses. Since 2003 Good Vibrations has worked with more than 2400 participants in 33 different secure institutions. Gamelan is an extremely effective tool for achieving our aims:
* It is very accessible
* You don’t need to have any previous musical experience
* You don’t need to be able to read music
* It’s easy to learn the basics
* It’s a very communal activity – there is no overall conductor or leader and everyone’s contribution is equally important
* You have to listen to everyone else to fit your own part inAbout Good Vibrations
A Good Vibrations project typically runs as a week-long course for a group of 15 – 20 participants. Most will not have done anything musical before. At the end of the week the group puts on an informal performance. Each performance is recorded and a CD is produced, a copy of which is given to everyone who has taken part. Participants will benefit enormously from the short but intensive experience.
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In a world that’s full of grand and petty deceits, of the worst intentions magnified and the best intentions betrayed, isn’t it a pleasure to see something that actually works for the greater good?
A participant in the Good Vibrations program
Gamelan (Indonesian bronze percussion orchestra) is special for a number of reasons including:
* It is quick and easy to learn the basics and a beginners group will quickly get good results.
* It provides an extremely accessible creative experience (and we believe that the opportunity for creative expression is essential for everyone).
* It is exceptionally communal: there is no overall leader or conductor, everyone’s contribution is equally important, you have to listen to everyone else to fit your part in; and to a large degree, the shape and content of a piece is determined by a group as it goes along.
* It is endlessly flexible: it is adaptable for all abilities even within the same group; there are countless routes for progression and development.
* It allows for real diversity: it brings people together from diverse groups and allows for diverse ideas and approaches.
* There is evidence that the sound of gongs and similar instruments is therapeutic.
* Playing Gamelan creates the state of “flow” (total absorption in a task, and the ongoing satisfaction and loss of self-consciousness that brings) which is essential to a person’s well-being.
A participant in the Good Vibrations program
Mendonca quotes Malcolm Miller, one of the project’s tutors:
“It’s the nature of gamelan; it’s a whole community and you work together to achieve an aim. The way people work together to make music is, in a way, a reflection of how people work together effectively in real life. And for a lot of them [the prisoners], that’s not how they’ve ever worked… And so in that respect it is a communication thing, but music is something that facilitates it.
Mendonca: Gamelan in Prisons
Ethnomusicology, Fall 2010, p. 383
and she shares some of the prisoners’ responses to her questions about the project:
“For some, the project had enabled them to socialize with other prisoners, in one case for the first time since being inside. Isolation can be extreme in prison. As one prisoner remarked to me, with a sense of relief and connection that seemed out of proportion with the small act he was describing, ‘now if I pass one of these blokes on the wing, I can actually not to them from afar.’
“A group of responses focused on self-esteem: ‘…on the wing you’re in your own little world, just surviving…gamelan has made me stronger; it has…broken me out of my own four walls…it has helped me face prison. When I came in I was a wreck. I didn’t want to get on, and I just wanted to give up. It has taught me that you can find good in here.’ “
Mendonca: Gamelan in Prisons
Ethnomusicology, Fall 2010, p. 384
The project’s website includes more testimonials from prison participants:
“I’d like to say something about where I was before [the GV course]. I’d been seriously depressed, wanting to top myself. I was completely lost, no sense of how I could get back to normality. The gamelan course, at that time, was a step up to getting back to some form of normality. That’s why I grabbed hold of it with two hands, I needed it. A really positive focus was just what I needed at the time, something to give me a sense of self-worth.
“[Good Vibrations] is nothing to do with the criminal justice system directly, there’s a sense of freedom, it’s relaxed, not compulsory. There’s no hidden agenda. [Doing the course] was totally my choice which helped a lot. The criminal justice system is so negative, all about what’s wrong with you. It’s good to have something positive which works with you as an individual and is all about what you can offer – a very powerful message in itself. This is what got me on the road to recovery.”
“After last year(‘s project) I did a Group & Teamwork exam – I based it on what I did in gamelan. I passed that. If I’d not done Gamelan, I would not have done Group & Teamwork – I wouldn’t have been able to. I’m usually a quiet person, don’t gel with others, this brought me out of my shell and now I can work in a group.
“It (Good Vibrations) gives you confidence the first thing I’d ever done in front of an audience. Now I’m doing drama. It gave me confidence to sign up for drama – we’re performing in front of an audience [from outside] next week. I’ve signed up for dance – starts on Friday. I’ve self-harmed since I was 9, I’ve never gone this long [without self-harming]. Now I think of the music.”
The best part, of course, is the music. I couldn’t find any videos of these workshops; I would imagine that there are security issues that arise when you’re trying to film inside a prison. But there’s a lovely page of musical samples from various prison groups. Please go and check them out.
If you live in the UK and are interested in attending one of the project’s “play-throughs,” performances of their ongoing work, you can get connected here.
They have a CD for sale. I think I’m going to buy a copy. Maybe more than one.
==============================================
I gave up believing that music alone would save the world when I learned that old Prescott Bush loved to sing more than anything.
But I have never stopped believing that without music, we haven’t got a chance.
Thank you for letting me share these Good Vibrations with you.
atheism Education Personal: theonormativity
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Follow-Up: Theonormativity in Psych Studies
My post describing a seriously flawed psych study in which my daughter participated attracted a bit of attention a while back. I sent my criticisms of the methodology to the researchers; that was what people read here.
Well, they wrote back. The text of their email to me is blockquoted italics; my responses are interpolated. Judge for yourself how well they address the issues I raised:
Dear Warren,
Thank you both for participating in our studies and for sharing your concerns about this study with us. We share your concerns about the line of questions that you discussed in your message; if we can impose on you a bit further, we would appreciate your help in addressing them.
Me: Sure.
Education India Indian music music Personal: aesthetics Education genius India Indian music music obituary
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A Great Tree Has Fallen: Asad Ali Khan, R.I.P.
This Tuesday, June 14, the world of music lost a great spirit.
Ustad Asad Ali Khan, one of the few remaining performers on the ancient Indian stringed instrument called the Rudra Veena, passed away after suffering a heart attack in the early hours of the morning.
He performed an austere and sober style of music, an instrumental version of the vocal style known as Dhrupad, which dates back to the 11th century or so. The Rudra Veena, or Been, is considered to be one of the oldest instruments of Indian tradition; it has its own origin myth, which states that the instrument sprang full-blown from the forehead of a meditating Lord Shiva. It is interesting that Asad Ali Khan, whose name makes his Muslim ancestry evident, saw no religious conflict in embracing this story; ecumenicism in Indian musical traditions is alive and well.
Education music Personal: homeschooling math woodworking
by Warren
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What Did You Learn In Unschooling Today?
Daughter and I had breakfast this morning, and she asked me some random addition questions. “Dad, how do you make twenty-seven?” It turned out she was thinking about a series of dance moves her Kathak classes had introduced, in which a group of nine turns is done three times. Her teacher had only shown the first two repetitions, so there was some confusion in her mind.
We worked it out; I was inspired to play some more with groups of nine, so we began adding up columns of 9s. All the fun of early math tricks started to come back for me — add up the digits of the sum of any group of nines, and they always add up to nine; etc., etc., etc. We kept adding nines together and exploring what the results looked like. Eventually I drew a 9×16 matrix on a piece of paper and filled in each cell as she counted up to 144.
She asked for some other numbers, and we played with 5s and 3s, examining the patterns they created as their sums built up. It was a fun way to prolong our breakfast.
Eventually she finished her oatmeal, and asked me to do more numbers. And I said, “I’ll give you a rhythm lesson.” She responded, “I don’t want a drum lesson now!” and I said, “Not drums. Rhythm and numbers.”
Whereupon I started showing her Reinhard Flatischler’s “TA-KI” and “GA-ME-LA” syllable groups.
We sat facing one another in two chairs. I said, “I’m going to say some magic rhythm words, and you say them back. The first word is TA-KI. Try it.”
She did. So we traded groups of recited TA-KIs back and forth for a while until she was comfortable with them. I began patting my knees on the first syllable of each TA-KI, and she imitated me happily.
Eventually I said “Great! The second rhythm word is GA-ME-LA. Try it!” and we repeated the process.
Then we started mixing up the syllables, while patting our knees on the first syllables of each “word.”
TA-KI / GA-ME-LA = 5 beats, accented 2+3
TA-KI / TA-KI / GA-ME-LA = 7 beats, accented 2 + 2+3
TA-KI / TA-KI / TA-KI / GA-ME-LA = 9 beats, accented 2 + 2 + 2 + 3
GA-ME-LA / GA-ME-LA / TA-KI = 8 beats, accented 3 + 3 + 2
She was getting it! While there were frequent glitches in the knee-patting, she recovered nicely.
Eventually we decided to do patty-cake. She really took the initiative at this point, deciding which syllable groups should have knee-pats, which should have patty-cake claps, and which should have spoken syllabic recitation. At this point I was just along for the ride.
The last few minutes were spent jamming on an 11-beat sequence, divided 3 + 3 + 3 + 2:
GA-ME-LA / GA-ME-LA / GA-ME-LA / TA-KI.
She decreed that we would pat knees for each of the GA-ME-LA groups, but not recite; on the final TA-KI, we’d clap each other’s hands and speak the “word” out loud. There we stayed for multiple repetitions, gaining confidence and competence.
Eventually we stopped and went upstairs, where she got dressed and ready for the next part of our day.
Which was spent in the woodshop. We’ve been making a stringed instrument together, and today was to be devoted to using my newly acquired drawknife for the shaping of the third tuning peg. The previous two had been very time-consuming, requiring chisels, surforms and a disc sander to achieve the right shape. But this tool, terrifying though it looks (a 10-inch knife sharpened to a razor edge in the hands of a six-year-old?), is designed beautifully. Harming one’s self is virtually impossible, since holding the handles prevents the blade from getting near arms, fingers, wrists or any body part.
And she loved it. “Dad! This is a wonderful tool!” She didn’t want to stop removing wood, and her hands grew steadily more intelligent with each stroke. “Can you give me some other pieces of wood so I can practice some more with the drawknife? Look! I’m getting to be really good at drawknifing!” (a wonderful verb, I think).
And soon the tuning peg was shaped correctly; a little rounding on the disc sander and it was just about the same shape as the others, which had taken easily four times longer to make. Sometime later this week we’ll finish stringing her “tar,” and start lessons.
And then we got on our adult-and-kid tandem bike and had a long ride, including a visit to Mom at work, a trip to the library, lunch, an ice-cream cone, Daddy getting a cappucino, a playground visit and a return home about four hours later.
A good day of homeschooling.
atheism Education Personal: bad experimental design psychology theonormativity
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Theonormativity?
My kid regularly participates in psychological studies. There are quite a few universities in my area that have grad programs in child development; they’re always looking for young volunteers to follow whatever procedures the budding psychologists have in mind.
Usually these are questions of categorization, or development of mental constructs — differing objects are offered and taxonomical schemata are offered; the whole process is videotaped, and the results written up. And the kid gets a toy — a stuffed animal from one lab, a plastic frisbee, ball or bucket from another — which is of course what makes it appealing to her.
This has been going on for three years or so. It’s fun, and a diversion from our usual routine.
Last month we went in for another such study. The young woman who was conducting the interview explained to me that my daughter would be asked questions about her religious beliefs (among other subjects) in the first half of the interview, and asked to make inferences about other children (pictures of whom were shown on a computer screen) based on statements from the interviewer.
Okay. But since this was going to touch on a possibly complicated topic, I thought I should know more about what went on. I asked for a copy of the interview video.
Which they finally sent me.
Grrrrr.
Education environment: NASA scientific literacy
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Year 2, Month 3, Day 23: Ignorance Vs. Attendance
The Pasadena Star-News has a pretty good article on the recent study from NASA that subtracts most of the non-human drivers of climate change from the equation and finds (surprise!) that we clever apes are in fact responsible.
The crucial paragraphs are buried, of course:
Michael Ghil, a distinguished professor of climate dynamics at UCLA familiar with the research calls the graph “pretty striking.”
But while he says the study “adds another brick in the edifice of the scientific evidence,” he warns, “it’s not going to convince people who don’t want to be convinced.”
“The political controversy about action to be taken is fairly independent of accumulated scientific evidence. The evidence for anthropogenic effects is there,” he said.
Sent March 14, in between watching the disaster in Japan and feeding my daughter and her friend some snacks.
The findings of the JPL study make it clearer that human activity, in particular our relentless transferal of carbon into the atmosphere, is the prime driver of global warming. To anyone who’s followed climate science over the past several decades, this conclusion is hardly surprising — but a disturbing proportion of Americans no longer trust or understand science and scientific method. Even if we ignore the climate crisis, a national loss of scientific literacy is a tragic choking of our hopes for a prosperous future. But when the consequences of runaway climate change are factored into the picture, it’s an intellectual as well as an environmental catastrophe. When ideology supersedes fact, it’s a recipe for disaster. Our nation’s citizens and policymakers cannot afford ignorance’s long-term consequences. Those who derive financial reward or political capital from distorting scientific facts act against the best interests of our nation and our species.
Warren Senders
Education humor photoblogging Politics: snap
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