Pure Movement

The entirety of my dancing experience consists of a year of tap dance in third grade. The reason I quit was because wearing tights made me itchy. Thus my loathing of tights ended my career as a dancer. My lack of dancing experience made Mary Wigman’s Composition in Pure Movement somewhat foreign to me. I thought her process of coming up with her dances was quite free sounding, just as she described it. I also found it interesting that she thought “the creation of a dance to music already written cannot be complete and satisfactory.” I never really thought of dance this way. To me it was always the creation of only movement to preexisting music. The fact that she just improvises with her musicians until it all works and fits together is quite fascinating. The thing about improvisation that scares me is that you have to be okay with making mistakes. Its hard for semi-OCD perfectionists like myself to really throw myself out there and be okay if what I do is bad. But I suppose all creation is just throwing yourself out there and seeing what comes out. I agree with Wigman when she talks about being a firm believer in individual freedom. I think creativity is completely unique to each person and we shouldn’t try to put anybody to a mold and make them the same as everybody else.

*Abstract or not abstract: that is the question...*

In my original collage I included a lot of things that describe me. Some of these include photos of my family and friends, sheet music, song quotes, Disney stuff, teacher-y things like crayons, the Lorax and the Magic School Bus emblem. I have a hard time with collages because I am very much a scrap booking kind of person. I like things to be neat and lined up and not too cluttered, so I had a hard time cluttering my collage enough to get a good abstract. I ended up adding things to my collage. The most difficult thing about the abstraction process for me was the technology. I had a very hard time trying to figure out the iphoto application so I just did it on an application I was more familiar with, Print Shop. The abstraction process itself wasn’t difficult; it was just a matter of choosing which abstraction to post because the options are literally endless. When it comes to the question of success as an abstraction, that entirely depends on your definition of abstract. I personally think of abstract as something that isn’t anything. A painting with three lines on it, for example, I would see as abstract. If the artist were to tell me what those three lines were I might change my label of that painting. Because I know what my abstraction is of, I don’t see it as an abstraction. Although someone else with my same definition might see my piece as abstract because they don’t know what it is of. So the meaning is what really matters to me in terms of abstract or not.

Delight

DH Lawrence in his Making Pictures realizes that everything that can be painted has not yet been painted. This is something I love about paintings. you can have four paintings of the exact same park from the exact same spot. But each artist brings something different to it. If I were to paint, my goal would be to show the viewer how I see something. Something can look completely different to two different people. I feel like painting is an insight into the artists mind. I really like how the author said “the picture happens.” That is a really cool thought that once you get going the picture just happens, not necessarily just through your efforts. I also totally agree that he says a picture isn’t a picture unless it has delight in it. Even the saddest picture I can still delight in it, mostly because it is a work of art I appreciate. When he discussed that words have a more unconscious delight and paint was a more conscious one. Those really made me think for a minute. And I agree that the two medians do different things to you and we react to them in different ways.
My favorite line from the Zervos piece is “There is no abstract art. One always has to begin with something.” I like this a lot. The reason I don’t really like abstract art is because I don’t know what the artist is trying to convey. I’m not getting a good look into their minds. If I have the story behind an abstract piece, that makes it more meaningful to me and I enjoy it a lot more. I also really loved when he said “ Everybody wants to understand painting. Why is there no attempt to understand the song of birds? Why does one love a night, a flower, everything that surrounds a man, without trying to understand it all?” I think art needs to just be appreciated. And it needs to be appreciated individually. Nobody else can tell you how to appreciate a piece of art. For me, having the meaning behind an abstract piece of art isn’t me trying to understand it, its me trying to really appreciate it for what it is.

*Creativity's place in education should be everywhere...*

I really enjoyed reading this article, Creativity- It’s Place in Education. This is something that is really applicable to me since I’m going to be a teacher. I totally agree with the basic premise of the article that creativity is necessary in schools. It absolutely kills me that in budget crunches the first things to go are art and music. I think that CSAP has everyone going crazy pushing for literacy because if a student is struggling on their literacy they are even losing science and social studies for more literacy practice.

I laughed out loud when I was reading Tom Peter’s vision about education. One of the lines states “a society that respects their teachers and principals, pays them well, and grants them the autonomy to do their job as the creative individuals they are, and for the creative individuals in their charge.” This is almost sadly unrealistic. Teachers get paid next to nothing for all the work they do. We are so vitally important to society, and a strike would show them that, but teachers would never strike and abandon their students. We are also so restricted with what we teach because of the greatly demanding curriculum.

I also thought the section “Why Should We Bother” was interesting. They said the main crisis in schools was irrelevance, as in music and art are not literacy, so they are irrelevant. I believe that is untrue. Music and art can help kids with their literacy. Arts integrated into every subject help the learning process greatly and makes for a more rounded education. They also say that “Creative students lead richer lives and, in the longer term, make a valuable contribution to society. Surely those are reasons enough to bother.”

I found the Jordan Aryn scenario appalling. A very creative kindergartener received an unsatisfactory grade in art for refusing to color inside the lines. A little part of my soul died as I read this. We are putting kids into little boxes and molds to be all exactly alike and that is just not the way kids are. I think it’s important to color outside the lines and be creative, imaginative and unique. We need to teach kids to strive to be individuals and not conform to the rest of society.

“We have an interesting paradox. We have industry commentators saying that, for a successful future, we need people who think, are creative and innovative and yet our education systems seems to be working against this.” Unfortunately, I find this totally true and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. It will be interesting to see what kinds of changes are in store for No Child Left Behind, but I don’t think anything will be enough after all we’ve been through.
No Child Left Behind is also known as NCLB or more appropriately nicknamed No Child Left Untested, No Teacher Left Standing, Everything Left Behind Except Literacy and I’ve even seen Harry Potter has done more for literacy than NCLB ever will.

They suggest some things in the reading of how to encourage creativity. Two of these are classroom climate and classroom environment. In our education program we learn all about how to create positive, creative and enriching classroom climates and environments. Everyone agrees this is important enough to be readily taught to future teachers. The others are time, materials and resources. These are not as widely recognized. With the curriculum restrictions placed on us we do not have the time to allow children all the time they need to explore their creativity. Materials and resources both require money. This is one of the reasons that NCLB didn’t work, because all these great ideas were proposed but then it was unfunded. We don’t have the money to provide abundant useful and interesting materials and resources. This is hurting our kids. When I become a teacher, there will always be music and art in my classroom because I understand just how important it is and how useful of a learning tool it is. The removal of arts and music from schools is bad and until people recognize that, nothing is going to get better. That makes me fear for our future generations.

Don't Drop Your Bow!

The UNC Symphony orchestra concert was quite an enjoyable experience. I thought it was very interesting how the ensemble was set up. The usual form for an orchestra looks like this:


In this concert they have switched the viola and the cello sections. This is usually a conductor’s choice but I personally like the more traditional format with the cello section on the outside. Although I am a cello player, which makes me slightly biased. The group performed a Mendelssohn/ Moscheles piece, a Barber violin concerto, and a Dvorak symphony.

I very much like the Mendelssohn. This was a preview of the piece and nobody has heard it in over 170 years. I found the melody to be light and playful. The majority of the piece was emphasizing the two solo pianos, so the orchestra was often using pizzicato, a technique where you pluck the string instead of bow it. I liked the effect this had on the music. The piano parts would have been incomplete with out the orchestra, but had the strings bowed it would have taken away from the pianists. The two solo pianists were UNC professors Lei Weng and Jonathan Bellman. I loved watching Weng perform. His movement with the music as he played was absolutely mesmerizing.

The second piece on the program was Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op.14 by Samuel barber. It was in three movements. The solo violin was UNC sophomore Natalie Padilla. The first and second movements were lovely with fluid, emotional melodies. The orchestra had beautiful dynamic contrast. I really enjoyed what the trumpets added to the piece. The third movement was always said to have not fit with the rest of the composition, and I find this to be not true. Every musical composition needs some rises and falls and the third movement is definitely a rise. It sounds seemingly chaotic, but I could still easily find the melody in the chaos. It was very intense. Padilla received a standing ovation for her performance and I think it was a standing ovation well deserved.

My favorite part of Dvorak’s Symphony No.8 in G major, op.88 was the woodwinds. In every movement they had a melody that they played exquisitely. I also liked the contrast of the differences in the movements. Each of them was different but they all fit together very well. I have actually had the pleasure of playing the fourth movement before and it is a fun movement to play. It is very triumphant and the trumpets did a great job really emphasizing that.

All in all, the University of Northern Colorado Symphony Orchestra is a wonderful ensemble with amazing expression, dynamic contrast and technique. I greatly enjoyed this concert and give it two thumbs up.

Tchaikovsky

“Those first 5 or 6 songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head.” Jim Morrison, The Doors

Sometimes writing music can be like that, but sometimes it’s not. I greatly enjoyed the letters by Tchaikovsky on his creative process. I am completely fascinated by music. I love it in every shape and form. It probably helps that I have been singing my whole life and I have played the cello for the past 10 years.

In these letters I particularly like Tchaikovsky’s line “Music possesses far richer means of expression, and it is a more subtle medium in which to translate the thousand shifting moments in the mood of a soul.” I think that is breathtaking and the perfect way to describe it. I think some of the beauty and mystery of music comes from the fact that it is often very difficult to describe in words the music itself or the feelings and thoughts behind the music. I also really relate to his simile of the plant that when the seed is dropped and it has soil it, immediately begins to shoot up and grow blossom. I think that applies to any creative act. As soon as you have the thought it all just keeps coming and coming until it is fully developed. Well that’s the way it is sometimes at least.

I thought it interesting when he said even the greatest musicians have sometimes worked without inspiration. I think it is a common misconception that people who write music just have great ideas all the time. It does take a great amount of technique and patience and having to just sit down and write until something comes out.

Another line I enjoyed was when he was talking about a particular spot in one of his pieces: “It is inconceivable except as pizzicato. Were it played with the bow, it would lose all its charm and be a mere body without a soul…” I think that small details like this make all the difference to a piece. He heard it pizz and that’s the way it is, end of story.

College Students are Easily Bored...

On the Uses of a Liberal Education is a very interesting essay. The author discusses how today colleges no longer have admission offices, they have marketing departments. They try to sell the school and each individual class to get as many full paying students as possible. For example, whenever you see a picture of UNC there is a lovely view of the mountains:


Do we really have a view of the mountains in Greeley? No.

He says "I don't teach to amuse, to divert, or even for that matter to be merely interesting… When someone says they enjoyed the course, that is not at all what I had in mind." Now I understand that College is quite different from elementary school, but as an elementary education major I must disagree. I think some things are universal for people of all ages, whether they are 5 or 35 years old. People learn better when they are interested. There is nothing worse than sitting through a boring lecture with a monotone professor not saying anything remotely interesting. It is the teacher's job to teach their students and sometimes the best way to do that is to be entertaining and make it interesting.

He also goes on to say that not only colleges compete for students, but different departments in an individual college have to compete for students. That the English department are easier graders who rarely give Ds or Cs to attract more students. This makes me think of No Child Left Behind. According to NCLB standards, every student must be up to grade level at the end of every year. This is tested by standardized tests, or the CSAP in Colorado. Although the government has said every student must be up to standards, they left it up to the state to set the standards. So many states, Colorado included, have lowered their standards to more easily allow every student to achieve grade level. I think this is wrong and doesn’t help anybody.

Another thing he addresses is the push for group work, discussion and exchange of ideas between students in place of standard lecture. The Author argues that this doesn’t help the students acquire new vocabulary or new perspective. I find a balance of group work and lecture is most effective.