Music as Problem Solving

Balancing Passions

Outside of education, my biggest passion in life is making music. For me, music is the greatest equalizer there is, because it does not matter what your gender, race, is, or what language you speak, because when musicians are in the same room, the universal language of music is being spoken and performed. Music has been something I hold so dearly, because it allows me to vent, it allows me to find inner peace, it makes me smile, and it makes me think. As with many forms of art, music can be passed off merely as a form of expression and not a “valid or lucrative field of study.”

One of the greatest conflicts I have in my life is trying to balance my passion for education and my passion for music. Up until recently, I have thought of these passions as mutually exclusive with no possibility of aligning with each other (outside of instruction of an instrument, or having concert band). Lately I have been thinking about my experience in Marching Band, and some of the best lessons I have learned in life have come from our band’s drum instructor, Mr. Jamison.

Our Performance of "Open Seas" in 2012

Lifelong Lessons

Mr. Jamison is a man that was constantly able to pull the best performance out of every single student consistently. He raised the bar so high, not because he wanted to break us or demoralize us, but he truly believed that we had something in us, a talent, that we couldn’t see in ourselves. One of the best lessons that he taught me is that no matter what I end up doing, I can always carry music with me, whether I were to choose a path in music, or that I become an educator, there is always the option of keeping music close to my heart. That is something I have been contemplating a lot recently, and I can’t get that lesson out of my head. During this semester I have worked on making my first official album as a musician and the positives and detriments that come with putting my time into a passion project during a rigorous academic semester. While I had been working on this album, two thoughts came to mind: the first being that Mr. Jamison not only gave me reassuring advice, but he gave me the truth. I was nervous that I would lose one of the things that make me most happy in college, playing and making music. Thankfully, I have had the privilege of performing in three bands on campus as a drummer, and I have also had the time to make an album in which I could create music beyond my comfort zone of drumming. The second thought I had is that college, and education in general, is about exploration and stepping out of one’s comfort zone, and that is something I constantly tried to accomplish while making my album (Existential Happiness).

Time Management & the Process of Song-Making

The biggest lesson I learned when balancing music and academics is time management. It is so incredibly easy to have four hours go by in an instant when you are working on something you are putting your full, undivided attention into. When I start from scratch, I see an empty template in which there is a solution, either like a puzzle or an equation. I break down the components I need in a certain song, whether that is the instruments, the mood I want, or the samples I may choose. I now have multiple concepts, but they are not necessarily in the places they need to be in order for this song to be “solved.” The idea of a song being solved is when I am able (from my perspective) to place the elements of the song I want into the places where I think they need to be, and this process involves serious tweaking and attention to detail. This component also is impossible to do incrementally for me, because I constantly feel like I am on the brink of solving the problem, or the song. If I stop, I fear that I might lose the process of spontaneity and creativity. The hardest part of making a song is thinking where one wants to start, because it is the least creative part of song making, because you aren’t necessarily allowing yourself to be spontaneous, this is a very premeditated part of music making, and doesn’t allow for the stream of consciousness to flow as much. The issue here is that on any given night, I typically have five-seven hours of homework to complete, as well as trying to sleep, go to the gym, and see my friends. Being able to balance all of these aspects was near impossible for me, but I learned to let go of the song by a certain time. If I wasn’t done with a song by a certain time in the night, I would breathe, and stop. When I came back to the song the next night, I would remind myself what key it is in, and I would allow myself to improvise from there (I refuse to keep in my head what ideas I should put into my song next, because there is a disparity between a sound in my head, and how it actually sounds on a particular instrument). Time management is the greatest virtue of all.

This semester, I worked on a song entitled, “Cape Cod Heroine.” This song pertained to the heroin epidemic that has plagued my hometown. I wanted to do something in order to advocate for better treatment facilities on Cape (since we do not have long term rehabilitation clinics) and also the dangers of heroin. I acknowledge the fact that I can’t sing, but I solved this problem by finding pieces of a documentary and constructing a narrative with a melody behind it in order to intentionally set a mood, and create an environment in which the listener is able to engage their self with the material, or the song in this case. As a future educator, the quintessential aspect of teaching is engaging students with the material, as a musician, the goal is quite similar. I want to immerse the listener and make them think, while also enjoying the melodies. A lot of conventional songwriting will be delivered in a processed format (intro, verse, chorus, refrain etc…) and that might be a wholesale approach towards sending a message or an idea out to people, but this is not necessarily the most engaging way of doing so. I wanted to avoid the standard format, because I believe that trying something different catches the listener’s attention much more. I have provided below a link to my artist page (Uncle Ephrum) and the song I made (Cape Cod Heroine).

A Lesson on the F-Word (Failure)

An Example of How People Can Learn in Different Ways:

Since I have been home over spring break, I have had the opportunity to catch up with my Mom, who has been my rock throughout my entire life, and has inspired me to be the better person every single day. She has worked as a diagnostic technician in the ER for 25 years and has recently decided to move into another career. The issue was that she had to take a typing test in order to get a job, as well as take an extensive anatomy and physiology test. The concern my Mom had was that she is dyslexic and is not able to type to the standards that the test requires. She asked me if I would be willing to help her study and practice for the exam and I replied saying that I would be more than glad to help.

In order for my mom to pass the typing test, she needed to type at least 30 words per minute (WPM) and she was, at the time, only typing about 0-5 WPM (if typos are taking into consideration). In addition, my Mom was only allowed 10 mistakes on an exam with 100 matching responses. My Mom also told me that we only had three days to study, which made me a little nervous, but I did not want to express that, because I believed in my Mom, because I have seen how much she has been able to provide as a single Mother.

As an aspiring educator, a lesson that I quickly learned in working with my Mom was that I need to further step out of my comfort zone of instruction, typically, I tend to be encouraging and nurturing as a tutor, because I don’t want students to shut down if they get the answer incorrect. With my Mom however, I quickly realized this was not the teaching strategy she needed, or wanted for that matter, because she is use to high pressure and stress, and encouragement doesn’t allow her to focus to the best of her ability. One of the first ideas I had to accommodate for my Mom was to have her be engaged in her typing test (she has told me that she has a lot of difficulty concentrating on a computer). I think one of the greatest problems with online typing tests is that they typically pertain to arbitrary topics that don’t allow people to necessarily see the big picture and importance of being able to digitally communicate in the 21st century. What I ended up doing is relating the typing test back to my Mom’s work environment, where the Emergency Room is high stress, I wanted to convey that sense of urgency by telling my mom she had to pretend that she was typing in the information for an injured patient, and the information had to be completed within a minute, in order for the patient in critical condition to have a greater chance of surviving. This instantly boosted my Mom’s typing speed up to 10 WPM, which made both of us happy, because progress was being made.

My Mom hit her first hurdle at 10 WPM, so I had to up the ante in terms of providing the work environment my Mom is able to thrive in. She told me that she is an auditory learner and she has great difficulty writing words on a screen. I decided it would be a good idea to ask her who the most demanding Doctor is in the ER in order to get the most efficiency out of her typing, she responded by saying “Dr. X” is the best in terms of motivating people, due to his high standards and fast-paced work ethic. “He is also known to be a hot-head and not accept excuses,” my Mom explained. I was a bit nervous to have to act as an a loud doctor towards my Mom, because I am not the type who likes to put direct pressure on people, nor do I like to raise my voice, but I was also willing to try this in order to best replicate her work environment, in order to show the application of typing skills in the real world. When my Mom began typing, I would yell off the first sentence once, while also stating the time she had left, to illicit pressure. Additionally, if I saw she was over-concentrating and getting stuck on a word (typically it was a smaller word) I would try to lower her level of concentration by telling her the condition of the patient. At this point my Mom was typing at 15 WPM, which is the halfway point for the typing test.

I had one more idea to have my Mom act as if she were really in the hospital working, and I had two ideas: The first idea being that she cannot look at the screen and type at the same time, so I told my Mom to say the sentence under her breath while she was typing, since she is an auditory learner (and also I was not allowed in the testing room so I could not read the sentences for her). Secondly, I went online and found stock ER sounds (EKG machine, the sounds of stretchers, etc…) to simulate her work environment. Before each test, I would tell her to take a deep breath and only focus on the task at hand. At this juncture, her typing was up to 20 WPM. Unfortunately, she was having difficulty consistently getting above 20 WPM, and she was getting discouraged.

I emphasized to my Mom that she was capable of getting to 30 WPM, because I had seen her at points typing upwards of 40 WPM, but she would break her stride by either getting too focused and caught on a single word, or she would have too many typos. I couldn’t stress enough that she already has the capacity to type above the threshold she needed, and that boosted her confidence a little bit, but ultimately she did not pass the typing test.

In terms of the Physiology test, I know that having multiple people practice with each other yields a greater chance of acquiring deeper learning, so I learned the definitions and terms, and we both quizzed each other, and I made sure that when I was reading off either definitions, or terms, that all of my explanations were auditory based, because that is her best way of retaining information. For words that were similar, I would use alliteration and other mnemonic devices in order for the information to be stored in our memory. When we practiced the test out loud, she excelled and was not getting any questions incorrect, but when she went to take the exam online, following the typing test, she also did not pass the physiology test.

Failure Can Only Exist When There is no Commitment to Learning & Teaching:

In my mind, I thought I had failed my Mom at first when she did not pass these two tests, but I realized that she had demonstrated her proficiency in the content of the skills she needed, but her tests did not necessarily accommodate her needs as a test-taker. When a test is only given through one medium, it doesn’t allow the test-taker to project their comprehension if they have a learning disability, and this can easily be applied to the macro scale with common assessments, do we want to test everyone to have the same level of proficiency, or are we testing everyone to have the same proficiency in a particular format? We can’t have the expectation that people learn in the same way, but in a profession, I understand the necessity for people to demonstrate their proficiency.

My Mom and I were not upset in the end, because she was thankful for how much she was able to learn in a short period of time, whereas I was incredibly proud of my Mom for how much she grew in three days. I’m a firm believer that the growth of someone is much more indicative of quality education than what they can demonstrate in a particular form of assessment. I saw my Mom step out of her comfort zone, and she ended up having a fall back strategy, which my Mom and I talked about in the event she didn’t pass the test, I told her that my Professor told us that we should at least have three other options if our first plan does not work out the way we would have desired.

The biggest lesson I have learned is that failure cannot possibly exist when someone can grow in their learning and grow as a person. If a person does not succeed the first time, that does not make them a failure, but they simply haven’t reached their desired outcome, there is always a lesson in success, and there is an even greater lesson in failing, it allows us to see how we can grow when we didn’t get our desired outcome. It is incredibly easy to thrive when we are used to succeeding, because we have a sense of confidence, but when we fail, is really where actual learning begins, because it makes us re-evaluate, it makes us plan, and it makes us grow as people.