Last Set of Craft Project Notes

For my last practice session, I combined both the private practice guided by the book, and a social interaction with another musician friend. As I’m getting ready to close my project, it seems like I’ve made it back full circle. My first blog post on this project was titled “Gathering Materials Socially,” which recounted my experiences trying to acquire a bass guitar. Once I acquired my bass guitar, however, I resorted to my own private study of this musical craft. Unaware of what I was supposed to do, I went online to look for ideas. I considered playing the song “Money” by Pink Floyd based on an instructional youtube video, but was discouraged when the person in the video stated that it was a really difficult and odd time signature, not following the standard 4/4. Therefore, I decided to use the book that I was given to learn the basics.

I’ve already learned to play notes on the fourth, third and second string, attempting to unite some of these as the instructions in the book prompted. The last lesson involves learning notes on the first string and a review of all four strings. It’s been established that my end product would be to be able to play the C scale, in which I would need to unite all of the notes that I’ve learned thus far. Armed with confidence from a very productive session last week, I attempted to go over the first string notes hurriedly. I’m not sure if it’s because of the spacing between the second and the fourth fret, but going from playing A with my second finger to playing B with my third, was a little challenging. Still, I went ‘by the book’ and was able to get in the rhythm of the pattern specified. Because of the similarity of the patterns that I played in the previously learned notes, my ear was attuned to the times that I was supposed to strike each string and the shifts of notes that were caused by it.

The Four String Review, however, was not as easy as I thought. Because the notes weren’t going from the lowest to the highest as I was beginning to get used to, I found myself looking at the previous lessons to determine where each note is played. This means that I still have not memorized the location of each note on the page. Nonetheless I played the pattern I was supposed to play. Not giving myself enough time to practice the C scale (in order to have the “final” product) I still went to my friend’s house to record myself playing. Once I was there, he “let me do my thing,” which entailed me going over all of the lessons I had done in a chunk of twenty minutes.

As I was getting ready to record my scale, he came up to the attic. He asked me to play the scale several times and then noticed that one of the strings was out of tune! He picked up the bass, tuned the string, played the scale that I was playing and then played it backwards. “So that’s what it’s supposed to sound like!” I realized out loud. He then prompted me to do it on my own. And prompted me to do it again. Then he said: “let’s try it with a drumbeat,” and went to his drumset and started playing. I didn’t know what I was doing, so I just resorted to playing the notes that I was most comfortable with. The ones that I had practiced the most. In this short, ten-minute, interaction I learned more than I had in the last couple of weeks!

This interaction allowed me to consider the question of the conception of a solitary learner vs. the socially situated skill acquisition process. In my paper, then, I aim to explore how learning this craft has provided me with insights into the process of learning a craft, specifically one that involves music.

Hand, Eye, Ear, Brain, Bass

There are a number of statements that Sennett makes in his chapter 5 of The Craftsman that I keep thinking about every time I make a mistake while practicing. Some of these are:

“In music, the ear works in concert with the fingertip to probe.”

“Practicing that attends to momentary error at the fingertips actually increases confidence: once the musician can do something correctly more than once, he or she is no longer terrorized by that error.”

“The full scenario of practice sessions that improve skills is thus: prepare, dwell in mistakes, recover form.”

It was convenient for me to read these before starting my practice sessions, as they kept me motivated to keep going. Besides the joy that I was feeling as I was able to follow the written notes on the pages that I focused on in my last session, every slip, every mistake made me smile at the though that Sennett was right!

In my first practice session, I was consciously paying attention to one of the suggestions that the book makes, that is, to alternate the index and middle finger of the right hand to strike the strings. Though I was paying attention to the rhythm by clicking my tongue in a standard 4/4 time signature (a human metronome) I also was looking at the notes that I was prompted to play, but also looked at the little dots on top of the notes that indicated the finger that I was to use. This has been the hardest skill to master.

My two months of piano playing when I was 6 years old have allowed me to have a familiarity with the staff and the different notes that can be placed on it, as well as the count for each kind of note. Still, I am not familiar with the positions that indicate different notes and how to make the sound based on string, or left hand position. This book has been helpful with that, and here I refer back to memorization. The more I practice the more I know what I am doing. I repeat each note several times (E, F, G).  By now I know that the open strings are E, A, D, G because I wrote it down when I was first tuning it and had to practice this sequence over and over again. This also speaks to my reliance on learning things by writing them down. I write down my lesson plan, I write my conference papers, and so on.

To close, I would like to point out that I am having so much fun! I look forward to writing about my experience with all of the other strings and potentially record some sessions.

Rhetorics of Craft – Midterm Proposal

Most of my research revolves around notions of music listening/production practices. The way I’ve approached this topic previously has focused on my own passive act of consumption, and description of the production choices of others. For this midterm, I will attempt to take on the role of an active participant in the act of playing a musical instrument. The instrument I’ve chosen is the bass guitar.

Throughout my high school years, I started identifying myself with the groups that engaged with numerous subgenres of rock music, both in English and Spanish. The one common language was the musical component. But as a good counterculture punk rocker I didn’t want to learn to play the guitar, I wanted to play bass. So I asked my dad, the one that could afford it, to buy me one. In New Jersey, he bought me a starter kit, Fender’s cheaper version, a Squire, and a practice amp. He also paid for ONE lesson. Back in Puerto Rico, I would practice on my own, playing the Blues progression that I was taught, but would get bored easily and attempt to figure out the bass tunes in songs like Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s “Otherside.” I never figured out the entire song and stopped “playing” after a year. I would like to start practicing that blues progression once again, but this time I will actually pay attention to the notes that I am playing.

My goal is to learn what each note is called, and be able to identify all of these (or as many as can) as I play them. This would potentially help me to be able to “jam” with other people. Another goal would be to learn an entirely new song. In which case I may have to do some more research to identify what particular song that will be. In learning to play this instrument I envision myself tapping into my memory skills simultaneously with auditory, visual, and tactile senses. Paying attention to one particular component at a time might not be possible, but perhaps I will be able to concentrate on one or the other at different times. While I’ve already been asked if I needed help, perhaps I should attempt this project on my own to better discern my own bodily knowledge in my development as a bass guitar player.