What Has Stuck Sideways

There are a lot of things I remember about the class so far, but here are three that jump out to me off the top of my head:

Discussing daydreaming. I daydream all the time, but I think this is the first time that I've been forced to really think critically about it, or had it addressed in a serious way. It was really interesting.

Getting something new out of a music theory class I took more than two years ago. As I mentioned in an earlier blog entry, the discussion of the definition of music and John Cage was almost identical to one from my Music Theory I class I took at the beginning of my sophomore year. However, having this same conversation in the context of how it relates to all of creativity instead of just music was very significant, as it made me look at those things I already thought (about music and such) from a different perspective.

Being told to relax. I know, on a purely objective level, that I should not overwork myself, and that I should take breaks and do things that I like once in a while. However, this has always been hard for me. I have a tendency to be quick enough to "waste time" when I feel like I have plenty of time, but as soon as there's any kind of deadline or need on me, I can't make myself do or even think about much of anything else. I'm in my eighth and final semester of college right now, and I think every semester so far has ended with me overstressing and overworking to the point where I have gotten sick (and I rarely get sick at all). And I know that I could and should take a little time to relax at some point during times like that, but I rarely do. Being told that in class really stood out to me, even though it only reinforced something I already knew.


This class has been VERY different from any other class I've taken. Perhaps the biggest difference has been the assignments. I can't think of any other class where the assignments basically boil down to "do something."


I hope that this class can continue to have more significant moments for me like the ones I've mentioned above. These are where it really seems like the class is having an impact that will actually stick with me, and I want more of that.

Fear Hypothesis

(If by chance you read this before and are now seeing that it says something different, it is because I tweaked my hypothesis and experiment and wanted this post to reflect that.)

I hypothesize that my experiment will have mixed reactions. For some participants, it will be startling and cause them to jump. For others, it will have little effect. Either or both of these outcomes are part of the intended results of the experiment, and hopefully both will occur.

Unexpected Improv

For this assignment, I wanted to do something that sort of expressed or was related to the meaning and purpose of my totem, but obviously wasn't using it for it's intended purpose. Since my totem was a guitar pick, I obviously couldn't play a guitar or anything similar with it for this assignment. But when I thought about what a guitar pick actually is and what it does, I decided that I wanted to use it to play some sort of music. After some experimentation, I landed on playing a glockenspiel (a percussion instrument usually played with mallets, similar to a xylophone) with the pick. I "plucked" the bars on the glockenspiel that would normally be struck, and the result was a slightly different tone to the instrument.

Here is a video of me playing it: