Seventh week practice videos

These are this week's practice videos
Monday (Scales C F G)

I think I improved in the scales, and learned a different way to do the G scale.

Saturday (Evocacion)

Evocacion again, I don't know too many songs and we have lots of assessments.

21st May 2010

Today we practiced our listening skills. Mr Herry played several notes on the keyboard, and we were asked to identify the notes and notate them on a piece of sheet music. It was very hard for me, and I only got several notes right. I guess I have to work on listening skills. After that, Mr Herry called out several students (I think they were Ade, James, Kezia, and Tiffany) to do a demonstration in front. Mr Herry played several complex sounding notes and asked them to repeat the notes. Most of them were able to do so on the fly, and it was a very cool performance. It would be great if I, too, could have listening skills on par with them.

18th May 2010

Today we learned transposing again. This time, it was between scales and not between clefs. At first I wasn't quite sure of how to transpose between scales, something in me told me that I could. After a short explanation, turns out that something was right, I've somehow learned transposing. We were supposed to transpose "Alice in Wonderland" from C to G. I had some trouble even though I understood the theory of how to do it (still slow on notation). However, transposing while looking at both the C and the G scales helped me a lot. In the end, we didn't have to transpose the whole song, only 16 bars, but I did more than 16.

Sixth week practice videos

Here are this week's videos:
Tuesday (C, F, and G major scales)

Saturday (Kiss from a rose)

I think I almost memorized the 3 scales above, but I haven't been practicing much lately and the song I played dropped a lot on fluency.

14th May 2010

Today we checked some more jingles. They were also good. Andrew Sie's jingle really fits his commercial, of a mosquito repellent. The intro represented the mosquitoes' attack, with an ominous sound. It sounded a bit like Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" though. After a short pause, the music gets relaxing and slow. It really suits the "minyak telon" commercials. We also checked the blogs. I think maybe the blogs should be checked outside of class to save time. We also had to submit our journals to check the daily reflection. I'm missing quite a lot of entries, since I uploaded some of them directly to the blog and didn't write them on my journal. All in all, I think I only had about 5 out of 11 entries. In instrument class, we practiced the scales again. Mr John also taught us the spanish strumming style which was pretty cool. The right hand is in the "heavy metal" sign, which turns out to be originally from Spain and represents the bull for strength.

11th May 2010

Today Mr Herry checked several of our jingles. We listened to them, and all of them were pretty good. After we heard our classmates' works, I think Mr Herry was quite disappointed that only a few of us were using the bass. So, he gave us a short briefing about the bass clef, also with where the notes are positioned. After the short lecture, he gave us worksheets. We are supposed to transcribe the song from the treble clef to the bass clef. I had some problems at first but once I got the hang of it it wasn't so hard. I still took quite a long time though. Then, in instrument class, we learned scales. This was to prepare for the upcoming practical exam. Mr John taught us a shortcut to remember many scales at once, all we had to do was to remember the pattern and use different base notes.

Fifth week practice videos

This week Mr Herry told us we needed to also upload a practice video for the group performances too. I recorded it but I don't think I did too well, I don't fully remember the song.
Tuesday (Evocacion yet again)

Thursday (This Love chords)

7th May 2010

Today is the big day. We're supposed to perform in our groups today, and get assessed on it to boot. However, it turns out that we'll also be assessed in the exam week, and that will probably help our score, because there's now 2 reference assessments. Before we started, however, some of us submitted our commercial jingle drafts. I tried making mine better, and hopefully it worked. Then, we started the performances. Each group was given a piece of paper (one for each member) to give comments on the other groups. Since we were group 3, we had a chance to observe the other groups first. I think all the groups did well, the first group seemed like they practiced really hard, the second group did great on teamwork, and the 4th group was very expressive. We all really enjoyed the performances. Group 3 got mostly positive feedback, and I'm very happy for that.

4th May 2010

Today we had our blogs and videos checked. We are already supposed to have 8 videos and 16 blog entries at this point in time. Mr Herry was very strict with today's deadline, he said that if we still didn't have any videos, we'd get zero for our personal engagement criterion. Luckily, I already uploaded the required entries. We spent almost the whole theory session checking everyone's blogs, and we used our practical session to practice on the performance. We'll be assessed this Friday.

Fourth week practice videos

This is an exercise that helps extend the fingers' reach. It is done by doing something like a chromatic scale exercise, but it's diagonal and each variation has the player skip a fret in between their index&middle, middle&ring, and ring&little fingers.
Finger reach exercise (Tuesday)

This is another exercise that helps train the left hand fingers to move faster. It is a modified chromatic scale, but it forces the fingers to keep on the frets before moving to the next string's frets. By doing so, this exercise forces the fingers to stay close to the fretboard, thereby enhancing their efficiency and speed.
Speed exercise (Friday)

30th April 2010

Today we had our jingle drafts checked. There were around 6 or 7 students who already submitted their compositions. They were really good, except for mine. I really liked Andrew Sie's jingle, as there was a funny whistle sound. Mine wasn't so good, it sounded like an advertisement for some coffin shop. Afterwards, Mr Herry explained that 2010 version cannot be opened with 2009 of Finale etc.

27th April 2010

Today we had our reflections checked. Since I didn't do up till the 23rd of April's reflection, I had to go down to the library and update my blog. I forgot to do it because I was focusing on the personal project, but that isn't an excuse. After I updated the blog, I went back up to the 4th floor. By the time I got back up, not much was left. I missed quite a lot of things, mainly some more rehearsals on our group performances. Since around 2 of our members (Ian and I) went down to the library, our group was not called upon. Then, we had the longest instrument session in our semester. We were able to get quite a lot of kinks in the performance sorted out. For next session, we'll have to submit our Jingle drafts in Finale format.

Third week practice videos

Kiss From A Rose practice (Tuesday)

Evocacion practice (Friday)

23rd April 2010

Today we had a review of our tasks. First, Mr. Herry asked us to submit the 16-bar jingle draft. I'm not too sure if he really asked us to do so the last class, but I may have forgotten. If I remember correctly, almost all other students didn't do it either. So, Mr. Herry gave us some time to create a 4 bar intro of it. We needed to use 4 instruments, so I picked Guitar, Piano, Flute, and Violin. I just made a simple melody which fits with the triads, but I'm not too sure if it sounds good (I'm not even sure how it sounds). After making the intros, we submitted them for checking. We then saw Mr. Herry check our reflection blogs' videos. It was quite embarassing to see yourself play. After that, we did some more rehearsals. This week's pretty busy as there is a Personal Project due date on the 27th.

20th April 2010

Today Mr. Herry showed us several advertisements in preparation of our assessment, making a jinle music advertisement for a business product. It's a collaboration between Business and Music. Some of the ads and videos we watched were: Orchestral music for videos, Pond's advertisement, World cup song (Waving flag), Roscoe's chicken and waffles, and rolex watch. We also watched a funny video about how music should fit the product lyrically (Viagra and "You Raise Me Up"). After lots of laughs and applause, we learnt quite a lot of things about advertising, of how music can help build up the mood and atmosphere. Afterwards, we all went to show the class how much each groups have advanced. I don't feel that our group is making too much progress.

Second week practice videos

Tuesday (Tremolo practice)

Saturday (Evocacion practice)

These videos are quite short compared to the first week's practice session.

16th April 2010

Today we had our music test. Since we had more time to prepare, I was more confident before we started the paper. However, my confidence got a dent on it when I heard Mr Herry announce that we only had 40 minutes for 40 questions. I thought to myself that I couldn't do a question per minute (I'm still slow on notation). When I opened the sheets, I was greeted by a plethora of history questions. Thankfully, most of them were quite easy. One of them, however, struck me hard. We had to write a short biography of our favorite musician from our genre, and my memory sadly failed me. I didn't remember much detail of Duke Ellington (birth date, death date, etc.). Instead, I wrote what I could, including some awards he got. After finishing the history section, I moved on to the notation section. Luckily, I somehow finished the whole paper, before time was up, too. There were dominant 7th chords, major 7th chords, minor 7th chords, 9th and 11th chords. Turns out there was a pattern I could manipulate, so I finished early. I felt very relieved when I finished the paper.

13th April 2010

Today we unexpectedly had our singing assessment. It was unexpected because the Facebook message said that today we're going to have our test. Thus, I didn't really prepare much for the singing assessment. Thankfully, the song we sang was "I Got Rhythm", which coincidentally also had very simple lyrics. This helped me memorize the song quite fast. Moreover, the catchy tune also helped. My name also starts with "K", so I had quite a late turn. Before the assessment, I got quite nervous, but after I started singing it helped a bit. This was mainly due to the "I got my man" segment of the lyrics, which still amuses me. It was a fun experience, and we enjoyed each other's performances and dances. There were some terrific movements on the stage back then.

First week practice videos

Mr. Herry asked us to upload videos of our practice sessions, 2 a week, so here are mine:
Thursday's (Kiss From A Rose practice):


Saturday's (Tremolo practice):

P.S. You can hear snorting sounds? That's my brother

9th April 2010

Today we reviewed our questions. These questions are based on our individual booklets, and are grouped according to our genres. For example, the Swing questions are mixed up. We saw the other class's questions, and also from our own. Then, we were supposed to choose several good ones. Copies of questions should be avoided. After looking over, we only got 10 questions. We were peer-quizzed on the questions we picked. One group would be asked their questions by another group. My group did fairly well, answering all our questions correctly. After the peer-quiz is done, we sang "I Got Rhythm" all together. The "I Got My Man" part still succeeds to amuse me.

6th April 2010

Today is the first music session of the term, and we were still in the holiday mood. We started off with a short recap of last term's theory lessons, mainly the chords. We learnt new chords, such as the 9th and 11th chords. After the recap, we were handed our individual booklets back. I got 7/8, quite a satisfying mark. The music ACP kids also got their reflections back. After the distributions, we started grouping among ourselves for the performance. We did it by gambreng, a type of lottery frequently used to decide things by chance (although some steps may be taken to manipulate results). I was in one group with Jessika, Bayu, Andri, Ian, and Tiffany. Then, we drew lots to decide the song we're playing. Our group got "This Love" by Maroon 5, the most modern song among the others (All of Me, Fly me to the moon, etc) Afterwards, the 4 music teachers drew lots to see which group they will supervise. Our group will be supervised by Mr. Sadrakh

19th March 2010

Today was the last music class of this term. It was also the last day of school, so people were really excited about the holidays but not so much about the class. We had a review of the 7 chords, because next term we will be assessed on music theory. Most of us still had trouble with them. Mr Herry reviewed about 3 types (major, dominant, minor) of 7 chords, but I think there should be at least one more (minor major). I still remembered the note formula (1,3,5,7 for major, 1,3,5,7b for dominant, etc). However, this time Mr Herry asked us to do the chords with scales I am previously unfamiliar with. It came as a surprise as I have never tried doing the A flat major scale (among others). But, when I tried using the usual method (take root note, then 1 1 1/2 1 1 1 1/2), it worked out just fine. By the end of the class, I learnt how to do the other scales and became more comfortable with them. It turns out that even flat-scales like A-flat also use the same formula as the major scales. Once the scales were done, the chords were much easier since we have a reference. For the next term, we'll have group performances and also study about background music (like the jingles in advertisements/elevator music).

16th March 2010

Today is yet another holiday, the holiday of Nyepi... I wonder how many times music class has been removed because of holidays, approximately 3 times I think.

12th March 2010

Today Mr Herry came back, so we held the 12 bar blues assessment today. I felt better since I practiced more, but I was still quite unsure about the rhythm (maybe I shouldn't have used those triples and other tricky rhythm, it's not exactly cake walk). Turns out, it was Mr Herry's first time being absent in his whole career, must have been something very big to him. We had several minutes of practice since piano went first, and during that time I tried my best to visualize the rhythm in my head. It wasn't so easy since I'm quite new to music lessons. When it was our turn to play, turns out that guitar was going to try a new method of playing, that is playing in succession. Each of the students would play their piece, and the next student continues where the last one left off, effectively creating a continuous chain. This made me even more nervous as it means that I wasn't allowed to miss a single beat. I tried to get an earlier order so I can get it over with, but instead came up with the second to last order. I was very nervous when it was Mark's (the one before me) turn, that my legs were practically shaking. However, when I started playing, somehow adrenaline took over and I got through without any major mistakes. I was very relieved about that. After our turns, we got to watch the other instruments play. When I saw the violin group play, I thought of how hard it must be to play one, since everyone were missing beats. Everyone but Andri that is, she even played at C. Sometimes I feel that the division of instruments isn't fair, like how some of those in violin are actually good at something else but they are put into violin because there was no more room. Strangely, the instrument group received at least 2 more students afterwards.

9th March 2010

Today we were supposed to have our 12 bar blues playing assessment. I was very nervous since I didn't practice that much yet. However, it turns out that Mr Herry was absent, a very rare occurrence. Thus, instead of having the assessment itself, we had rehearsal practice. It was kind of like a "practice" but it was in front of everyone. I felt ashamed at my own unpreparedness, as it heavily affected my playing which in turn became crappy. I have to work harder for the real assessment, due when Mr Herry comes back.

5th March 2010

Today, once again we did not have class since it was a holiday. Weird, music classes are often skipped.

2nd March 2010

Today we did our "All of Me" assessments. Those whose blogs weren't updated had to do their reflections first in the library before they would be assessed. Luckily, I've already updated my blog. As usual, the piano group performed first, because the piano was already ready and it doesn't need to be tuned. After they are done, it was already recess time. Some of us from the guitar group opted to do the assessment at recess, so it made us less nervous since there was no audience. I've already practiced this song a lot and I was very confident I would do well, but suddenly at the last minute I somehow got nervous (even though there was no audience, maybe it was the camera) and messed up several notes at the beginning. I think that nervousness disappeared halfway and I did okay for the rest of the song.

26th February 2010

Today we didn't have class since it was a holiday.

23rd February 2010

Today some of our 12 bar blues were played. Mine was surprisingly among those that were played. I was very shocked, albeit happy, that I got a ten out of ten for it. I never thought I would get a mark like that, and was very pleased with the result. After we heard the high-scoring blues being played, we watched Ian sing and dance to "Sway" to make up for the assessment he missed God-knows-how-long-ago. Then, some more progresses of "All of Me" were checked. Among those in guitar, there was Emir and Aryo, I think. The assessment to play "All of Me" is due next week. Another interesting thing that happened today was that PLN turned off our power for a while, and it was dark. It was actually quite a new environment and it would have been very interesting to try to study in that condition. Too bad Binus has a generator, the darkness was eliminated in a matter of seconds. However, in the darkness there was one sole light that was still working, and when it shone down on Mr. Herry he looked like the cover of Queen's album, Queen 2.

19th February 2010

Today Mr. Herry checked several of our progresses in playing "All of Me". From guitar there was James and Budi. Everyone seemed to be doing pretty well, I think they'll all play great during the assessment. While I was hearing the performance, I was also tabbing my 12 bar blues for easier reference at the same time. Afterwards, Mr. Herry told us to do the reflection on our 12 bar blues composition, but not the performance itself.

16th February 2010

Today Mr. Herry asked us to submit our 12 bar blues. As it turns out, he sent us reminders to finish it last night, very late at around 12, so many people didn't finish the blues. I think he also reminded us the class before, but I forgot about it. Although I already finished my first draft, I still wanted to work on it and improve it, but since there was very little time, I didn't change it much. Instead, I gave Mr. Herry my blues (which he ironically found on his desk) and asked for his feedback. He told me which parts I did wrong (downbeat should be from chord, upbeat can be from scale), and fixed the last chord. After that, I fixed those mistakes and submitted the blues to him. At first I called it "Pingas Blues" but since it was too vulgar, I changed it to "Autistic Blues" instead. I stayed back in recess. After the recess, Mr. Herry checked our blogs and got really angry, ballistic even, at those who didn't heed his warning to update the blogs. We also learnt about the "walking bass" and the evolution of music, how blues is the ancestor of modern genres such as Rock, R&B, etc. Next time we are asked to play "All of Me" for yet another checking of progress.

12th February 2010

Today, Mr. Herry played to us most of our 12 bar blues compositions. There were many compositions that I really liked, and I wondered how people can just compose melodies like that in their heads without an instrument on hand, and notate every single note, complete with the rhythms. However, my own composition was lost, even though I already submitted it to Mr. Herry, so I didn't hear the song. I didn't really hear the melody in my head since I'm still new to music. Moreover, I thought that the 12 bar blues was, in fact, the song and not the improvisation, but it turns out to be the improvisation so I'll have to amend it sometime. Then, some of us from the guitar group (Mark, Bayu, and me) were asked to play the melody of "All of Me" in front. Since I didn't practice the song that much yet, I only played the first few notes of the song, and played the chords (which I have already learnt from the presentation and also from Mr. John) for the most part. I felt quite ashamed when playing the song since I couldn't do the whole song. I'm not so sure when, (I'll have to check the academic calendar later) but somewhere in the next sessions we'll have an assessment of playing "All of Me". It's a good thing that in instrument class we were taught how to play the melody.

9th February 2010

Today is the due date of our music individual booklets (containing most of the information in our group slide presentations, including one favorite musician from that era). Since my group did Swing Jazz, I picked Duke Ellington as my favorite musician. Thus, my report is about the Swing Jazz era and Duke Ellington. Since I had the Catholic-Buddhist Retreat in the weekend, I didn't have much time to do the work, so it's mainly last minute work. I was quite stressed when I tried to do the 15 page report in one night, but luckily I finished it. Since my printer was broken yet again, I had to submit the report in the second music session, right after the recess in which I printed and bound the report. Since I forgot to put in page numbers, I quickly scribbled them to at least have page numbers. One of the pictures was printed wrongly, but it's not really a major mistake. Mr Herry also checked our music blogs in front of the class, and those who didn't finish updating their blogs felt ashamed. After the split session, Mr Herry told us that we need to perform "All of Me" on our instruments several weeks after today. He then picked several representatives from each instrument group, along with the instrument teachers, to do a short performance of the song itself, so we can get an idea of how the song sounds like. Then, in the instrument class, we all practiced the song. In the guitar class, we learned the chords first. Since I already performed this song alongside the Swing Jazz group members, I didn't have much trouble with the chords. Mr Herry reminded us to upload all our blog entries as soon as possible to avoid loss of marks.

5th February 2010

Today wasn't a school day, it was PTC. Moreover, it was also the Catholic-Buddhist Retreat.

2nd February 2010

Today we learnt about the 12 bar blues. We heard the performances of the instrument teachers, they did on-the-spot improvisation and it was amazing. Then, we were checked on our 12 bar blues homework. We had a split session, so there was a recess afterwards. After the recess, we saw the presentation of Fusion Jazz group (they also performed the song "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz, it was pretty good). We also saw Bayu's part of the Ragtime presentation, since he was absent when the Ragtime group did their presentation. We all had fun watching the presentations. Since this friday is the PTC and the Catholic-Buddhist retreat, the individual reports and the 12 bar blues homework are pushed back to next week Tuesday.

29th January 2010

Today we sang the song "Sway" for our assessment. At first i was pretty nervous, seeing how everyone was very confident. After Mr. Herry told us that the criteria "Expresses music in own way" can be fulfilled by several dance moves, some started to try to incorporate that in their performances. Most, however, were too shy to do so. At first I was kind of shy to dance, but after a while, I reconsidered my standing. Since my pitch and tonality aren't too good, I thought that the only way I could help raise my score was to dance. I thought that since I'm gonna be making a fool out of myself, I might as well go all the way and say "1,2,3,4" in the beginning like Michael Buble. I discussed this with my partner, Mark. At first he agreed to the 1,2,3,4 thing. But, when it was our turn, we missed the mark to say it. Instead, I danced in the intro. Although at first I felt embarrassed, it actually broke the ice and I felt much more comfortable afterwards. Because of that, I think I became calmer and thus became more confident. This gave me better tonality. I was quite surprised at my score, 8, it really exceeded my expectations. I still can't believe Andrew Sie only got 6.5 though. He was very confident, and his performance was very entertaining, and Mr. Herry even said that he improved a lot but his score was only added by 0.5

26th January 2010

Today we did our group slide presentations. The order of presentation was Ragtime>Swing>Bebop>Cool Jazz>Latin Jazz. Fusion Jazz opted to do the presentation at a later date, for lack of preparation. Ragtime's presentation had lots of detail and audio examples, thus enabling me to really grasp the concept of Ragtime. They really put a lot of detail into it. The bad side is that it's a bit too long. When we were presenting, I felt a bit nervous because I didn't see the final presentation and thus did not know when was my turn. When it did come, however, I wasn't so nervous anymore since I had some research. I did stutter and repeat "He's really famous" several times though. Bebop's presentation was quite colorful and had a good template. They sounded quite enthusiastic when presenting. I don't think they put in a bibliography though. Next, it was Cool Jazz. Their presentation was also pretty good, and there were some crowd interaction (Seems like Cool Jazz and Bebop competed during their time, and that conflict is carried on today). However, I think in this presentation the talking was more focused on one person. Lastly, there was Latin Jazz. Although it wasn't too bad, It seemed like it was only the work of one person, since the presentation flowed too well, and only one person seemed to fully understand the topic. The others seemed to kinda just read from the slides. This is also bolstered when one member, confronted with a bad font colour, said "I don't know about that", giving the impression he/she did not work with the others, or at all. For our next session, we will sing "Sway"

22nd January 2010

Today we are taught how to compose a melody with the chords. It's actually pretty easy, the hard part is the rhythm since Jazz has a lot of syncopation. It's hard to notate the rhythm, even though you have it in your head, it's not easy to notate it down, we're not walking metronomes. After we made the first 4 bars of our 12 bar blues, some representatives from the instrument groups sang "Sway" in front, their performances were amazing. Hasan, Emir, and Jessika were all awesome. I feel lucky for not being the representative. Lastly, we got together into the groups for the slide presentations and discussed a bit. We drew an outline of what we will present, as a sort of a guideline. Then each of the groups went in front and presented our outlines. Next week, we will have the slide presentations (Tuesday) and sing "Sway" (Thursday). These two activities will both be assessed for our GPA's.

19th January 2010

Today we learnt quite a lot. First, we saw the performance of "Sway" by Michael Buble. Then, we got the lyrics if that song. Afterwards, we sang the song in front of the class, divided by our instrument groups (Strings, Woodwind, Piano, and Guitar). We had fun since the song was nice and there was a part in which Buble did poses, some of us also did poses. Next, we learnt about the 12 bar blues, with the form and improvisations. We listened to an impressive, composed-on-the-spot performance by Mr. Herry. Last, we were organised into groups. These are the groups that we will do our presentations in. I got the topic "Swing Jazz", and had James, Tiffany, and Andri as my teammates. From what I've seen, they work quite well and I think we can do some pretty good work in the presentation. For the next lesson, I will start researching on Swing Jazz and the famous songs it has, so I can differentiate it from other Jazz.

15th January 2010

Today is our first music session since we re-started school after the semester break. Mr. Herry explained to us on what criterions we will be assessed (Knowledge, Application, Reflection, Personal Engagement, that sort of thing). He also told us that we will be studying Jazz this term. I am quite excited because I really like Jazz and Blues. He also asked us to write down on our Journals the assessment rubrics. I think for next week I will do some basic research about "What is Jazz". We also got 3 handouts from him. Since Eun Hye was going to move out of Binus (A shame really, she's one of our brightest students), Mr. Herry let her stay in class for a while.

8th December 2009

Last music session for this semester. Today, we reviewed the "tan-taka" and "tiki-tiki" rhythms. It was pretty hard. "Tan" is 1/4 beat, "taka" is 1/8 for each syllable, and "tiki-tiki" is 16 for each syllable. Individually and straightforwardly, they were very easy to pronounce. However, when mixed up, it was very hard. Next, we reviewed the Kodaly hand signs. We now know what they are used for, for conducting and angklung ensembles. We tried several songs in an angklung ensemble format, and it turns out to be pretty difficult. We didn't really have much coordination, sometimes we are too slow and we don't follow the song.