Kathryn Drake

Suzuki Violin Teacher

Archives for September 2017

What Does Predatory Publishing Mean for Young Researchers?

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predatory publishing

This post was written for my Bibliography & Research in Music (MUTH 65200) course at Ithaca College. I will be posting eight reflections from the class here throughout the course of the semester. You can find the other posts under the category Bib Class Reflections.

This week we “read” six publications for this blog assignment in our Bibliography and Research class.

  • Wagstaff “Periodicals” (Oxford companion to music)
  • Weir “It’s Not Harry Potter”
  • Western Libraries “How to read a scholarly article”
  • Beall, “Predatory publishers are corrupting open access”
  • Kolata “Scientic articles accepted (personal checks, too)”
  • Beall, “What I learned from predatory publishers”

Some are published journal articles, but news articles, blog posts, web pages, a video were also included. They range in date of publication from 2011-2017, and range in attitude and advice as well. Their singular common link, however, is a focus on the subject of scholarly articles.

Wagstaff, Weir, and Western Libraries introduce readers to the culture around scholarly publishing, and how a reader can most effectively digest a scholarly article.

The video from Western Libraries encouraged readers to approach an article out of order. By closely reading the abstract, the conclusion, then introduction readers are able to make critical decisions about whether to continue reading a particular article. With a clear idea of the author’s intentions, the reader can evaluate in the body of the article how effective the writing is. I am convinced after seeing this strategy in several of our readings now, that reading out of order is critical to the research process. I plan to apply it to the way I read scholarly articles, as well as books and web pages.

Weir’s “It’s Not Harry Potter” was addressed to academic professors, but is an interesting read for the student. It speaks to the persistent struggle of the expert who, in teaching the novice, must start from the beginning (a stage they might not even remember) and resist passing on expectations of their own work onto their student. Weir, rather provocatively, encourages students to skim their reading and only retain what they need. This advice though, is given in the context of his class which teaches students how to read by helping them explore the purpose for reading. To entertain is not the same as to inform, and the writing of each of these purposes will differ dramatically. The clarification seems obvious, but was never explicitly discussed in any of my courses in my undergraduate education. Having the permission from Weir to approach a scholarly article differently than a novel will certainly speed up my research process and cut down on the guilt a feel when I pass over entire chapters of an author’s work.

The final three articles all use Jeffrey Beall’s specific experience to discuss the general problem of predatory publishing in an open-access environment. I did not know much about this issue before I read these articles, and feel both surprised and not surprised that predatory publishing is a threat to the community of academic scholars. [Read more…]

How Can I Improve Reading and Writing Skills?

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typewriter

This post was written for my Bibliography & Research in Music (MUTH 65200) course at Ithaca College. I will be posting eight reflections from the class here throughout the course of the semester. You can find the other posts under the category Bib Class Reflections.

Reading Reflection

The four readings for our blog this week all have to do with personal relationships to reading and writing. And because they are grouped together for this assignment, I think our instructor is hinting at their relationship to each other.

Reading and writing is inextricably linked to each other, and inextricably liked to our lives. It is safe to say that no matter what field we journey into, reading and writing will be a part of it.

As someone who wants to teach, research, and perform I know that continual learning will be a big part of my process. I will need to stay up to date on matters of performance practice, music history, music theory, pedagogy, human learning, and business. I need to read those resources well to glean their meaning, evaluate their relevance, and to respond intelligently. Part of the continual learning process is also documenting what I do, critically reflect on my own actions, edit my work, and put a stake in the ground that indicates my understanding and insights via writing.

Much like I need to build skills in order to play my violin well in order to perform and teach, I need to build skills in reading and wiring in order to read and write well in order to perform, teach and do research. [Read more…]

Camp: Violin Sectional Strategies

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violin sectional strategies

The following are strategies I used while working with the violinists at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. My goal was to make them as confident of players as possible in the short amount of time we had.

  • Learn names. It is so important to me to learn the name of every one of my students on the first day. Not only is it respectful to them, but it is imperative that I know how to call each student out to check understanding, address bad behavior, and highlight good work. I’ll talk about how I learn names so quickly in a different post, but I make sure that by the end of the day I can say bye to every individual by using their name.
  • Discuss posture on day one. Posture is the one aspect of violin playing that will literally affect every other aspect of playing. One cannot play in tune, with beautiful sound quality, with good time, in an artistic way for any length of time without first having good posture. I emphasize the fact we have posture standards because over the violin’s 400 year history we’ve figured out the EASIEST and SAFEST way to play. Me giving them posture guidelines is really just a shortcut to success. And here are some of those guidelines…
  • Count off only once all of the bows are set. I wouldn’t begin an exercise until all of the bows were set in the string. This ensured they were started together and everyone was focused.
  • Stare at people who are talking/not paying attention. I discussed this in the post in getting attention, but sometimes the most effective way to address talking is to go silent and stare. Students will sense there is something amiss almost immediately.
  • Alternate between playing and not playing with the group. Some of the most beneficial moments for the group was when they would just play the part along with me. Having a strong leader to play with was sometimes enough to really improve a section, but doing that alone does not build student independence. It was important for me to take breaks from playing, to invite students to take leadership roles and to give myself enough space to provide effective feedback.
  • Assess understanding by having smaller groups play. I think one of our common faults as teachers is that we are scarred to single out students to gauge understanding. I tried to resist this fear in sectionals, and to call on individuals and small groups to play solos for the whole section. For example, if the whole group was working on a chromatic scale I would call a few students out by name (not volunteer) to play the scale together. This runs the chance of becoming a great reinforcing experience for the child who plays well, or an equally powerful learning experience for a child who did not play well.
  • Ask everyone in the class something every day. I wanted every student in my section to know they were seen. I tried everyday to ask at least one question to one student. The question could be about the music, their life, or life in general.
  • Steal music from the other sections to play along with. Sectionals are great for working out the musical details of a certain part, but an aspect of recontextualizing the details is having student’s play the part while other parts are playing.
  • Have students audiate, sing, then play. I was brace and asked 11 year olds to do this with me. Most were on board with taking a break from their violins, and practicing internal pitch making. The resellers after having student’s do this we’re incredivle! The hardest part of this strategy is to remember to do it.
  • Simple exercises. It was difficult to try and build skills outside of repertoire in such a short amount of time. I would let issues from the repertoire guide us to doing a handful of short, challenging but fun exercises.
    • Rhythm fingers. Students would start by playing four quarter notes on their A string while I hold up one finger. When I switch to two fingers they play four beats of eighth notes. When I switch to four fingers they play sixteenths, and when I went to three they would play triplets. I would switch up the order, give them less and less time to react, and increase the tempo as they got better at the exercise. It really helped them learn the feeling of switching to different rhythmic units while reading music.
    • String Crossing. I would use the same general concept as Rhythm Fingers, but instead give instructions to change strings. For example I would say, “Play G, D, A, E,” and they would play one quarter note on each string. I’d then switch up the order,  perhaps saying, “E, D, A, G,” and they would play it back to me. This helps them quickly recognize which string is which, practice string crossings, and developing an awareness of the four string levels.
    • Escalators. The is a Mastery For Strings exercise I picked up from Dr. Scott at The University of Texas. I would have students play a whole step and then three half steps starting on either an open string or first finger. For example, the group would play A, B, C, C#, D. This simple exercise requires students to create half steps with either their second or third finger, learn the kinesthetic difference between a whole and half step, as well as develop an aural understanding the whole versus half step. I would require near perfect intonation, and even pull kids out to decide whether the intonation was good enough–students were often harder critics than me.
    • Elevators. Also from Mastery For Strings, I would have students play a consecutive set of fingers on every string. For example, they would start on the G string playing A-B, E-F#, B-C#, F#-G# and then the same sets back down to the G string (G#-F#, C#-B, F#-E, B-A). This requires a swinging elbow, good hand frame, and quick fingers. The faster we move, the less they use block fingers and transition to using independent fingers. It is also a great bow string crossing exercise!
    • Baseball to bow hold. This is my favorite exercise to practice going from arco to pizz. With their violin in rest position.
  • Bring the groups back together. A few days into sectionals we would bring the first and second violins back together for a joint rehearsal. The was a crucial step in our process as we were training students to listen to each other and listen across the orchestra. In the last few days before the concert the violin sectional teachers would also borrow music from the violists, cellists, and bassist (or just steal the conductor’s scores) in order to play the lines in sectionals. Rather than just coaching the part in a vacuum, we were able to discuss the way it related to the other string parts. Even more important, we were able to actually play the other parts and develop in our students that visceral connection to the bass line, harmony, and melody that is necessary for any sort of masterful ensemble playing.
  • We aren’t looking for “perfect,” we are looking for “progress.” This is a phrase I picked up from the first orchestra conductor at Blue Lake. He said this to the entire orchestra on the first day of rehearsals, and reiterated it again and again throughout the session. The beauty is that it names what we, as teachers, rarely do — that we don’t expect perfection from our students. Our only expectation is that they work along with us to make progress. When progress is happening, we are being successful. And if we were to measure success by our degree of “perfect” then we could never consider ourselves or our students successful. Naming this from the start can assuage some of the emotional concerns that arise in the competitive, anxiety inducing, stressful world of music making.

“What Question Am I Pursuing?”

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bib class 1

This post was written for my Bibliography & Research in Music (MUTH 65200) course at Ithaca College. I will be posting eight reflections from the class here throughout the course of the semester. You can find the other posts under the category Bib Class Reflections.

Reading Reflection

I found “The Prime Difficulty: What Is My Subject” to be the most provoking of the three readings we were assigned. Jacques Barzun suggests that the “subject exists only when the object is finished,” but also that the final object can’t be completed without first visualizing, in detail, the subject. His writing speaks to the paradoxical, messy job of writing, which requires a plan but is also a process of discovery. I’ve personally experienced this messiness many times, but have been frustrated in the past with guides to research that are purely formulaic. Their step by step process doesn’t account for the rabbit trails, the necessary detours, the complete re-writes that I think Barzun would agree is part of quality research.

Most effective in the reading for me was Barzun’s illustrative likening of a researcher-reporter to a clay sculptor who sculpts only from memory. The clearer the image (the subject) in his mind’s eye, the clearer the final result. The work of sculpting, as in writing, is to get align the physical and mental through trial and error. I am extrapolating a little here, but I think he also implies that the clearer the image, the faster the process. Is it also possible that the image sharpens *as* the physical shaping happens? This would match the experience I’ve had many times of my writing actually clarifying my thoughts–not the other way around.

The research guides on annotated biblographies from University of Toledo and Deborah Knott, were, for the most part, in the style of those step by step approaches I mentioned above. But I don’t mean to outright dismiss them as non-valuable. I found the definitive answer to what an annotated bibliography is (“an account of the research that has been done on a given topic”), the guiding question, “What *problem* am I investigating?”, and the examples of both successful and unsuccessful annotations to be illuminating.

The resource guides on writing an annotated bibliography will give me a starting point and will, at the end of the day, help me check to proper boxes to make sure the assignment is complete. But it is the Barzun article that will give me reassurance when I– which I surely will– stray into the tangled web of research complexity. Burzun’s piece will remind me that overwhelming complexity is part of the work of the researcher on the way toward a true, reliable, and orderly piece.

What questions am I interested in? What problems am I interested in solving?

I have so many questions that I sometimes feel just as overwhelmed as I do excited by the idea of research. My interests, of course, stem from music education, which is where my primary professional focus is. I’ve found over time, though, that almost any train of thought can be tied back to learning and education.

Here is a list of my interests…

  • Generally I’m fascinated by pedagogical methods and the philosophy of education, including the work of Maria Montessori, Paolo Friere, Lev Vygotsky, Schinichi Suzuki, Clifford Madsen, Robert Duke, and many others.
  • I also love musicology and music history, and am most drawn to contemporary music and modern musical practices.
  • I’ve studied rhetoric and peace studies, so I regularly study the individual, institutional, and cultural forms of violence and peace present in various fields.
  • Furthermore, I’ve spent the past year slowly learning about Japanese Zen Buddhism and its affects on Japanese cultural, especially the forms zazen, kihnin, kyudo, chado, shodo, and Aikido.
  • Because of my time spent participating in housing and food cooperatives, I’ve also delved into writing on cooperative business models, sustainable practices (E. F. Schumacher, Rachel Carson, Rabindranath Tagore, etc.).
  • Another topic which I’ve spent less time researching, but strongly believe in is fair representation and opportunity for women and non cis-gendered persons, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
  • And finally, I love gardening, veganism, minimalism, poetry, bicycle mechanics, architecture, and travel.

I’m interested in such a variety of fields that the processing of narrowing down to a single, specific topic seems daunting. I want to relate my topic to my work here at Ithaca College — in violin performance and Suzuki Pedagogy — but also want to delve into an area that I haven’t yet done too much academic research.

One idea that I am particularly excited about right now is studying the impact of Japanese Zen Buddhism on Dr. Shinichi Suzuki’s pedagogy. I’ve extensively studied Suzuki’s life and philosophy through his own books and in Suzuki teacher training, but I haven’t read any research on how his theories on “Life Force” and mastery relate to Japanese Zen arts and philosophy. As someone who both practices Zen and teaches the Suzuki Method, I think it would be in my best interest to study this connection, as well as to the benefit of the Suzuki community to present this research.

Some other questions I would be interested in pursuing related to the Suzuki Method…

  • How could the co-operative model be applied to the private violin studio or music classroom?
  • How does the representation of women (or lack thereof) as composers, performers, and pedagogues in the Suzuki Method affect students of the Suzuki Method?
  • What contemporary pieces does a responsible, modern Suzuki teacher use to prepare their students for the extended techniques and new harmonies of this modern and post-modern music landscape in 2017?
  • What are the “radical” ways private teachers offer affordable access to lessons and cultivate an inclusive, diverse studio environment?

I look forward to settling on a topic and really diving into it!

Camp: Teaching Violin Sectionals

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violin sectionals

Another role that I served at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp was teaching the Camp Bernstein violin sectionals.

The students in Camp Bernstein were the youngest on the camp — ranging from incoming 5th graders to 8th graders. Some of them were in their first year with a band or orchestra instrument. Others had been playing violin or cello since they were four years old with the Suzuki method. Most, however, had only been playing in an orchestra for one or two years, and few had ever participated in sectionals.

I had the fortune to teach violin sectionals with two other fantastic violinists. One, Elma Sanabria, is finishing up her graduate degree at the University of Alabama and has started the audition process for a DMA program. She is a fantastic player, but also has a wonderful ability to work almost as a teammate with students. They trust that she is on their side and serving their interests, and will therefore follow her advice. The other teacher was Kaitlyn Fulch, who is completing her violin performance degree at Marshall University in West Virginia. She has less experience teaching violin, but I appreciated how she took on important teaching responsibilities and pushed herself to try teaching techniques and situations that were at first uncomfortable. She really inspired me in the way she grew as a teacher over our two months at Blue Lake.

Each session we had about 30 violin students and just 11 days total to work with them.

The orchestra director would start with folders full of 10-15 pieces, and by the final Sunday they would have narrowed down the selection to 5 or 6 to be performed. Our goal as their section teachers was to make sure each violinist was as confident as possible on the music. That meant correcting posture, developing their sound quality, checking for comprehension of the sheet music itself, introducing common orchestra practices (always have a pencil!), and cultivating ensemble skills.

[Read more…]