"Last Blog Post" -- End of Year English Reflection!

When I was first assigned the genius hour project, I freaked. The fourth nine weeks, as many know, is a busy time of year. Teachers cram their lessons because "we are behind schedule!" and we have to finish all of the units on time. Students receive pile upon pile of work and study reviews. Tests. AP exams. Band Auditions. Section Leader applications. My parents find it hard to believe that I rarely get a full night's sleep, but how can I go to sleep when there are so many things to complete? Regardless of all the work and effort that I put in to my school assignments, I think for the most part I enjoyed Genius Hour. Yes, it is another big project -- but having the choice of what to do is definitely a plus. Maybe freedom to choose your project is more beneficiary to other students than to me because I find it hard to make decisions. For this reason, I fell back to music. Music is something that never fails to impress me. I discovered that there was another world behind music when I did my TPSP project in the eighth grade. Genius Hour was another opportunity for me to learn more about the small portion of the music world that I had seen. I combined this with the fact that I had always had a yearning to learn guitar. Although I am not generally good at making spontaneous and new decisions, I am glad I chose to learn more about the guitar, an instrument I had always admired when played by other people. In a way, I feel honored that I had the chance to pick up the guitar for a specific purpose - its like the guitar chose  me. I know, I know, my mind works in strange ways. Anyways, genius hour was a something that gave me pride and joy to be in the English Leadership class. It was fun watching people's reactions when I told them I was learning how to play the guitar for an English project. 

I found this while digging through my old things the other day. It's a page from a journal my music teacher in elementary school made us write in. I found it ironic that one of my goals in the third grade was to learn how to play guitar, and I had waited until I was sixteen to test it out. Although obstacles may be set in your path, people never change, I guess!

So, yes, I am happy with how my Genius Hour project turned out. I think it helped me learn a significant message: if you really have your mind set on something, you can find the resources to accomplish it. Before, I thought I needed lessons of some sort or a teacher to learn how to play a new instrument. However, I had all the information that I needed right at my fingertips (thank you, Internet!), and I was able to pick up some essential guitar tricks. I know this wasn't a humanitarian-type project, but I believe that I can spread this message to others. I plan on practicing more of the guitar over the summer and hopefully learn how to play new chords and sounds to improve upon my playing. 

In regards to my English Language Arts class, I have grown as a more creativity-embracing person. Before, I thought Language Arts had to follow a certain formula. Now I know that the best of writers are original by using their own creativity to enhance their writing. Thank you Ms. Terry for giving us so much freedom this year! I loved how you assigned books for us to read only if you enjoyed them yourself: this is what I believe all English classes ought to do. I also really enjoyed the fact that this year for all of our projects we always had options to choose from. 

This school year, I learned many things. As a student, I learned that sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the things you prioritize. Apart from my school life, I learned that I am ok with change. In fact, I want to experience as much as I can when I can so that I can improve upon my decision-making skills. I also learned that I don't have to please everyone. Sometimes, no matter what you do, people will not accept you, and that's ok. Comparing myself with others does not always help me succeed. I've learned to keep my long-time best friends close to me while making new friends. 

Concerning this blog, I am so happy that my 10th grade English class has introduced me to creating one. Keeping up with a blog helps me develop my writing skills and my personality. I love having a blog, as you can see I began experimenting by posting additional content about my life. I plan on extending my blog and making it appeal to more people. Somethings I look forward to posting about include poetry, food, summer activities, and flute playing ~~ maybe a few flute toot-orials? ;) 

TED Talk Link

Click here to view my Genius Hour TED Talk!

Genius Hour: An Insight to the Guitar (video)

Click here to see my product video!

Primary Source: A Guitar Lesson with Joaquin Sefair

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Names of the Acoustic Guitar Parts

It Just Makes Cents -- A Deeper Dive into Music and Tuning!

        In the 7th grade, my band directors would tell us, the little amateur musicians in the middle school band that we were, that the individual chords that we were playing in our daily chorale had to be adjusted to make the chord resonant. Mr. Raney, one of my band directors, drew on the whiteboard the notes of the chord that we were playing. If you were playing the 5th, then you had to be playing the note +2 cents sharp. The 3rd had to be -13 cents flat. The root of the chord was the only note that could be in tune, per say. What did this all mean? Seventh-grade me was freaking out. Everybody else in the room looked confused as well. Mr. Raney wrote down "Pythagorian Tuning" on the board yet I had no idea how that correlated to what I was doing. "It's simple math," he said, looking at all of us with a look that said, "How can you not know this?" . Math? In music? How could that be? The questions I had over this topic consumed me.
        Fast forward a year later, when eighth-grade me was assigned a year-long project over ANY topic that would have to be thoroughly researched and well-presented by April. When I was asked to write down the topic of my project, of course the words "Pythagorian" and "Tuning" were what blotched out of my pen. Sure, I had heard of Pythagoras. The a^2+b^2=c^2 equation was what we had just gone over in the geometry unit of my mass class was aptly called the Pythagorean Theorem. But what did he have to do with tuning? Thus, the commencement of my intriguing yet complicated project began. I had no idea what I what I was getting myself into.
        I had to start with the basics. And so, I will tell you the basics because I am assuming you, as I did, did not know where to start in understanding music theory.

        The discovery of music can be traced down tens of thousands of years back. Fragments of bone flutes have been found at Neanderthal sites. Early instruments prove that humans have produced pitched sound for a long time. As different musical styles began to emerge in different regions, the history of tuning progressed as new discoveries in the physics and mathematics behind the music were being made. If you were to go back 1000 years in time and hear a group of musicians play, the sounds of the music would not sound like the music played today. Why? The reason for this is that different systems of intonation, or tuning, were changed into being the standard of the status quo as time went on. To know and come to appreciate tuning systems, the physics behind sound has to first be understood. So, let's start with the simplest question.

What is sound? 

        Sound is a type of energy that is caused by mechanical vibrations in the air: When an object vibrates it causes movement in the air particles surrounding it, and then those particles bump into other particles that are close to them, and those into more particles, and so on, that vibrate until they run out of energy. This energy can be defined as sound waves or periodic oscillations. Irregular repeating vibrations sound harsh to our ears, which can be described as “noise”, while regular repeating vibrations can be described as musical notes. When the vibrations are fast, a high note is produced, and when the vibrations are slow, a low note is produced. Two characteristics define sound: frequency, which is the rate at which a wave repeats itself in a given period of time, and amplitude, which measure the intensity of the wave. Frequency can be measured in Hertz (Hz), which is equal to 1 cycle per second, while amplitude is measured in decibels (dB). Pitch is essentially the frequency of a note. It is the quality of a sound determined by the rate of vibrations producing it; it is the degree in which the tone is high or low. The Wind and brass instruments produce sound by vibrating air inside a tube. By pressing down keys that open or close holes in the tube, the air column inside becomes longer or shorter, determining the pitch of the desired sound. With string instruments, fingers or a bar press down on strings that caused the strings’ length to change and vibrate at different pitches. That being said, where is the math in sound?

Pythagorean tuning and other systems of tuning:

        Although Pythagoras may be best known for the Pythagorean theorem in geometry, there are other things that Pythagoras is credited for that you may not know about. The Pythagorean discovery that “all things known have number – for without this, nothing could be thought of or known” – was indeed experimented first through music. Musicians by the time of Pythagoras had already been tuning instruments for centuries, so people were aware that sometimes a lyre would make pleasing sounds and sometimes it would not. According to legend, during the sixth century B.C. the Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras observed blacksmiths at work and noticed that some of the hammers made consonant sounds when they were struck at the same time. He realized that these altered pitches came from the differentiating weights of the hammers: When one hammer weighing six pounds struck together with a hammer of 12 pounds, a 2:1 simple ratio was produced. Pythagoras found that simple fractions, such as 3:2 or 2:1, distinguish pleasing intervals. He discovered the important principle of harmony. Thus, the Pythagorian tuning system was invented based on the constant intervals 1:1 (unison), 2:1 (the octave), 3:2 (the perfect fifth), and 4:3, (the perfect fourth). To find the next degree in a scale (a set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency of pitch) you would have to start with the root note (fundamental pitch) and multiply it by 1.5, or 3/2. The problem with Pythagorean tuning is that even when the system was created all the way around through a circle of twelve pitches, a Pythagorean comma (two different pitches exist for the same note) is formed, which keeps essentially any system built on an interval from being a perfect circular system. Octaves spread farther and farther apart as the pitches form a spiral. Also, since the system is based off of open fifths (a fifth without the third), thirds are theoretical dissonances, the major third being 408 cents wide rather than the in tune 386 cents, so they were avoided at final cadences. At the end of the 15^th century, composers got weary of the medieval strictness of open fifths, so they began to use a different tuning system that engulfed the sweetness of the major third. So, different tuning methods were invented by musicians. 

The one we use today and has been the standard for the past 200 years is called equal temperament and consists of a compromise -- it sacrifices all the pitches being in tune to obtain the possibility of changing from one key to any other given key. This means that all the notes in the equal-tempered 12-tone chromatic scale are the same distance in frequency apart. 

The "natural" system of tuning is called just intonation. Just intonation is a tuning system that contemplates pitches in a chord rather than an arbitrary frequency. It is based on the naturally occurring phenomenon of the overtone series, or harmonic series. Overtones are the ‘building blocks’ of sound, meaning they make up the sound we hear - sort of like the DNA in living organisms. A singular sound that we think we hear isn’t only one sound – there are many quieter subsidiary sounds supporting that one sound that we recognize, called the fundamental pitch. To find overtones of a sound, the fundamental pitch has to be multiplied by multiples of itself expressed as f₀, 2 f­₀, 3 f₀, 4 f₀, 5 f₀, etc., where f₀ is the fundamental frequency. For example, the series of frequencies 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, etc. given in Hertz is a harmonic series. This phenomenon can be demonstrated on a string: When the string is plucked, it not only vibrates over its entire length producing the “ground note” or fundamental pitch, but also in fractional divisions of its length such as 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, etc. These fractional divisions are overtones. Theoretically, there are infinite overtones in just one note, but the overtones get softer in amplitude as the pitch series ascends, so it is very hard to hear the higher partials. Musical instruments and human voices emphasize, or “bring out” certain overtones more than others because of the intricate differences in the way their structures resonate and amplify sound. This creates a variety of sounds and is the reason why a trumpet ends up sounding like a trumpet and a clarinet sounding like a clarinet. 

A visual at how the vibrations of the fundamental pitch (top) is divided into overtones. 

What does it mean to be "in tune"?
        
        Regardless of the tuning method you use (I have been using equal temperament because that is what is set on most digital tuning devices), being in tune means to play the certain pitch that the note is set in. When you're out of tune, you will sound either "flat" or "sharp". As referred to in my last post, being flat is shown by the symbol ♭ and being sharp is shown by the symbol #. Being flat means that the pitch you're playing is lower than what it should be, and being sharp means that the pitch you're playing is higher than what it should be. Standard pitch in the United States is A440, which means that the musical tone of the note 'A' is set at 440 Hz. So, if you were to be playing this specific A at 435 Hz, you'd be 5 cents flat. If it was 445 Hz, you'd be 5 cents sharp.Why is it important to be in tune? If you're in tune, you will sound harmonious. If not, it will be dissonant. Professional musicians are constantly adjusting their pitch. 
        

GH Update: I learned how to play the guitar...and it's harder than I thought!

        After watching a couple of videos from the GuitarLessons's youtube channel, I learned a few guitar fundamentals that are essential in the playing itself.

        First and foremost, I learned how to hold the guitar. I am left-handed, but it doesn't matter what your dominant hand is. You place the guitar on your right leg and hold the neck of it with your left hand, so that the fattest string is the closest to you. I learned some basic strumming techniques, such as pretending that the hand in which you are holding the pick has honey and a feather stuck to it and you're trying to get it off. Pretty nice imagery isn't it?

        I learned that there are numbering systems with the guitar: The first numbering system is the names of the notes/strings on the guitar in order. The from thinnest to thickest the names of the strings are E, B, G, D, A, and E and are numbered string 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 respectively. The next numbered system is the frets. The frets are the metal lines that lay perpendicular along the length of the fretboard/fingerboard which is on the neck of the guitar (I will post a diagram of the parts on the guitar later). The last numbering system that I need to know is the numbers of your fingers. Your index finger is 1, middle 2, ring 3, and pinky 4. This took me a bit of time to wrap my mind around because in piano, the first instrument I learned to play, the numbers of fingers started with the thumb. In guitar, however, your thumb usually rests on the back of the neck and is not used in fingering notes.

        I did not do much research on how to tune the instrument, but I figured before I went on playing I would have to tune the strings first. When I was figuring out how to play the guitar, I found that on the model that I am playing with it has a built-in tuner! How convenient! One thing to keep in mind when tuning an instrument without the use of a tuner is that you need some sort of external reference pitch that is accurate. For example, if I were to tune a string by ear, I would have to play the note I want to tune it to on an instrument such as a piano (that is in tune) or I could use a device that can produce a digital note (these days, all sorts of specific pitch-producing devices are available on the internet and even in apps for your phone). With a tuner, however, I can play the string and it will tell me if it is sharp (#) or flat (♭). When the note is in tune, the green light will appear.

This is the tuner built into the guitar that I am currently learning to play on -- here, I know that the D string is in tune because the green light is apparent.

So, to tune, all you have to do is strum a string a couple of times while twisting the tuners (the knobs at the top of the neck) until the green light shows up on whatever tuning device you are using. If you are tuning by ear with a reference, you have to twist the tuners until the two sounds match up perfectly, where you hear no waves or buzzing noises (I will go more into depth of what this means in a later post about tuning). There may be a better way to tune guitars, but for know, this method suits my needs.

        The next thing that I learned was how to play a couple of basic cords, such as E major, G major, F major, and C major chords. The chords that you play is determined by the position of your fingers on the fretboard.

Chords and the fingerings can be found in charts such as these.

Some techniques that I learned while playing chords is to place the finger right behind the fret. To make sure that you got the chord right, play through each string independently. Then play it all at once and if it's clear, then it's good!
Now...the tricky part: Memorizing chords and being able to move through chords swiftly. This is extremely hard!

Source - Sound Waves and Music: Lesson 5 - Physics of Musical Instruments Guitar Strings

Here is what I got from this source:
Just one guitar string will naturally vibrate at a number of frequencies. These frequencies, otherwise known as harmonics, depend upon the tension, linear density, and length of the string. Each of the natural frequencies is associated with a standing wave pattern.

There is a length-wavelength relationship associated with each harmonic frequency: the wavelength of the standing wave of any given harmonic is related to the length of the string, and visa versa. Therefore, the length-wavelength relationships, as well as the wave equation (speed = frequency * wavelength) together can be used to perform calculations to predict the length of a sting in order to produce a given frequency. Calculations can also be made to predict the natural frequencies produced by a given length of string. 

Source: A Brief History of the Guitar by Paul Guy

Here is what I got from this source:

• The guitar has been around for a looong time -- its history can be traced back over 4000 years! There are a few theories as to where and how the instrument evolved:
• Claims that the guitar is as development of the lute
• Development of the fretted lute from fretless oud, brought to Spain by the Moors
• Ancient Greek kithara theory evidence:
• A kithara is namely a square-framed lap harp, or lyre
• Similarity between Greek word "kithara" and Spanish word "guitarra"
• Earliest Greek kitharas had only 4 strings
• Greeks hellenified old Persian name for a 4-stringed instrument, "chartar"
• The Ancestors: 
• Earliest stringed instruments known to archaeologists are bowl harps and tanburs.
• Such instruments were found from ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, and Egyptian civilizations.
• The tanbur (defined as a "long-necked stringed instrument with a small egg- or pear-shaped body, with an arched or round back, usually with a soundboard of wood or hide, and a long, straight neck" was most likely developed from the bowl harp.
• Tomb paintings and stone carvings in Egypt show that harps and tanburs along with flutes and percussion instruments were being played together 3500-4000 years ago.
• In Queen Shub-Ad's tomb, during the period 2500-2000 BCE, an 11-stringed instrument with gold decoration was found, indicating the creation of more advanced harps.
• The oldest preserved guitar-like instrument (which had three strings and a plectrum hahnging from the neck by a cord) is 3500 years old and belonged to the Egyptian singer Har-Mose.
• What is a guitar?
• The guitar belongs in the tanbur family.
• Dr. Kasha defines it as having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides".
• Oldest iconographical representation: a stone carving at Alaca Huyuk in Turkey of a 3300 year old Hittite guitar.
• The Lute (Al'ud, Oud)
• The Moors brought the oud to Spain.
• Was the Arabian version of a tanbur, with changed proportions and no frets.
• Europeans added frets and called it a "lute" -- derived from Arabic "Al'ud" (meaning "the wood") and the Spanish name "laud".
• Defined as a "short-necked instrument with many strings, a large pear-shaped body with highly vaulted back, and an elaborate, sharply angled peghead".
• Types of stringed folk instruments:
• Name "guitar" comes from ancient Sanskrit word for "string" -- "tar". Many stringed instruments have names that end in "tar" with a prefix which indicates the number of strings.
• Two = Sanskrit "dvi" = modern Persian "do" --> the dotar, a 2-stringed instrument found in Turkestan.
• Three = Sanskrit "tri" = modern Persian "se" --> the setar, a 3-stringed instrument found in Iran, and the Indian sitar is an instrument that is elaborately developed and contains many strings.
• Four = Sanskrit "chatur" = modern Persian "char" --> the chartar, a 4-stringed instrument from Persia, most commonly known as "tar" in modern usage, and the guitarra was an early Spanish 4-string guitar, quthara in Arabic and chitarra in Italian, etc.
• Five = Sanskrit "pancha" = modern Persian "panj" --> the panchtar, a 5-stringed instrument from Afghanistan.
• The guitar originally had four pairs of unison-tuned strings, and by the beginning of the Renaissance, this guitar had become dominant in most of Europe.
• Earliest known music for 4-stringed "chitarra" was written in 16th century Spain.
• The 5-course guitarra battente first appeared in Italy at around the same time and replaced the 4-stringed instrument.  
• Standard tuning at A, D, G, B, E (like top 5 strings of modern guitar).
• Then, during the 17th century, a sixth course of strings was added to the Italian "guitarra battente".
• Spanish maker Antonio Torres Jurado increased the size of the body, changed its proportions, and invented the "fan" top bracing pattern in around 1850, thus creating the modern "classical" guitar that soon became accepted as the standard, and have remained relatively unchanged to this day.

Project Approved!

Today I showed my genius hour project plan to my English teacher. Some basic things that were on the planning sheet/pitch were overall purpose, target audience, and product. My goal is to provide guitar learners another means of learning about the guitar (the history, how to tune, how to play, the physics behind the sound, etc.). To implement my research and what I learned into my project, I plan to make a video as my final product. What's next: Research. First up, the history of the guitar.

Got the Guitar

I got the guitar I needed from a friend. I did some research online, and the guitar is an L.H. Leland acoustic by Oscar Schmidt (since 1879?). It is in good condition.

Genius Hour Introduction: All About the Guitar

Hi guys! For my English class, I will be working on a genius hour-styled project. A genius hour, from what I have learned thus far, is a project completed for school centered purely around the interests of the student. When I first got this project assigned to me, I first thought -- guitar! I have always had a passion for music -- I've been playing the piano since I was six years old and the flute since I was eleven -- and my recent interest in Amy Winehouse has led me to realize that I've always wanted to learn guitar. The guitar seems to be the most simple and convenient instrument, in terms of playing whatever tune or singing in a band and such. There was a mini-course offered at my intermediate school to learn how to play the guitar so I excitedly signed up for it, but I did not get in, and since then, I've never found the time or circumstances to learn the guitar. Now is my chance! Now all I have to do is find a guitar to learn on...Stay "tuned"! <--Ha, that's a musical pun.