"Reflections"

Wow. It's so surreal that this is my last blog post for this class! I feel like I just started yesterday, but that I've also been working for a whole semester. I guess that's what happens when you do a whole semester's worth of grad work in five weeks. This summer I did more work than I ever thought possible in such a short amount of time. I was stretched and challenged.

In Bib, as we lovingly call it, I learned about research methods and was introduced to countless resources. I can't tell you how excited I am to be able to continue using the library resources here at Ithaca College during the school year. I am definitely planning on utilizing this as much as possible. 

Some resources I will be further exploring include:

Boldrey, Guide to Operatic Roles & Arias

IC Library Database 

Musical America

MET OPERA ON DEMAND (so excited about this!)

Various Archives

International Journal of Community Music 

Orff Echo

Psychology of Music 

If I could sum up what I've learned during this class in a few words it would be: there are countless resources out there. Not everything is on the internet--libraries are extremely valuable. They help preserve the past and show us how to better our futures. They can give us access to materials that we can't find anywhere else. Librarians are keepers of knowledge, especially Kris Shanton. :) Truly, I admire all the knowledge they possess, and I really do believe that they are keepers of knowledge.

Ithaca has an extensive music collection (do you know how difficult it was for me to find three books to ILL for one of our first assignments? Ithaca already had them all!) :) What a privilege to be able to utilize all the tools it has to offer. One thing I said countless times during this summer session was that I wished that I had the time to explore the library more. I've been making a mental list of things I want to read or check out! 

During this class I also learned how to research. Each search engine or book is set up a different way, and now I have the tools I need to find information I am looking for. Of course there are always going to be more research aids in existence than I will know how to use, but that's okay. 

Well, I feel that this blog has been a bit erratic. That's just how my mind is right now. After I leave here I will definitely continue to process all of the new information I've learned. 

If I could give one piece of advice to next year's incoming students it would be: 

You're behind before you even start. Haha.  But seriously. 

"Recording the Soundtrack"

I'm not exactly sure what to think of this video. Perhaps I shall describe it a bit (for my benefit). So in the video, musicians are creating the soundtrack for the Deathly Hallows video game. They don't know what scenes specific music is for. Each musician has headphones with a click track. Many interviews are done with coordinators who describe various scenes and continuity, transitions, and the use of loops. 

After the game is finished, some of the musicians come in for another interview and talk about what it was like, the mood of the music, ect. They then get to play the video game and discuss the music as they play. I think that recording music for a game and then playing the game would give insights into the music--the instrumentalists seemed to pick up on very specific details of the music. 

I know that I may be taking this blog in a different direction, but as I was watching I was thinking about a lesson I did with some of my middle schoolers. We were talking about music as expression and I showed them a video clip with three different excerpts of music--one was the music that accompanied the movie clip, and the other two were contrasting. We discussed how the music changed the scene and mood of the movie. I think it's the same with video games.

"Scholars Perspective"

This writing made me think of Dr. Radice's class through and through. Before grad school, I had looked up scholarly sources and journals, but not in the way I know how to do now. Dr. Radice required our history class to find scholarly, relevant sources, not settling for less than the best, and Professor Shanton showed us how to accomplish this. Professor Shanton and Dr. Radice have shown us what a wealth of information is out there. Although some administrators and educators may not want to take the time to show students the sources that are available and how to use and find them, this has not been the case this summer.

I am still learning, and I have a long way to go, but I feel informed. This last scavenger hunt is still difficult, but I have so much more knowledge as to what's out there than I did prior.