Assignment: Reflective Journal (SHR4C005R~00
Student ID:24101011
My name is Joshua Stephenson, and I will be writing about my documentation of my learning in my reflective journal. My main instrument is guitar, and I play genres like jazz and metal as they are the most interesting and exciting to indulge in with bands and solo works. My key learning goals are to sight read music, learn the notes on my guitars, and chord shapes/arpeggios in major minor and sus2.Furthermore, learning scales in these shapes on the guitar was my last learning goal. These goals were set for me at the start of my learning at Leeds Conservatoire by my teacher Jonathon Flockton, who pushed these goals and my way of practicing to new and improved levels. These learning goals were set to achieve a new level of session musicianship so that I can play music given to me on the day and be successful in it no matter the genre. This would also help improve my music theory which I desperately asked to be improved on.
The main reflective model I will be using is Kolb’s Learning Cycle due to the four parts that I underwent during my time practicing.
Firstly, “concrete experience” which states “Learning begins with “doing” something, therefore key to learning is active involvement. In Kolb’s model one cannot learn by simply watching or reading about it.” This states that learning starts with doing the experience first-hand. For me, this started with learning the caged system on the guitar which started at the end of September. By learning first-hand what the caged system is and how it works, i was able to learn, play and understand what I was experiencing. The caged system involves playing all 12 chord shapes in their different positions. For example, a C major chord can be played in 6 different shapes. The open C shape, the A shape, G shape, E shape and D shape in their “open chord” forms but further up the neck (hence the name for CAGED). The chord you want to play will always be a form of an open chord, like the F chord is in the same shape as the E chord but a fret above on the guitar. A rule I learnt from my teacher was that which shape you’re using (a C chord in the shape of A) would have the root note on the string name (the A string), meaning the C root note would be on the A string. This took a long time to learn over the span of a few weeks and I used different methods after taking the VARK questionnaire. I found I am “Mild Kinesthetic” which means I learn best from diagrams and hand on experiences, using concrete experience to further my learning. I used this when learning the CAGED system as it helped understand what i was looking for on my guitar when trying the different shapes. Visually seeing where the root on my guitar and putting it into action with a metronome allowed me to become quicker at finding where the chord was, and which shape it was in. By using trial and error instead of reading about where the chords were, by experiencing it using my own mind it allowed me to get used to where the shapes were. By using hand on experience from Kolb’s Learning Cycle, using the CAGED system allowed me to gain the ability to figure out arpeggios and triads in the chords. This creative activity was documented in my journal and was started at the start of November and spanned over the course of a month. This activity involved learning where each note was and what note they were in the arpeggiated chord. This involves the 1st, 3rd and 5th in the chord and playing them from the root in the shape of the chord and across all strings. The way I learnt this was by trial and error, then using a metronome and springing to different chord shapes in the major, minor and sus2.
My reflective observation mainly came from after I was either done practicing in my room, or when I was learning in class during my two-hour lessons with my guitar teacher. The main vocabulary that was used to convey my emotions most days were negative as i was pushing myself out of my comfort zone and completing tasks that required a ton of brain power. This led me to think “wow this is too much for me” or “I’m not good enough for this” as the first steps are the hardest to push through. I would vocalise my frustration and struggle with my flatmates as it allowed me to understand how i was feeling and what i could do to turn that struggle into satisfaction. By taking a step back out of practicing it allowed me to reflect on my experience and think about what to fix next time so my experience in my creative activity was more positive. When learning the CAGED system, thinking about the rules and putting them into place assured more succession in finding the next chord in the system. Experiencing struggles in getting to the chord in quick succession made me realise I need to implement metronome practice when switching the chords, meaning switching on beat to the metronome. I had written down what felt more important to me during practicing and that was the music theory of the chords, and how the chords link up to the arpeggios when playing. By learning that the chord fundamentally was the 1st, 3rd and 5th which was the same as the arpeggio, i just had to find where these notes where in the shape next time and how the root links to the chord. Gaining this understanding further down the line, the reflective observation turned into positive comments like “I’m getting this”. I realised that when I was practicing, i wasn’t practicing properly as my mind would often drift and want to do other things instead. This needed to be changed so that I didn’t have to think when playing, so it was automatic. By using Kolb’s Learning Cycle and the reflective observation, after many sessions i found thinking about what i practiced and what to do next time allowed the next stage to become easier and more fluent in practice.
Abstract Conceptualisation is making a link between the “doing” of the activity and the experience when doing it and linking them together to form theories and structures. Theories and analysis were made after i my session of practicing due to the amount of progress that was made in sessions. I found a link between the distractions around me and the amount i learned. If there were many distractions like people coming in and out of my room or my phone or Xbox was next to me, i felt distracted or less concentrated as i would take small breaks during practice when i felt like it was too much. By eliminating these distractions and problems, learning hard subjects like the CAGED system was easier to get after a smaller amount of time rather than a few hours it would’ve taken. I got more information from books i borrowed from the library like “How to play guitar” By Roger Evans presented new theories to help my practice. It demonstrated ideas like how to create a space to practice in and notes on the guitar fret board. By reading about the theory and visual diagrams in detail, this furthered my understanding of my learning goals and how to achieve them, linking my experiences using expanded knowledge and framing my creative activity. Speaking with my colleagues, i found that speaking to them about my experience and figuring it out as a team due to having the same goals resulted in a positive learning outcome and better mindset as i didn’t feel alone in the frustration. Colleagues also provided better ideas for practicing and linking with theories that are separate from a concrete example. For example, one of my colleagues used a way of learning arpeggios by learning two string sets at a time instead of just playing the arpeggio and trying to memorize is that way. Upon learning this, i found it very intriguing as it was a new learning method for me to try next time and improve my learning. Comparing my previous learning style which was distracted and not “real” practicing, to now thinking about my method of practice and what to do next in terms of the next stage of practicing and reflecting upon it afterwards.
The last thing in Kolb’s Learning Cycle is “Active Experimentation”. Active experimentation is considering what you have learnt and putting it into action, placing it in a context where it is relevant and useful to oneself. By placing the learning into practice, it allows the person practicing feeling better and less lost in terms of what they are trying to practice and prevent negative feelings and thoughts from being conveyed on the outside. By seeing a way or method is useful to practice, it will likely not be forgotten and continuously used to benefit the person which overall improves their playing and improving. For example in my context, by using methods like using a metronome and playing into each chord shape to understand where every note is on each scale and arpeggio, i have used active experimentation to coordinate all my planning and put it into effect, creating a positive result. From struggling previously on trying to memorise every scale and position because i wasn’t focused enough, to changing this outcome through removing distractions, active experimentation was again used as i have learnt a new strategy and implemented it in context. In a real-life scenario, if i was playing as a session musician and there was a particularly tricky part of the song, i would be able to learn it quicker as i am more adverse in concentration and learning things quicker due to the learning around practicing and the reflection upon it. Additionally, this would show how putting what I’ve learnt into context and make it seem useful to me as a player because it’s what i want to do as a career. By making it feel like learning is a top priority when it comes to my career, it feels desperately more important to me and overtime will refine the way i practice in the future. Leading on from this, the actions i can take into future practice will refine and revise later practicing. I would need to plan about how my next session would commence. As a suggestion, i could set a time frame in the day and play the chord shapes first, then arpeggios and then scales. After this i could use a metronome and mix about what shape and what arpeggio to so next with different tonalities and chord types.
In summary my creative activity of practicing the CAGED system, learning arpeggios and scales with music theory will become easier due to the steps i took during Kolb’s Learning cycle and reflecting upon what i was doing wrong. By following this model, my negative thoughts and emotions that was being conveyed or wrongfully thought will become more of a positive mindset rather than a fixed mindset, indicating good growth. I wanted to mainly improve the time it took to learn these new things and to better understand them, which i feel i can and will achieve. When it came to reflecting upon myself and my practicing, i researched using models like Kolb’s, i also learnt in reflective practice sessions with multiple PowerPoints to guide me through other ways people have improved upon their learning. Talking to colleagues was also a major factor in what changed my reflection and learning, as people I idolise due to their skill and have the opportunity to talk to gave good advice on how they practice and different methods for me to try throughout my learning experience. My new plan involves setting time aside each day without fail (an hour or two) and brush up on important areas like chords, scales and sheet music. Fully invest myself and don’t dawdle by playing random licks that get me nowhere, i should instead be reading up on new things and engraving it into my head until it comes to mw automatically.
