Guitar Teaching

Guitar Teaching 

As another CAS activity I have been teaching guitar to two of my friends for service. I have certain ambitions for them, for example I wanted them to learn some lead guitar as well as rythm. However they pick it up quite quickly. 

Objectives

My first objective was to teach them 4 chords of the song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", and with that a strum pattern. This is coming along nicely, they have learnt the chords quickly, however it is obviously very hard to learn the changes as well as the strumming pattern. 

My second objective was to teach them a rhythm part. So for the first rhythm part I have chosen to teach them the famous "Smoke on the Water" riff, which they both picked up very fast and for their next rythm I searching for something more intermediate, like "Sweet Child of Mine". 

Learning Outcomes 

I think that I have reached the learning outcomes 1,3 and 8. I have been able to see my weaknesses and strengths, for example I saw that I was week at beeing able to show my student in a useful way how to play the different pieces. As well as working collaboratively with my two other students, as I had to motivate them to learn these things and to play on. I also learnt new teaching skills, which I could use later, as I had to learn patience as well as perseverance, as I had to try different things out from time to time, so that my students could learn.

Reflection

After teaching for several months I had learnt a great deal of things. I came into this activity having quite unrealistic expectations, that I would teach some students to play guitar to a standard of mine in a few months, that my teaching skills would be outstanding and that it would be fairly straight forward. However the reality of which was quite different. The first few lessons on basics, like figner positioning, chords, lead playing were straight forward as I had expected. However this was not yet on stuff like rythm playing and the sychronisation you needed with both hands. When we got on to the song of boulevard of Broken Dreams, that is fairly straight forward for me, I had not realised the difficulties I would have faced as a teacher. My students struggled with changing between chords and getting the rythm correct, so as a teacher it was my responsibility to correct this so that they could learn it with ease, however I found it difficult to find ways of simplifying this rythm because I play it however I feel the song. So I sat down and thought about ways of teaching it, so that it would come across easier to them, this brought me back to the days where I started playing guitar and the lessons I had with my guitar teacher. I thought how he explained it to me and it occured to me that he explained it in terms of ups and downs. He used to use a saying that went like, "one, two, buckle my shoe." When I reminded myself of this I thought it was a brilliantly simple and easy way to explain it and teach rythm. So I explained to them that the rythm would be down, down, down, up, down, down. However then gave them the saying of " one, two, buckle my shoe" this helped them a lot I think and really made them start playing more fluently than before, however the changing chords was still difficult, however I knew this from when I started, however after practicing enough it just clicks sometime, and you have the muscle memory in your fingers to know where they should be, this is when you notice how clever your body actually is. This whole activity helped me in terms of service, as I was delivering a service to two people who were learning a skill in the process, however it helped me in learning the way of conveying information to other people and seeing them progress. This is when I understood what people talk about when they talk about teaching satisfaction. In addition, this made me think about future career options and to think about teaching, which helped me in a sense. This was really a good feeling to see my students progress, although my students never really learnt how to play the full song due to lack of practice, they learnt the basics of chords and rythm and now can pick this up again whenever they want to. 

Introduction

Introduction

I am Robin Matzner, I live in London, UK. I originally came from South Afrika and I am studying IB right now, with HL Maths, Physics and Economics, SL German, Chemistry and English. I wish to study industrial or aeronautical engineering later at university. In my free time I like to play guitar or run.

I am studying IB as I like the idea of being able to study anyway with this degree and I want to keep my options up.

CAS learning outcomes

CAS  Learning  Outcomes  

Increased awareness of strengths and areas for growth 
Students are able to see themselves as individuals with various skills and
abilities, some more developed than others, and understand that they
can make choices about how they wish to move forward.

Undertaking new challenges 
A new challenge may be an unfamiliar activity, or an extension to an
existing one.

Planned and initiated activities 
Planning and initiation will often be in collaboration with others. It can be
shown in activities that are part of larger projects, for example, ongoing school activities in the
local community, as well as in small student‐led activities.

Working collaboratively with others 
Collaboration can be shown in many different activities, such as team sports, playing music in
a band, or helping in a kindergarten. At least one project, involving collaboration and the
integration of at least two of creativity, action and service, is required.

Showing perseverance and commitment
At a minimum, this implies attending regularly and accepting a share of the responsibility for
dealing with problems that arise in the course of activities.

Engaged with issues of global importance
Students may be involved in international projects but there are many global issues that can
be acted upon locally or nationally (for example, environmental concerns, caring for the
elderly).

Consideration of ethical implications 
Ethical decisions arise in almost any CAS activity (for example, on the
sports field, in musical composition, in relationships with others
involved in service activities). Evidence of thinking about ethical issues
can be shown in various ways, including journal entries and
conversations with CAS advisers.

Developing new skills 
As with new challenges, new skills may be shown in activities that the
student has not previously undertaken, or in increased expertise in an
established area.

CAS reflective Essay

How and to which extent have I met the different CAS learning outcomes in secondary school?

Personally, I think I have met the learning outcomes quite a lot in secondary school, as I had a range of activities I had done. I have undertaken new challenges,  as starting skateboarding 5 months ago, which I personally think is one of the hardest, skill requiring sports there is and it has taken some perseverance and motivation to stick with it, as the progress one makes is so slow one feels like one doesn’t move forward at all sometimes. I have also repeatedly taken grades in guitar, to further stretch my abilities in playing the guitar. In addition, I have completed D of E Bronze, and part of that is finishing 3 months of physical, 3 months of skill, and 6 months in Service areas. Furthermore, I had to undergo a two-day expedition, sleeping in tents at night and hiking 15 km a day.

A big part of these projects was planning them out and making sure they went to plan, as well as working in a team with others to achieve ones goals, this would cover the areas 3 and 4.

Another outcome I think I did succeed in fulfilling is number 5, “Perseverance and commitment in activities”, as I have kept on with guitar, skating and the service for 6 months for the D of E (teaching German to a local English school). This I think shows the perseverance and commitment in activities.

The two areas where I think I have not really completed are numbers 6 and 7, as I have not really engaged in problems which have global importance, as well as not really considering ethical implications of my actions. 

Also I do not think that I reflected upon the activities I did, I did not look at what I had planned, and what I wanted to achieve. However I mostly planned out my activities and always set out goals for myself. For example, every time I went to the kings field skate park on Saturday, I had an aim for the day, I always had a trick in mind, that I would have wanted to learn until the day is over, most of the time I did not succeed on landing that trick the same day, but I have always worked towards goals. 

High Ashurst

High Ashurst 

As Part of our CAS program we visited High Ashurt camp to learn team skills, as well as physical and outdoor skills, such as fire making and climbing. We all were instructed to set ourselfs goals for the trip and to try and fullfill these and I think I did so.

Goals and Objectives 

My goal was to do every single activity that we were set to do, to learn new team skills and to learn how to make a fire without any matches or a firelighter. The fire making was most probably the hardest of all as we only had damp wood available and were only given a flint to start the fire.
I personally think that I fulfilled my first objective, to learn new team skills as the first activity which we did when we arrived at the camp was team building. We had to go through multiple obstacles for which we had to be a team to get through. For example we had to all get through a set of crossed fixed ropes, this involved the whole team communicating with each individual going through the rope maze and making sure he/she did not touch the ropes. Whilst this activity I learnt to communicate appropriately in a team.
My second goal I also obtained by participating in all activities which we did, this included all the climbing activities.
My third goal was more tricky than I thought due to the reasons already listed above. However after about half an hour of trying me and my partner managed to get a decent fire going using only damp wood, cotton wool and a flint.

Learning Outcomes 

I think that I have achieved learning outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8.
I have increased the awareness of my abilities, so I have identified my strengths, for example physical skills, however I was weak in fire making.
I have undertaken a lot of new challenges, which I have not done before.
As a group we planned and initiated this this activity, as well as working together with everyone as a team.
In the process I learned new skills, like my fire making and team work.

This is me and my partner making the fire

Reflection

I set out on this trip with fairly reasonable expectations and ambitions, learn new team skills, fire making and participating in all the activities. I did not think much of any of them, however some proved harder than I thought they would have been. We first undertook a team building exercise that I thought took a lot more outside the box thinking and team work than I had expected. We needed to use all of the peoples ideas and try them all out to achieve the objectives given to us by the martials. I really got to know the people quite a bit and I thought it was a great team building activity, because it was not easy, one really had to team up to achieve something, no one wanted to be the team that did not manage the task. After several times being told of for swearing after fustrating attempts to achieve the objectives we finished the team building course and I can whole heartedly say that I learn new team leading skills, however I felt more happy about getting to know the people in my team and facing difficult challenges with them. After this we set out to the firemaking part of the trip. This is the activity, that I feel like took the most skill and ability to do, however it needed persistance and patience to fulfill. Me and my partner partnered up with the ambitions of collecting suitable firewood in a very wet conditions. We went out and collected what we thought was suitable, however we noticed that it was going to be difficult as anything to light this fire with all this damp wood. This did not keep us off trying though, so we started with a few cotton wool balls and a flint. we started striking the flint, developing our method to get the most out of the sparks and at first we really were not really successful, however being patient we got better and better. Then the cotton balls caught flame, so we hurried to get our fire wood to build the fire, however we started to stack way too much wood on the fire and our flames from our tinder were lost. We were devastated that our first successful flame was lost, however we set out to start this tense firemaking journey again. We collected more cotton wool balls and set them on our platform, we then took turns of striking the flint due to its exhausting effect on us. We striked and striked and striked, however it seemed like we would never get another flame and that our hope was lost. Then in a strike of luck we got another flame, this time we were going to be patient in the laying of the wood to let it dry out a little first and build the fire. So we patiently layed the pieces of wood on each other, one after the other, cautiously building the fire, using every sense of ours to not kill it in a rash move. We saw this fire grow from nothing and it started becoming quite the beast and we soon were advised to put out our fire that we had nurtured from nothing to this now, it felt a little like a waist, however we had learnt a new skill, a skill that will not be lost easily. All in all I feel like this activity brought me closer to nature, learning skills to live in nature, team and leadership skills, sleeping in a tent as our forefathers did and facing adversity together. I am most happy about the friendships I built over the whole trip and the relations to nature, it is something I have cherished since with other activities I have completed and it made me cherish the smaller things in life and appreciate those.

Great Ashcroft Bake Off

Great Ashcroft Bake Off

One of my first CAS activities was to bake a cake for the Great Ashcroft Bake Off. This is partially a creative activity and service. Creativity as I had to creatively style my cake and service as I was helping to sell all the cakes afterwards for a good cause in Kenya, which also helped me improve my baking skills, so not only the children in Kenya got something out of it, but me aswell.

Objectives

The objectives I set myself for this activity were firstly to bake a cake which a)looked good b)tasted good c) to plan out and follow the recipe which I chose d) To win some sort of category.

Fullfillment of Objectives

I personally think I have fullfilled my objectives as I had positive feedback on the taste, as well as winning in the category of best design and I managed to follow the recipe. This activity involved the catergories 1,2,3 and 7. This is as I had to do something challenging for me, as it was my first time baking, I had to learn a new skill, baking, I worked collaboritivelly with others to sell the cakes and I managed to indentify that I was not that bad at baking after all.

Reflection

In this activity I have planned out my cake, bought the ingredients, followed the recipe and proceeded to bake the cake, then having the cake judged and then winning a prize as well as selling the cake for a charity cause. I feel like I have accomplished a great deal, as I have been able to win a prize with the first time I baked. I have also learned that I am more capable at things that I do not think I would have been capable the first time round and I am able to learn a new skill quite quickly. Now I feel I can bake for other people without being anxious of messing it up and I feel that the whole activity went very smoothly and I would not change anything that I did if I had to do it a second time round. Also what helped me in this whole activity was the feeling I got when baking and the ambitions I had. This I mean because I was motivated for the cause I was baking for, charity for children in Kenya, then me standing there and selling cakes, knowing that I did my part in this event and did my part for trying to make the world a better place. This is what I noticed when taking part, it was not really about winning or actually the compition at all, it was about doing ones part in the process of making the world a better place, helping others that were not that fortunate, I do not know if my part actually made a difference, however I know that I did my part and that it was now up to others to do theirs, it all is actually about the bigger picture, yes I did improve my baking skills and yes I did win an award, however those are not the things that made me feel positive and fullfilled after this activity, it was about helping others and I am happy our CAS coordinator pushed us into activities like this, without that motivation I might have not done this activity and that would have been tragic.

Guitar (Song Writing) Update 1

Guitar song writing

So one of my CAS activities was writing a song on guitar, this is something quite personal for me and to be honest quite difficult and time consuming. This is part of my creativity as it is a creative thing to do as one has to come up with ideas how to play, what to play, what to write etc...

Objectives

So my objectives were to write a good rhythm, write lyrics to the rhythm and perform the song infront of some people.

Progress

Until now I have managed to write down a chord progression and I have filmed this and put it up at the top of this post. I thought it was difficult to come up with something that sounds good and is in harmony and I tried to make a few variations while I played the chords so that it isn't that monotone.
My next step now is to write down some lyrics and get some vocals into the next video.

Until now I think I have seen the difficulties I have with song writing, as well as undertaken this new challenge. In addition I have increased my knowledge on guitar chords as I had to learn a lot of chords to find something which is what I was looking for.

Progress 2

I have now written a bit more sophisticated melody which sounds nicer and I have gone with a change in tune which I think is good. I have an introductory part plus a song part and a chorus, however I have to find a way to transition them into one song and then still write lyrics to fit with the tune. However I feel the song is making progress, slowly but surely, it is not easy writing melodies with little music theory knowledge, so I have started studying some music theory to understand the working behind the music I am playing and know why certain things work with them.

Progress 3

The song has taken a drastic change, a total change in melody, and rythm, I felt the old rythm was not really what I was looking for and I know this is now what I want in terms of melody. It has taken me a lot longer than I thought to find something that actually has made me pleased with it, it is quite simple chord wise, but I have tried to put a little twist on it rythmically and melodically. Ive also been writing lyrics over the past few months, but I find it hard to write something that fits and I have written a lot of pages however only few parts actually fit well. What I have found as well is that anything I wrote several months ago reflects a different mood because of what I was thinking about or feeling was different to what I am thinking about now, so my best bet is to write a text pretty much in one go and I will give that a shot in the coming weeks.

Reflection

After completing this activity I am kind of split whether of calling is successful or not. I definitely identified my weaknesses and my strengths of my creative ability in music. I was able to write a fairly strong guitar riff and chord progression, however on the lyrical side and singing side of things I was totally lost. I struggled writing anything that meant something to me and singing it as well. The rhythm or sound of what I wrote musically never seemed right for the sort of thing I was trying to play. Also I never stuck with a definite chord progression, I kept on finding something new that I then played. Therefore drawing upon that I think I had a lack of organisation of how I went about writing the song and progressing, as instead of moving on after writing a successful part, I always found something new and started from scratch. However I am happy that I wrote some quite different an varying riffs and chord progressions, therefore it was a partial success. On the other side I did fail to write any working lyrics that made sense to me or meant anything, I just lacked expressive skills. This is an area I will focus on in the future, however just the experience was a great learning experience, I learnt a lot of different skills throughout writing music and it was immensely valuable experience for myself.

Skating

Skateboarding

So I for one of my CAS activities I chose to do skating, it is a sport, which I have recently picked up and is quite challanging to get the hang of. However I set myself goals to fulfill, which require practice and I am confident that I will be able to achieve them.

Objectives

My First goal was to be able to kickflip and be able to do this trick at a constant rate. The trick involves turning the board once around in the air and landing again on the board. I have been practicing this for a few months now, however I still have not been able to land it consistently, I am only able to land it every 5-10 times maybe. However I have improved from the every 20-30 times a few weeks ago. The difficulty right now is beeing able to skate, as the weather conditions are turning worse and worse, so it is hard to find a dry day now.
My second objective is to ollie down a set of 4 stairs. The problem with this objective is that it is hard to be able to skate the stairs as there is no light over the stairs, so one is completely in the dark, so it is hard to practice, however I have made progress and have been able to land a few ollies, but I am still to learn this trick consistently.

Learning Outcomes Progress

If I look at the first 2 learning outcomes, I certainly think I have fulfilled them as I have looked at my strengths and weaknesses and I have certainly undertaken new challenges for me. In addition I have learned new skills and improved old ones, which connects to outcome 7.

Reflection on Activity

looking back on my time skating I have seen myself being on a journey, skating takes a lot more blood, sweat and tears than I would have imagined and although I sadly say I have not quite fulfilled my goals, I feel like I have discovered more what skating is actually about, and that my expectations were unrealistic to start with. Me being fairly ambitious I set out to perfect the kickflip and be able to consistantly land it, now how succesful have I been? After practicing this trick for several months I have become fustrated again and again, more and more, some days it gets better some days its worse than when you begun. However I have been able to learn it to a degree of fair consistency and to my satisfaction, this trick takes years and years of effort to perfect, to get the muscle memory to land it every time, even professional skaters sometimes do not land it. It depends on you warming up, how much you practice, the state of your shoes, the state of your griptape, the state of your board, the axes, bearings, weather, there is so many factors that play a role in skating and your ability on that particular day, sometimes there are good days, sometimes there are bad.

My other aim was to jump down a set of 4 stairs, until now I have only managed a 3 stair and it takes a lot of courage and air time feel to really land a good set jump, so I have in some way failed in this aspect of my ambitions, however I feel like it is not really a failure, I noticed that one part of skating is to learn new tricks, show them off, however another big part of skating is creating memories with other people and spending time with good friends, making a bond through hardship of not landing tricks, injuring yourself however getting over it and succeeding. To master anything in skating a lot more time is needed, especially dedication and it is something I will always in one way hold with.