Lissie, 'Go your own way'

task 2d: Inquiry

What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiasitc to find out more about? Who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic?

In my first year of college I really struggled with singing. Not because I couldn't sing, but because all of the teachers at my college taught the same method. A rough classical diaphragm support method where no one actually seems to know the biology behind whats going on. The phrase 'imagine this diamond support working' . No, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to base my entire singing training on something imaginary. I got very frustrated and felt I made absolutely no improvement vocally in my first year. However, the beginning of a new year brought with it, a new teacher. One Mr. Matthew Shaw, an absolute genius, who is one of the most knowledgable teachers of Estill technique in the country. Estill technique explains all the physical vocal movement with fact and biology rather than imagination. It allows you to feel exactly what you larynx and vocal folds are doing as you sing and enables us to use and control the voice correctly and safely. I admire Matt and his knowledge of the technique so much as he finally broke through and made me enjoy singing again and allowed me to genuinely make progress and improve my range and ability. I loved the 3 hour lessons we got with him each week, because even though they were very long, I was engaged the entire time due to the floods of knowledge that he was passing on. In my blogs and my journals I always give a good explanation of things, because I feel if you cant, then you don't really know what your talking about, and I don't like to be confused. I will always admire Matt and the technique itself for explaining singing correctly, consisely and having it all actually make sense! For more information on Estill please see : http://www.estillvoice.com/ and for more info on Matt see :http://www.musicteachers.co.uk/teacher/d2502fe8dc55dc167098 because he is bloody brilliant. I line of enquiry for this is my consideration to do a full course of Estill technique later on in life purely for myself and to help me learn more about technique.

What gets you angry or makes you sad? who do you admire who shares your feelings or has found a way to work around the sadness or anger?

Sadness and frustration rather than anger, are common themes that keep reappearing in my journals becasue they appear when I audition for something I really want and don't get it, and when I look around and find that i'm still *just* a waitress. It's really hard because I had such an academic background to have the thought cross your mind that maybe I made a mistake by not going to university and getting a degree in something that would get me a well paid job. But just as that AWFUL thought crosses my mind, I look accross the restaurant and see colleagues and friends who are actually in exactly the same position as myself. My friend and colleague 'Laurie', who is a comedy poet and future radio presenter said to me "sure you could go work in an office and have loads of money, but what are those people going to leave behind, absolutely nothing...I'd just hate to get old and say to someone, yeah I was going to be a radio presenter once, but I just never tried" and it's words like those that remind me that I'd be just as miserable sat behind a desk in a 9-5 job. I admire Laurie's attitude, because though i'm sure she feels sad sometimes, she has the ability to say, no do you know what, I'm going for it and maybe I'll get the chance to do what I love.

What do you love about what you do? who do you admire who also seems to love this or is an example of what you love?

I love singing more than anything in the world. I would love to be a recording artist, not just for the life style, but for the thrill of standing on a festival stage on a summers evening infront of hundreds of thousands of people, as myself, singing music that I love. Some one that I quite admire is 'Lissie'. She is just famous enough that she can travel the world doing what she loves to big venues, but not so famous that she can't have a normal life at the same time. Her music is simple fairly simple and stresses the enjoyment in life and a career like hers would be ideal for me. She is just herself, no bright, over the top costumes and her music allows her to actually sing rather than be completely computerised. http://www.lissie.com/video/ follow the link to see Lissie's website and see videos. I think I just really appreciate that artists like her can still do well today.

What do you feel you don't understand? Who do you admire who does seem to understand it or has found a way of making not understanding it interesting or beautiful, or has asked the same questions as you?

For me the biggest frustration is not understanding, I have a need to understand everything that I'm doing whether it be how or why. There's nothing that sticks in my head particularly but I respect any one who can see that I have a need to know. I hate being told just to accept something when some one cant explain something. I guess for me, I don't understand how certain people get jobs and careers when their amount of talent is little a best. But sometimes I have to accept that with the career I've chosen luck is a massive part of it and knowing people and networking is very important. There are others like me who get frustrated and it's usually the trained professionals who are out of work but have just had to accept that sometimes the wrong person does get through, but they have the faith that one day the right job will appear.

Task 2c A critical Reflection

Hello guys, I've split 2c up into 2 parts. So this is a link to the essay (2nd part).

hope you enjoy the read and let me know what you think.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-r0P1YwzIHR1_Fj9ZzsmKrAkEF-S7NiJraupKxBuEXA/edit

Task 2c Reflective theory

I've added to and reposted the blog from just after campus session 2 as it is highly relevant for task 2c:

Looking at the first part of reader 2 we're seeing a lot of talk of 'Turning experience into learning' and the key tool put forward to do this is 'Reflection'. Reflections main 3 practices, is -comparing, -extending, and -new learning.

The suggestion is that learning a new term is different to learning a new idea. Learning a term when you do not know the meaning is pointless. However learning the term and the meaning, is equally as pointless unless you have an understanding of the words used for the definition. To get the 'idea' you need to have a full understanding and experience with the knowledge or lack there of.

For example, Graham McFee explains 'I don't know what bachelors are.If I am not to just take your word for it, I have to check up on whatever you tell me. For you might be mistaken and tell me that bachelors are married men. To know that you are wrong, I must know what bachelors are... One must understand what is being defined in order that one can judge for oneself the accuracy...the definition itself must be understood -- I must know what the words 'unmarried' and 'married' mean, if I am to understand what is being said...' (McFee, 1992: 18)

Using McFees example of the bachelor: It is through the experience of not knowing what a bachelor is that we realise that we have a hole in our knowledge. We have to combine our pre-existing ideas with the new terms to understand andd learn a new idea.

During my time in college, my peers and I had it suggested to us that we would learn far more in our first year of working professionally, than we could ever learn in college itself. Worrying, at first glance, but what they were suggesting is exactly what we are looking at now. That, through experiencing things and then reflecting on them we discover new ideas and learn new things.

'active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends', (Dewey 1933).

What????!!!

Basically, Dewey talked about experience as a tool for learning and explains that there are different levels of experience. Dewey said that the educational process is ‘a continual reorganization, reconstruction and transformation of experience’ (Dewey 1916). As in, to get the most from education you must be fully engaged and aware of the experience. To learn from an experience, you must realise that you are having one!

 For example, if I do a brilliant tripple pirouette without thinking about it, we would call it a 'fluke', because I have done the pirouette on a whim, and wasn't aware that I was about to have an 'experience'. I couldn't do the same thing again. I have not learnt how to do a tripple pirouette flawlessly, it was luck. I have not learnt from the experience. If I tried to assess and analyse what I had just done, I wouldn't get very far because I hadn't put any thought into it. It was sheerly surface value. (It would go under 'see' if we put it on the graffiti wall)

If, I realising the hole in my knowledge, I went back and tried again, 'noticing' what I'm doing and 'thinking' about my technique and actions, and then reflected on the outcome, employing a conscious 'trial and error' technique, each time I would be learning from the experience.

"Kurt Lewin divided 'experience' into a circle of idea, fact finding planning (research) action, evaluation, planning, action",Kurt Lewin, Bapp (Arts) Reader 2, The reflective Practitioner WBS 3730

The following is a diagram of 'A learning cycle' put together by David Kolb (with Roger Fry)

I volunteered to write a blog about Kolb's learning cycle so I will just pop it in here to explain it a bit further. Over the years, my studies in communication showed me that theorists put things in cycles when there is no clear beginning or end, or rather when they occasional adapt. Cycles allow them to show that the theory is constant and never ending.

Different people enter the cycle at different points. The point at which you enter the cycle is usually referred to as your learning style.

I chose to see where I entered the cycle by looking at the newest skills I've learnt. When I started this course I had noooooo idea what I was doing and that stressed me out. In reflection, I found that I entered the cycle at 'abstract conseptualisation'. I got off to a slow-ish start on the course because I dont function properly when I'm confused. I needed to understand and work out exactly what I needed to do and how I was going to enable msyelf to do it before I could start. I had to 'get my head around it'. I then found my self moving onto the the 'active experimentation' where I took what I had learnt (how to start a blog and upload things onto internet platforms) and tried it out. I did make mistakes, and I had to try again. For exaple organising the layout of my blog so It was reflective of myself as a professional, clear and easy to navigate and uploading photos and creating a slide show. I after a few trial and errors I now have 'concrete experience' with creating a blog, uploading photos and using these platforms (minor experience as it may be) and I am now able to use 'reflective observation' to review what I have done and compare it fairly to others' work. The cycle helped me to see clearly what I have learnt from it so I will be able to keep building on the knowledge and skills learnt. I'm quite glad that I entered the course with such little knowledge of Web 2.0 and enter that I entered the cycle where I did because I can see a much bigger learning curve.

Now that I have some concrete experience with using the tools, I am able to use reflective observation much more, to ensure that I am on track and to keep in touch with new ideas and thoughts from others on the course before I make any decisions and continue to move through the cycle. So here I can see that through experience I am entering the cycle at different points in different circumstances.

Honey and Mumford (Honey, 1982) and (Honey and Mumford, 1983) expand and adapt Kolbs idea into the 'Four Stages': Having an experience, reviewing an ecperience, concluding from the experience, planning the next steps.

Howard Gardner :

Gardner suggests that people can be intelligent in a number of ways : spatial, verbal inguistic, Logical- mathematical, Bodily- Kinetic, Musical, Interpersonal (understanding people and relationships), Intrapersonal (relates to ones emotional life as a means to understand onself and others) and naturalistic (relatees to nature and the natural world to find meaning).

I think straight away we can all slot ourselves in (at face value) to one of these, but when I really started to think about it, I found that though I fit strongly into Inter and intrapersonal I also fit into a few others aswell. Perhaps rather than looking at the list and finding an intelligence we have strongest, I suggest we use it to see that maybe there is just one that perhaps we are not so strong at. Make the glass half full rather than half empty. I know I am musical and spacial due to my background in dance and music, and though I think in an extremely logical way, I have never quite got my head around maths much past GCSE. In reflection, I have always been good at giving advice to people with problems in there life whether it be inter or intrapersonal for them and it is through that, I am able to see I have intelligence in that area. I'd just never categorised it before.

Gardner also discusses VAC: Visual, auditory and Kinaesthetic learners and later in 2005 'Multiple lenses' (multiple ways of looking at things). (Gardner 2005) He suggests that 'multiple lenses' are a way of looking through a key hole at different ways of learning and being a learner. It allows us to pin point our own and others strengths and weaknesses by breaking it down into these categories, though obviously there will be overlapping areas. Gardner's main objective is to help us understand about how we learn.

My relationship with reflective practice has always been strong, it’s just not always been conscious. Throughout my education at Italia Conti, at the end of each term we had to fill in evaluation forms, and of course being vocational students, we hated this. We just did not see the point in writing down what we’d gained from the term! Of course now it’s all clicked into place. Continual evaluation of the skills we were learning through the forms and the journal we had to keep throughout first and second year enabled me to reflect on the individual days experience and pick out key points or skills that had helped me to learn something new whether that be about myself or about the profession. I used my college journal to note when I was struggling with something in a class, and try to work out why that was, and what I could do to combat it. I considered different teaching styles as inevitably some teachers at the college did not work as well for me as others and I also found ways in which I could learn more from those that did work well for me. This was all through using reflection as a tool and now I realise just how useful that reflection was at the time. By Dewey’s standards the reflection must be conscious, but that is not to say that it has to be instant. I was lucky enough to have the sort of educational background which enabled me to realise the purpose of the journals and the evaluation forms at the time, however I have spoken to peers who now (having graduated and joined a world in which you must constantly be evaluating yourself) have realised why they were being made to do all that written work and the relevance of it. Their learning process was slow in reaction but occurred none the less due to their reflection on the completion of the 3 year course and all it entailed.

From this I suggest that using reflection as a tool for learning does not always have to be instant, it may come with further reflection upon the original reflection itself rather than the actual experience.

Another tool for reflection that I have noticed within the profession is note taking. Since I began auditioning whether it was for performing arts colleges or for jobs such as cruises or adverts, I’ve noticed that the audition panel use note taking to evaluate the candidates and keep a record of who and what they are seeing before them. On popular TV reality shows such as ‘Britain’s next top model’ and ‘X factor’, they take photos of each candidate and later use their notes and the photos to reflect on what each candidate did and could bring to the contest. I have also seen in auditions, candidates coming out who have been asked to change something and return whether it be the next day or in a couple of hours. This relates strongly to Dewey’s theory as these candidates need to have been fully aware of the experience that they were having at the time so that they can go away evaluate it and change the necessary in order to change what was asked of them. In this instance they must use Kolb’s learning cycle very rapidly in and enter probably at ‘Concrete experience’ in order to go on and review, conclude and try again  in not a lot of time. Kolb's learning cycle is particularly useful in the performing arts profession as we, as perfomers, must be constantly evaluating ourselves and are actions in order to improve. Espeially as it is a career that is becoming more and more accessible to different people and the jobs are becoming fewer and fewer. It is the case that every single audition I attend must either be successful or part of the learning process, if it is neither of the two then really it was a waste of time.  Some times I find myself going to smaller less important auditions just in 'active experimentation' preperation for a more important and relevant audition.

Task 2b: the follow up

The styles that I mentioned in my previous post really helped me to reflect as much as possible on my day. They worked great for me to summarise, pick out highs and lows, and evaluate the day as concisely as possible. I found a few reoccurring themes that I hadn't noticed before about myself and I think that's really an important thing to take away from the task.
I found that more often than not my lists and thoughts always stemmed back to not feeling fulfilled and always wanting something more. I knew that obviously I don't want to be working as a waitress for ever, but I hadn'nt ever really noticed that actually that is alllllllllllllll I think about. Or rather everything that I do think about and do on a daily basis is with the aim or hope of doing something more, getting something better, being something better. And really how depressing that when you look at that from another perspective.... there must be a serious dent in my self esteem to have such loathing for my current lifestyle and its attributes. And for that matter, it highlights to me now as I type that perhaps that is why I've mentioned on several occasions that I like to pick up on the pros and highlights of the day, even if it is a split second that makes me smile.
If I take anything from this experience, that last paragraph was the turning point. That is the point in which keeping a journal for the task has become a true point of reflection on my life at this moment. A moment of self realisation. Good and bad.

Task 2b: Journal writing experience

So can I firstly start by saying how much I love that I started the 9 days on the beginning of the month. It's irrelevant to the task but it's soooo much easier to keep track of!! And we know that I love to be organised and tidy with these things.
Anyway, back to the important stuff!.
After completing the 9 days of different journal writing I chose a couple and decided to explore them a bit further and develop them to suit me. J. Moon said that 'Journals come in any shape, size and form', (Moon 2006) So for the past two days my journals have culminated of the following in order to create my own style of journal:

• description
• initial
• reflection
• list
• what if 

I started off with a basic list of what I did that day, a few jotted notes ( If we were to put it on the graffiti wall from the campus session , all of these notes would slip under the 'see' collumn). I then started to 'think' about what I had actually done that day and these sprouted off like a spider diagram and gave a bit more depth.  Using 'Initial' and 'reflection' I started to write and really consider how I felt about the things that I'd done, what had happened, and things that had been said. As I came to my conclusion of this I began the 'what if' development and it enabled me to suggest what I could perhaps do differently next time and what I would like the next day to hold. So a little bit of preparation and planning ahead.
It worked out to be a really interesting exercise and I've now found myself with a good sort of basis to build my everyday journals on.
For anyone else writing their journal I'd really encourage trying out a few and finding the style that suits you, your lifestyle and the way brain works best.



References:

Moon, J. 2006, A Handbook for reflective practice and professional development, Taylor and Francis

Task 2b: the 9 day challenge!

For the few weeks I've been keeping my journal, but for task 2b lets pay particular interest to the 9 day challenge as I've named it. lol. So, I chose November 1st - 9th. 9 easy to keep track of days conveniently coinciding with the dates of the month. I went through the 9 ways of enhancing the journals and had a go at each one. And some I felt rather silly doing, (seeing my day through the eyes of a pencil case I'm afraid is just not for me) and some that I felt captured my journal writing style and could help me to develop it further to get better reflection on the days. I'm going to pick out a few that I liked and used and developed and briefly mention the few that I felt didn't work quite so well.

So start at the top shall we!

• Description: description suited me completely,infact it is pretty much what i'd been doing all along. Keeping a basic list of what happened, where and when with the odd bit of extra. I'm glad that it was on the list because it put my mind at ease that I hadn't been doing it wrong, but at the same time I don't think that it really pushed me to develop the idea and think outside the box.

• Initial: this was a good one, I like to think of it really as the next step on from description. It just goes into slightly more depth and gets a bit more opinion based writing in there. I think writing using the 'initial' form can often be a lot more revealing about the day than the description itself by mentioning what it made me think, and how it made me feel so I found this helpful and an easy step on from the first.

• Reflection: again this seemed to be the next logical jump, by just revealing slightly more again about the day itself. Reflection is great because it encourages you to look at the pros and cons of what you did that day and combines it with your mood. Combining these three views I think gives a good basic start to journal writing and by noting down anything unexpected that it reminds us that not everything goes to plan, or has to be as mundane as it may first seem.

• List: I liked using listing because it's so simple and relative to what your thinking about. It worked for me a little like a brain storm where the list had strands coming off of it on things that i'd like to look into further or reasons why I enjoyed activities. My brain is constantly jumping onto the next thing, with my form of dyslexia my mind thinks faster than I can write or sometimes speak so with the list having the option in front of me to branch off into another area was great and really helpful as I could come back to what I was thinking afterwards.

• Evaluation: I liked evaluating, it's very basic but again it allows you to pick out the pros and cons of your day. I found I was noticing a lot more in general, things that I may have overlooked previously. By evaluating I could summarise and forget the bits I know I didn't need to stress myself over and therefore things to avoid worrying about in the future.

• Graphs/diagrams/charts: before i'd even started this one I had a feeling it might not be for me, just comes accross a bit toooooo mathematical, but I tried to be open minded and gave it a go. Unfortunately I was right, there is just something about dividing my day up into sections and graphs that makes it far to clinical for me. I'm human, and my day is my life, not a test result or colour coded chart to be inspected. I use charts for the aspects of my life that they can be of help for, such as training at the gym for my half marathon. Using a chart or graph here is good to show how much or how little progresss is being made, but for the everyday it's not for me. However, I colour coordinated the diagrams apprpriately, and it showed I spent far to much time at work than working on my career. The reason I've found that a bit irrelevant at the moment is because I have to work to pay the bills, so seeing it in bright red just didn't help.

• What if?- now then, 'what if' was an interesting one, I do quite like the 'what if.' At first I didn't think that I'd like this one, but actually as I was I writing I found I could explore it more and more. It makes sense to consider what could have happened, and if it didn't go to plan, then why not? What could I have done differently, or could I do differently next time to change the outcome. I combined this with Kolb's learning cycle and found that by using the conditional i'd slot into the cycle at  'Reflective observation'. Working out what I need to do differently first, and then going from there. Considering what I would love to happen and what I would hate to happen gave me a bit of motivation to work harder to find an agent and work oustide the restaurant, it helped to remind me what was important and to let go of the things that didn't matter that day.

• Another view: well.... this was interesting. I struggled I have to say, to think outside the box on this one. I think I'm a funny one, because I am very creative but my mind is logical and for some reason I couldn't get my head around the logic of thinking of my day from the perspective of an object. However, I started to push my thinking, and thought of times when it could be relevant such as, If I was choreographing or directing a piece around an object, seeing the day from the point of view of that object actually could be quite interesting. Seeing my day from the point of view of another person however was great, a real insight into what others might be thinking. We get some very difficult people in my work place and sometimes it's hard to stop your face reacting naturally to something absolutely ridiculous that they may have said, before of course you realise and behave as an employee should. But seeing those ridiculous conversations which unfortunately can shape my day from their side was very entertaining. I think for audition purposes this could be interesting, to see the audition from the view of the panel rather than myself, so I think I'll try to employ it, just out of curiosity after my next audition.

I really enjoyed this task as I've been able to reflect upon my days and then reflect upon my own reflection to pick out the most rewarding and affective ways to do it. It's been really interesting and now I think i'll employ a number of the techniques combined and developed into one to continue my journal from here.

Task 2a: 03/10/12

Bonfire night! Remember remember the 5th ( ok well, 3rd for us who find the weekends are just more convenient to the masses) of november.
I just wanted to write this blog in appreciation of the task. I love events like christmas and bonfire night, etc. Yes of course I agree they've all become massively commercialised but I still love the atmosphere that comes with them, and if that's what it takes to get people, who dont normally make time for themselves or to get back in touch with friends and family (though that's a shame) then how can it be bad. I was really looking forward to adding bonfire night to my journal, I got the night of work by accident, went home to Bucks, and spent the evening at the gliding centre with friends and family watching the bonfire, fireworks and just having a laugh in general and mundane as an entry that may seem to some, relecting upon it in my journal was great and a nice change from the everyday. I learnt a lot that day gliding, getting information from 3 different instructors all about different points, and found that meeting new people, I am constantly learning how to adapt to them and trying to make a good impression to them which will come in handy whilst networking in the performing industry.
It was just nice to look back on the day and pick out some real positives to put a bit of faith back and I don't think I would have reflected upon it as much had I not been writing the journal for the task. It's just good, that's all :)

Task 2a: 01/11/12

Ahhh today I had a really interesting journal entry, because I finally went on my flight simulator. As I've told you all before, in my spare time I fly glider planes.  (and yes, that means not very often at the minute as spare time doesn't seem to exist anymore) So for my birthday this summer, I was brought a flight simulation in a Boeing 737 from UFLY737. It was great fun but I have to say I crashed a couple of times. The idea is to give people an opportunity to fly a massive plane in and out of different airports. I flew into Hong Kong, Oxford and Austria. Though I fly gliders, it is completely different to flying a such a massive powered plane, and though I had to keep referring to my gliding training to keep the wings level etc, I had to pay so much attention to all the new information being given to me. It was here I realised that I was learning at the same time as reflecting and combining the information together. It's funny that keeping a journal can make you realise the things that you're already doing unconsciously. I also later linked it with Howard Garner, and found that I was learning through a number of different ways such as, spatial, verbal and logical.

Task 2a: 31/09/12

So today I went to an audition for a girl band and I thought, 'perfect!!' a good experience and also something relevant to write about in my journal!

I just had to write a blog about this though because it wasnt until jotting down my experience for that day that I realised that I entered Kolb's learning cycle on a much larger scale.  In summary of my journal and reflecting upon it I can see that I entered the learning cycle at 'Reflective observation'. I've gathered this from thinking on a much grander scheme... there is a sort of 'protocall' for musical theatre auditions that we're all aware of but for girl band auditions??? who knows. Well , I do, but thats on;y from reflective observation of previous auditions at my college and from reality programmes such as pop idol, popstars, fame academy and x-factor. These programmes have been going longer than we realise and actually, when us musical theatre folk get thrown into a pop audition, where do we turn for help, whether consciously or not! We know what NOT to do from all the horrendous youtube videos of auditions gone wrong, and we pick up on the good bits from the reality success stories. And yes I hate to admit this revelation. :/
I followed the cycle to abstract conseptualisation by playing through a couple of scenarios in my head first such as 'what if they want to hear a different song', 'what would this band dress like', these sort of ideas that I have to work out before attending. Active experimentation of going to the audition and just giving it a go! (based of course on my previous planning) and finally concrete experience. I have been to a pop audition before and now I have more concrete experience to start the next cycle when it comes about.
It just shows that this cycle isn't only small and compact in terms of thought process, it can go back to things you didn't even realise that you were referencing... like X-factor..

Back in the loop!

Unfortunately this week i've not been very well and work has been eating up all my time. However, i've been keeping my journal, and keeping track of everyone else and I hope you'll forgive me for somewhat backdating my blogs. I've been writing them by hand waiting for a computer opportunity. :/ not ideal, but at least I'l be back where I need to be.