Starting a musical journey, such as the one we are taking as teacher candidates, can be both exciting and a little nerve wracking. Having to learn all of these musical concepts, apply them in practice, and learn a new instrument, is a lot to take in.

Fortunately for me, I played the B♭ clarinet for about 5 years, and the bass clarinet for about 2 years, during elementary and middle school. I even had my very own white B♭ clarinet! Unfortunately, I have not played within the past 15 years. This means that much of the musical concepts that we’ll be covering is in my brain somewhere, it’s just buried deep in a dusty corner in the back of my mind.

My first goal for this term is to remember how to read a sheet of music. Some terms jumped out to me right away, such as crescendo or staccato, while some took a moment to resurface. I even felt a little embarrassed by myself when we were shown a few measures with notes, and I could not remember the names of each of the notes. It was not until Dr. Prest provided us with a mnemonic to remember the notes that I began to recall them all.

I don’t remember the exact mnemonic that Dr. Prest gave us, but I was able to remember the one that I learned as a child. It goes like this, “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge”. 

Thinking about it now, this is not a mnemonic that I would use to teach students today. I would find or develop a mnemonic that is gender neutral or refers to objects rather than people. 

After a quick Google search, I found other useful mnemonics such as:

               and

Another challenge that I encountered is learning the ukulele. My experience with woodwind instruments is moderate, but my experience with string instruments is non-existent. Even the concept of tuning every time I play is odd, and so far my experience with tuning has not been fun!

The ukulele that I am renting was originally tuned to the key of D. Not long after I picked it up I noticed that two of the strings were sounding very similar and none of them really sounded like they should, as demonstrated by the tuner on MusicPlayOnline. I then decided to set out and download a tuner to my phone. I downloaded a few that were “free”, but after I used them to tune once they then required me to pay a subscription fee. I decided to try other options. I found a few others, but either they were free for the first week, or they only tuned to the key of C. I would have gone to UVic to have my ukulele tuned, but I often am unable to make it there when the music department is open due to class times and my work hours. It also isn’t realistic as the ukulele requires frequent tuning.

After much frustration with tuning I decided to simply tune my ukulele to the key of C. I was happy with my decision as I was able to easily tune it, and when we had our like-instrument peer session within EDCI 306A I discovered that everyone else’s ukuleles were also tuned to the key of C. This will make it easier for future discussions and peer sessions.

Overall my musical journey within EDCI 306A has been fun and positive! I look forward to what comes next, and to my ukulele-learning journey! 

Next time, we’ll see if I can demonstrate these odd things called “chords”!