TEC154 2010S, Class 18: Musical Instruments and Notation (Discussion)

Overview:
* Design notation.
* Share notation.
* Perform.

Admin:
* Breakfast! (More or less)
* Next week: Review session Monday, Exams Wednesday and Friday.
* I will not be here to proctor the exams.
* Week eight: Donald Norman's The Design of Everyday Things.
* We'll start class with a discussion of the recent bias incident on campus.

Recent Bias Incident
* [Some parts of discussion elided]
* Sam says, "My fantasy is that Grinnell is a place in which we care for
  and think about each other.  I know others feel the same way.  When
  people at Grinnell get hurt in their normal course of the day, we owe 
  it to owerselves to talk about it as part of the normal course of the
  day, and not just at 'special sessions'."
* Sam says, "At times, people often feel 'It's just words; words should
  not hurt.'  Unfortunately, words can hurt (and there's even evidence
  that words of bias affect people's performance in class).  Whether or
  not one things that words should hurt, one should do their best to
  help others who feel that they HAVE been hurt."
* Sam says, "I'm not very good at leading discussions about these kinds
  of things."

Exercise, Part One
* Get into groups of size four.
* Pick some object that you could use as an instrument (spoons, a cereal
  box, etc.).
* Find four sounds you can make on your instrument.
* Design a notation for that instrument.
* Compose a piece.
* Note: The instruments were:
  * Soda can
  * Spiral bound notebook with pencil
    + One player plays the spiral bound
    + One player plays by tapping (only one sound)
  * Large cereal box
  * Cup with cereal in it
  * The Cereal Quartet: A four-piece
    + Two bowls
    + Two spoons
    + Box of cereal
    + Something else that Sam forgets

Exercise, Part Two
* Teach someone else your notation. 
  * Two members of each group serve as trainers.
  * Two members of each group move to another group and get trained.

Exercise, Part Three
* Perform!

Why did we do this?
* A bit of fun.
* A chance to experience technology "Hands on"
* A chance to experiment with Vetter's hypothesis that "The instrument
  maker must use the materials of his/her surroundings."
* A chance to explore the issue of notation
  * Discussed for music
  * Discussed for language
  * And we observed both symbolic and abstract notations