Reflection of Make Cycle Three

This make was very different from my first two, and at first I had trouble appreciating it as much. It wasn't as artistic as my first or magnificent as my musical composition, but lacy said something too me that changed my point of view. She made a comment that made me realize, not every make is going to be the same because each one is a different learning experience and results in a unique presentation that may resonate more with certain people than others.

The make itself was pretty tough to actually build. My topic was the research findings at Heart Math laboratories which were mostly intangible concepts about electromagnetic fields. Concepts that require a bit more consideration when being expressed in a material form. I started with the drawing above and proceeded to choose a medium through which to build it in three dimensions. After much pondering I decided to go with play dough as it is easy to mold and comes in many colors, which would be good for showing the affected brain-heart systems. In  the end, i feel that even though this was not my favorite make, i still enjoyed the process and toy hack idea.

Meta-Blog Post

Reflecting on my reflections and posts so far in this class i have determined how I narrate myself. I have noticed that every post  I have written, if isolated by it's self, pretty much describes a mini journey of myself towards a scientific discovery or realization. I think this method only works if handled the write way, that is also trying to include the progression and evolution of my thought processes through each journey so that my actions can be traced back to and explained by what dwells inside of me. some examples of this were when i wrote about my make cycle two and narrated my thoughts during song composition "I would then ask myself, what chord or intervals make me feel like i am in danger?" and "This leads me to the realization that no matter what we use to get closer to the truth, be it an apparatus or fabrication of materials or whatever, the origin of these powerful ways to the truth is within us". I feel this is an accurate way to narrate my scientific journey overall as I travel through life by arranging each re-telling of my experiences as a story that follows my thoughts and resulting actions.

Make Cycle 2

When I heard that we would be starting make cycle 2 I was initially intimidated. I used drawing and visuals as the medium for my last make and, not wanting to repeat this, I was not sure what my next medium would be. After a couple hours of deep thought I realized that I could use music. My Inspiration when i began playing in 2011 is an ukulele player named Jake Shimabukuro. This virtuoso in recent years has pushed the instrument to it's limit and made it very popular with many types of audiences and in many different genres. I wanted to somewhat imitate his format for performing in concerts, which is this; He is as much of a story teller as a musician. Most of the time before he plays a song he explains its origins and reasons for being composed, so that even though it has no words, it can still connect with people. Every time Jake writes a song he tries to base it off of an underlying idea like a girl he used to know from high school or only using three of the four strings and still have a beautiful piece. I wanted to essentially do the same thing with my scientific writing journey so far in English 1103.
It was tough at first trying to represent certain parts of my journey through musical devices and techniques, and in the end may not have worked out so well, but i feel it was a good learning experience at least for expressing my ideas through music. The song went through a lot of phases and changes. I wrote it by basically thinking about something in my one pagers like the danger of science. I would then ask myself, what chord or intervals make me feel like i am in danger? After finding certain licks and progressions that conveyed the right feeling I pieced them together to make each section. The hardest part of composing was transitioning between section because usually a song embodies one idea but this one embodied four very different ideas so I had to find the right transitions that made the song flow and somewhat pleasing to the ear.

Here is a link to the video: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/106906463885989989488/albums/5929228898164358001/5929228897181941330?sqi=102837263751899366528&sqsi=245dcc4b-1452-4a6d-ac70-82db3db8f742&pid=5929228897181941330&oid=106906463885989989488

My one pagers are listed below(at least the last three that were digital) Soon to be added.