WP#6 Wrap Up

This week I continued working on some hand separation exercises. There wasn't much time devoted to it, but what I did do was surprisingly effective. I'm really encouraged and will keep working on this.

Weekly Project #6: Right and left hand separation continued

Last week I started working on one of my pet peeves, my inability to attain the dual processing that is required to play piano or accordion (or some other similar instrument).

I'm glad I did! I've made some progress. But I got sick and wasn't able to dedicate a week to it, so I'm extending the project into this week. Sicker than a dog right now -- so sad it's Cristmas. But here I am. This will be a slow week as well because of this flu, but I hope to get in as much time this way that I would have if I had a full week.

This time I want to work on more deliberate practices. Coming up with good exercises then doing to a metronome for a set length of time.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
I continued some exercises on the accordion as well as keyboard and with body patting. Some good progress, but being sick I didn't really get to focus much.

WP#5 Wrap Up

Great project to work on but it was shortchanged. I had a performance on Friday, then got sick on Saturday.

So, I'm going to continue this project into next week - with a few tweeks.

Weekly Project #5: Right and Left Hand Separation

This is a biggie for me. As an adult learner, I don't have the benefit of a young, plastic brain to have learned the "dual processing" that is achieved when a young person becomes proficient on the piano.

I'm having problems holding down a simple rhythmic or bass pattern in the left hand and then playing something entirely different like a melody in the right. This is bugging me and I want to hack my brain and fix it!

Tuesday:
For the last few days I've been trying to figure out what my brain is doing. I've been experimenting with body rhythms because I wonder if starting out on the keyboard to try to get to the heart of this problem, is better addressed off the keyboard. Here's what I've been experimenting with. I stand up, drop my arms to my side and start patting my left thigh with my left hand. I want to keep a steady rhythm going: pat, pat, pat, pat - 1, 2, 3, 4. Once I get that going, the idea is now to do something, anything, while keeping that steady rhythm going on the left. I've tried reading out loud, writing something with my right hand, using my right hand fingers to thump on a table to keep in time or out of time.

I've actually noticed I'm getting better at this with just a few days practice!

Wednesday, Thursday:
I moved onto the keyboard and the accordion, coming up with exercises that work my hand independence. Really hard. It's difficult to image holding down a rhythm or bass line in my left hand and then playing improvisational in my right hand, but I'm going to keep going. I just start out really slow then gradually speed up. But I have to learn to be patient. I'm not.

WP#4 Wrap Up

This week I split my efforts between two musical pursuits: practicing for a performance and practicing chord inversions on my accordion keyboard.

I made a mistake at the performance when I ditched one of the songs I had practiced and decided at the last minute to do a song that I hadn't practiced. Guess what. Didn't go great. I mangled it. The other song which was actually harder went well.

I also practiced for keyboard knowledge by working on chord inversions. These I have to do by feel because it's awkward to see the keyboard on accordions, unlike piano players. I worked on the C Major triad. As I worked up the keyboard, I made the transition, then called out the order bottom to top: 1, 3, 5, then 3, 5, 1, then 5, 1, 3.

I spent the vast majority of my time on the performance pieces, very little on the inversions, which make me wonder if splitting a project like this is very effective.

Weekly Project #4: Chord Inversions And A Performance

This week's project is of a musical nature. And it has two parts, somewhat unrelated.





First, I'm signing up for an open mic performance (two songs) this coming Thursday evening. I'm performing these on my digital accordion. One of the songs is an instrumental, the other is a vocal. Secondly, I want to practice playing chord inversions on the accordion keyboard.

Let me explain. I have a digital accordion. It is a beast of an instrument. It is large, heavy, difficult to understand, and capable of a wide range of musical expression. I don't want to go into it's capabilities here, but I do want to learn to play it better. Sometimes I will make myself sign up for an open mic to propel my preparation and learning. I know I'm going to have to work and learn if I'm going to be performing in front of an audience.

I didn't want to make the whole week's project into just the performance so I have combined it with some exercises that are somewhat complimentary to the performance, and are skills I know I need to work on anyway, in this case chord inversions.

The crazy thing about an accordion is that it is played largely by feel. You just can't see the keyboard very well, which is played by the right hand, and not the left hand at all. So you really need to learn the keyboard by feel. This is very different to the piano where your hands are right in front of you. Most pianists just stare at their hands as they play, while accordionists generally are looking elsewhere. In order to get to know the keyboard better, I want to start by learning the C major triad inversions up and down the keyboard without looking.

Tuesday:
I've been working more on the performance songs than the chord inversions - but, understandably, they're more critical.  I set up a basic rhythm track for both of them to loop, gradually increasing the tempo. I'm going to try this as an experimental practice method to see if it increases my ability to learn and retain. I have no way of testing this that I know of so I'm just going to go with instinct as to it's effectiveness. Creating the rhythm track for the instrumental was more challenging since it is a free tempo song, meaning it doesn't have a set tempo. It slows and speeds up as I feel it. Still, I think practicing to a set tempo is good for me.

Friday:
Last night's performance was a bit disappointing for me. I decided to change one of the songs at the last minute. That was a mistake. I hadn't practiced it, and in front of people with no warm up, kind of mangled it. Lesson learned. The other song I had practiced, which was harder, went fine.

I'll spend the rest of my time on this project working on the chord inversions.

WP#3 Wrap Up

I tried taking on a rewiring project for my old RV. It appears I bit off more than I could chew for my experience level and the time I had. The weather was a partial factor. Anyway, it's far from done. I did learn a lot though and I'm keen to continue 'cause 'lectricity is fun!

Here's what I did accomplish:

• read two different books on 12 volt electronics
• drew several wiring diagrams
• ordered and bought a lot of electrical components from online and local sources
• completed the on/off switch to connect one of the house batteries to the chassis battery allowing charging of that battery by the alternator (photo below)
• did some carpentry to allow for separation of batteries from the charger and a mounting platform for the other 2 switches
• installed 3 out of 6 (or so) LED lights in the coach, replacing the old incandescent units and verified they are working
• created an electrical requirement worksheet

Switch #3: connects house battery to chassis battery via on/off switch

What remains:

• more LED lights
• bring in the other house battery
• mount the charger and the 2 switches 
• wire them up properly
• remove old fuse box and replace with the new fuse system
• mount negative buss bar and wire it
• stretch new thicker wire from the battery bank under the coach and up to the new fuse box
• cut out and mount the USB socket panel, connect to fuse box
• remove the old refrigerator  and a new 12 volt model adding 12V and 120V service
• extend 120V line to the new charger (next to fridge)

Down the road:

• solar!

So, that's it! It was fun and instructional, but time to move on to the next project.

Weekly Project #3 (Part One): Rewire the Beaver.

For this week's project I'm going to begin rewiring the Beaver! The Beaver is my 1973 Dodge RV. It is my mobile hovel away from the hovel. I have never done anything like this before and I'm looking forward to whacking on this thing.

The wiring is old and needs an upgrade.  I'm going to do this in two parts because I will be removing some major appliances I can't use, which will require renovations I can better do when it's warmer, i.e. springtime. That will be the second part of the rewire. First I'm going to take a good look at what is there and make a plan including drawing up a wiring diagram. I have already ordered most of the parts I think I'll need, and I bought a couple of 12 volt books that I've been perusing.

Monday:
I spent some time looking around at the main parts of the wiring system trying to understand what was going on. I thought about relocating the house battery to a different place.  I did some more reading in the 12 volt book. Then I took a whack at a wiring diagram:

First shot at a wiring diagram

Tuesday:
Problems. After going online to an RV forum I realized I can't relocate the battery without other problems (like poisonous gas and explosions). I took more things apart and crawled underneath the Beaver to trace wires. I also received the new converter/charger and I'm trying to figure out how it will fit into the system.  Things are getting more complicated and I'm a little worried about having enough time to do what I wanted this week, especially since it's Winter and cold!

Wednesday:
Came up with a plan after looking closer at everything. It will require more work than I thought including some carpentry and three battery switches and running much thicker gauge wire from the battery bay to the power center on the other side of the coach. I wired up the USB socket panel and tested it with a 9 volt battery. Looks like it works!

Battery bay will contain 2 batteries 

New electrical components 

Wired up socket panel

Thursday:
I refined the design and got out my saw to do some carpentry. I built a plywood partition in the battery bay to separate the batteries from the charger. A spark from the charger could ignite battery gases so they should be in different compartments. I'm also going to mount one or two of the switches on the partition.

Friday:
I have three batteries I want to accommodate in the Beaver (it came with one). One of them is the chassis or starting battery. The other two are house batteries meaning they are used for 12 volt lights and appliances in the coach. Normally the two house batteries would be wired together in parallel but that requires they be of the same type, age and model. Mine are are not the same so I am going to wire them so that I can use them separately with a switch. When one is low I can just switch over to the other. The same thing works in charging -- one at a time. On top of that there is an existing wire running from the alternator to the battery bay allowing the house battery to be charged by the alternator when the motor is running. The problem is that with new battery types, this is no longer a good thing without some more hardware to manage the charging process. I don't want to add that hardware, but I am going to keep that wire in place and put a manual switch on it, which complicates things a bit.  So I have three batteries and three manual switches to wire up. I think it should look like this:

Saturday:
I bought some more electrical components (wire) online after looking at my diagrams, then went to several local hardware stores for smaller hardware. I think I have everything now I need but am out of time. Weather has been a factor. It's been too cold to get the work done that was needed. Or, I'm just a wimp. Also, I've never done anything like this so I've been moving slowly trying to figure what I need to do to get to where I want. I don't know how much I can get done tomorrow but either way it's a good start.

WP#2 Wrap-up

For this week's project I read 3 books and enjoyed them all.

When Breath Becomes Air is an emotional and moving memoir by a highly recognized Stanford neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi, who becomes sick with lung cancer and struggles with meaning in his last days of life. It was a beautiful, haunting, indispensable and compelling read. I say indispensable because I think we could all benefit from asking this question of ourselves: what is truly meaningful and worth living for? This book takes that on and more, and made me think a lot about this. I'm sure I will keep pondering the central message of this book, and for that I'm very grateful.

The Happiness Of Pursuit is a fun read by Chris Guillebeau about his quest to travel to every country in the world and great stories from scores of other people who had big, difficult quests in their lives. It is a book about big dreams and motivations to overcome hurdles. It also contains a lot of practical advice for folks of his ilk. It made me think about big lifetime goals and the value of commitment.

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool, is about smashing the myths surrounding high achievers and the research behind all the conclusions. I think this work is a critically important for anyone interested in education, skill development and the realized aspiration of high achievement. It is absolutely going to inform my learning and development goals from here going forward.