In-depth Blog Post #2
Welcome back to my in-depth blog post!
Since my previous blog post, I was sadly not able to gain as much progress as I expected. I called my mentor, Tiffany Su, and talked about scheduling specific meeting times and the next steps. There were a few challenges in setting a specific time we can both agree on, hence the chapter in the book “How to agree”. My mentor and I were both in “special circumstances” with “special values”. Tiffany was extremely busy with her schoolwork due to her exam week slowly approaching. And because her values prioritize her school grades and education, it was quite difficult to set up a meeting time. On the other hand, even if I was busy with my schoolwork and final science papers, because in-depth is also a part of my schoolwork, it was still on my priority list. These special situations and special values have interfered with the mutual agreement for a meeting time. I acknowledged the special situation that Tiffany was in, while also reminding her of the special situation that I am in. Eventually, my mentor was able to make some time for me over the weekend to meet. My mentor and I are now meeting every week on Sundays for an hour. So far, we only had two meetings; however, now that we have a scheduled time we both agreed on, we will have consecutive meetings, developing the process further, unless interrupted by other special circumstances.
Moreover, while my mentor got the schedule sorted out, she sent me exercises to practice my sight-reading and fingering prior to the meetings. I am focusing specifically on the bass clef since I am familiar with sight-reading the notes on the treble clef, but not so much with the bass clef. I am using an online website called, https://www.pianoscales.org/ to find practice materials focusing on the bass clef or just the scales in general. This website provides printable materials and fingering numbers, making it easy for beginners to understand and play. To add on, Tiffany sent me additional materials and taught me some songs and basic theory via zoom. (See photos and videos below)
My mentor has also provided me with this photo:
Screenshot of the Meeting (Tiffany did not want to be a part of the screenshot):
Tiffany and I have also been talking a bit about the final project and what our visions are regarding the final showcase of the project. I believe that Tiffany wants to have a final project with some modern pop songs. I may not have the same music preference as my mentor, so I was apprehensive and anxious about our differing views on each other’s vision for the final project. However, after reading the chapter in the book about “how to differ and disagree”, I learned that I can politely and gently disagree with what my mentor likes and insert my opinions on my music preference. I also realized that disagreeing is not the idea of someone else being wrong or right, but it is the idea of understanding each other’s different points of view. I am quite pleased to have a mentor who has a different point of view as I can widen my views on different kinds of music. In the future, I plan to be more open about having diverse views; I will learn, listen and try different things from my mentor. I may even be able to find a new preference through this experience. Another strategy I plan to use when encountering different opinions is finding the middle point where we can both agree to a certain level. For example, if my mentor wants me to learn a specific song when I want to play another type of song, we can either find a different song that we both enjoy teaching and playing, or play one and the other song afterwards. This allows both of us to be happy about the decision.
Overall, Tiffany and I can both agree that our mentorship is off to a great start. Although the progress of the actual project is not exactly where I expected it to be, I am positive that the next time you read my blog post I will have developed my piano skills much more.
Thank you for reading and see you next time! 🙂