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Week 2: Learning how to tune (Post 3)

Welcome back to another learning adventure! Today I’m back with a quick summary of what I did today. Nothing too special just failed a practice exam and learned how to tune... so let’s get into it!

Week 2

I opened up Coursera and jumped right into week 2 (Berklee College of Music, n.d.a).

String Names and Numbers

The first module in the week was: String Names and Numbers. There was only one teaching video in this module followed by a quiz. The transition between learning the strings and being quizzed on them was too short for me. I failed it - and received no explanation why, or any review of what I’d gotten wrong. I can see some needs for improvement here. Without an explanation of why I got something wrong, I had no direction on how to improve or learn the necessary knowledge. Admittedly, I took a long break after this and may not have returned had this not been an official assignment.

Tuning Your Guitar

The teaching videos in this module were significant. The instructor discussed how to tune the guitar with a tuner, by matching, and with harmonics. I thought the videos were well done. At multiple points, there were split screens on the video so that we could see the instructor adjusting the tuning pegs and seeing the adjustment on the tuner (Figure 1).

Figure 1
Teaching video (Berklee College of Music, n.d.c) 

Something that was really neat was that they linked to a free tuner directly in the course which is a great use of tools (Figure 2)! My browser didn’t support it so I had to find another one online (Figure 3) but the intention was there!

Figure 2
Online Guitar Tuner from Berklee Online (Berklee College of Music, n.d.b) 

Figure 3
Online Guitar Tuner (Tuner-Online.com, 2020)

Improvements

There is a definite lack of reinforcement in the practice activities and the quizzes. Without a dedicated instructor, there is no way to ask for help. Learning within a MOOC is fascinating because it definitely feels like the learner and the instructor are isolated from each other.
To improve the success rate in the formative exercises, I would definitely add some reinforcement and explain why the learner got something wrong. I went back and did the test again and sat at my piano with my fingers on the keys to remind myself of the notes (cheating or industrious? šŸ™ˆ). I can’t imagine how someone else would learn it! Also, this is week 2... learners are still budding and solidifying the basics - this is the time to support the learners with reinforcement!

Conclusion

I have mixed feelings about this practice session. Tuning is an extremely important part of learning how to play an instrument. This is an introductory course and I think they went a little too far in-depth with tuning. Most of the methods assume that the learner has a trained ear and can hear a higher or lower pitch. This is a dangerous assumption. Teaching how to tune using a tuner with a microphone that adjusts as you tune would be a good tool to teach at this level. Anyway, that was the end of my practice session today (Figure 4)! Until next time!

Figure 4
Finishing up week 2



References:
Berklee College of Music. (n.d.a) Guitar for Beginners. Coursera. https://www.coursera.org/learn/guitar/home/info

 Berklee College of Music. (n.d.b) Guitar for Beginners: Online Guitar Tuner from Berklee Online [Webpage]. Coursera. https://online.berklee.edu/guitar-tuner/?pid=8102&utm_source=coursera&utm_medium=mooc&utm_campaign=bol-gen-mooc-coursera-incourse-links

 Berklee College of Music. (n.d.c) Guitar for Beginners: Tuning Your Guitar with a Tuner [Video]. Coursera. https://www.coursera.org/learn/guitar/lecture/lOF1Y/tuning-your-guitar-with-a-tuner

 Tuner-Online.com. (2020) Online Guitar Tuner [Webpage]. Tuner-Online.com. https://tuner-online.com/

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