Study basic music theory and practice theremin at least 30 minutes per day each

It’s time for the (late) End-of-Week Summary! Woo!

4/25/20 (Saturday): Studied 30 minutes. Fully defined natural minor scales and the pattern they follow. Began defining melodic minor scales, but can’t figure out how they’re formed or the pattern. Theremin arrived, and I recorded my baseline scale run for future reference.

4/26/20 (Sunday): Watched YouTube for over 30 minutes for explanations on melodic minor scales, but nothing is clicking regardless of how it’s explained. No progress made on the music theory front.

4/27/20 (Monday): Rest day.

4/28/20 (Tuesday): Studied 35 minutes. Defined the Grand Staff, both clefs, and the positions of all of the notes on both staffs as well as ledger lines in between.

4/29/20 (Wednesday): Studied 35 minutes. Defined note values/durations for whole, half, and quarter notes. Learned the rules for note orientation (direction the stem goes depending on position on the staff). Defined bar lines, measures/bars, and double bars.

4/30/20 (Thursday): Rest day.

5/1/20 (Friday): Rest day.

You might notice that I have a few extra rest days in there. I made some bad choices with staying up late and watching Factorio playthroughs. I’m going to try not to let that happen again because I feel like I’ve lost some steam, but I’m getting back to work today.

4/29/20

Made some excellent discoveries today! I found my old distortion pedal and Minivan Echo delay pedal. The distortion pedal unfortunately no longer works, but the delay does. I threw that onto the Theremin’s output. It sounds pretty neat, and it’s fun to play around with. I feel it’s definitely important to take a step back and just have fun to keep the interest there instead of only grinding out scales for half an hour. You can listen to the comparison with and without the pedal active here.

More importantly, I started using a guitar tuner app on my phone to help me solidify hand positions and help train my ear for what those pitches are supposed to sound like. I think this will be a great tool to develop some precision and accuracy.

4/28/20

My beginners music theory book that my friend recommended came in the mail yesterday, and I began reading it and taking notes today. Very simple stuff - going over what a staff is, what the clefs mean, and where each note’s place is on the staff. I’m very excited, though, even with this basic stuff! I feel like my fire for this project is rekindled after yesterday’s break and a long talk with my buddies about expectations. In fact, I’m so excited about learning this stuff that I’m making flash cards between the customer conversations I get at work! I’ll put one note on a staff per flash card so I can eventually learn note positions without mnemonics because I find using a mnemonic to determine note names to be a bit clumsy. It takes too much time to arrive at the name of the note if I have to go through Every Good Boy Does Fine for every note.

Still have yet to play around with the theremin today, but the day is nowhere close to over yet. I will mess with it either on my lunch break or after work.

4/27/20

Decided to take a day off to recharge my learning batteries. Yesterday was pretty darn frustrating. I think I was just having a rough day; I feel better today, but I don’t want to burn out. Seven days a week might be a bit much, so I’m toning my goals back to be six days a week instead for that day of rest and to let what I’ve learned sink in.

4/25/20

The Theremin has arrived and has been assembled. I’ve recorded a benchmark clip of an attempt to play a scale on it. You can listen here.

I think I performed about as well as expected! I can’t wait to practice more and improve.

4/24/20 Update

The music store emailed me this morning to let me know that the theremin has been restocked early, and they have it in their possession. They will be shipping it to me much sooner than early June! I’ve edited my DK30 and the weekly goals to reflect this.

Get ready for the sound of a dying cat in heat as recreated on theremin, because it will be arriving to your ears relatively soon!

4/24/20

Today was a bit of a disappointing off-day. I didn’t hit snooze, but I did fall back asleep for an extra half hour. I also didn’t get far with learning theory today. I simply can’t find a resource that explains minor scales in a way that I personally understand.

Friday Summary of Progress:

4/23/20: Studied 30 minutes. Defined the musical alphabet. Began the topic of musical scales and got as far as brief description of major, minor, and pentatonic scales. Additional Notes:

• I found myself pausing the stopwatch to get up and gather comfort items. This feels disruptive to my learning process, and I would like to work on reducing that habit.
• I found myself unconsciously navigating to Facebook. Stop that.
• Learning even the most basic ideas in music today inspired me. I want to eventually write out my own composition.

4/24/20: Studied 30 minutes. Fully defined major scales and the pattern they follow.

4/23/20

I have a friend who is a music teacher, and she offered to assist with my DK30! I’m so grateful because self-learning isn’t necessarily a strength of mine. She suggested a book that she uses for her students, so I’ve ordered that and a webcam. Once those arrive, we’re off to the races with music theory lessons! These will be in addition to the 30+ minutes a day of self-study in the morning. I can’t wait to see how I progress in my knowledge, and I’m curious as to how far I will get during this challenge.

I also did my first day of self-study today! I took notes on some of the most basic concepts of music notation and related concepts. Some of the stuff I was aware of, but I’m starting from the very beginning as if I don’t know anything. This way, nothing is missed or assumed! A detailed entry will be coming every Friday of what was covered.

I just found an email from the music shop in my inbox that explained the theremin I ordered won’t be able to be restocked until early June at the earliest or maybe later due to that little pandemic situation. I refuse to be bummed out about it, though! I will be editing my goal to focus on at least 30 minutes of basic music theory a day instead in preparation for its arrival. I honestly should start with music theory regardless, as I don’t even know how to read standard music notation. I planned on playing by ear!

Once the theremin arrives in a month or two, I will still consider that a separate 30 day challenge, and I will record my playing for the next DK30 event.

I woke up at 6:00 this morning without hitting the snooze on my alarm in what feels like the first time in a year. It’s an incredibly small step forward, but for whatever reason, it has me so excited to work on this 30 day project. It makes me feel like I’m doing something to change myself for the better and actively working to improve my life.