Reflection Chapter 3

In the past when I have shared creative ideas or creations with people they either enjoy the idea and encourage the behavior or the creative thought or creation gets lost in translation and as the creator I’m left defending the importance of the thing created or simply enjoying it alone.

I have shared creative writings to music when I was younger at my church. At the time I was playing guitar more frequently and enjoyed the freedom that came with expressing myself on a new instrument. The music I was writing was not for the people I was performing for but it was an expression of my own beliefs and understanding of the ideas that we shared as a community. This was less musically creative and more poetically creative but the final product required both.

When I shared the music with my community it was interesting to see how people did not seem to understand my thoughts as well as I did. They made no comment to the music itself and simply encouraged the attempt which encouraged me to continue pursuing this type of creativity and even set motion to me getting a music degree to further my understanding of the sound I could use to create with.

Students use internet media: blogs, social networking sites and others to express themselves. The popularity of these types of expression are often times narrowed down simply into expression through word or photos. Students are not allowed to easily express themselves through music because it seems that expression on the internet is limited to these two concepts unless you are famous. Students need to be taught that a level of musical creativity can be done using technology and shared to their blogs, social sites and media messages. Giving students a musical outlet that is directly related to how they already communicate may increase their engagement and in turn increase their achievement in an area that they may have no idea they could succeed in.