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Honorary Degree/ "a" Level Whatever It's Called These Days,


RichardB

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Jusr realised I, and many others on here, have worked harder on research than we did to obtain a Degree in whatever. I was never interested in history during my time at school but I've devoted an hour or two since then.

An Honory Degree in the History of the old public houses of Sheffield = one each for Ukelele Lady and me; whats yours for ? lol

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Guest TheBotanical

I'm currently doing my degree now at the age of 40. I'm the oldest one the course and feel out of place with the young ones :(

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An Honorary Degree in attempting to play the harmonica like Larry Adler :(

I've tried that!

I can play it, the real thing, a Hohner super chrominica, but NOT, unfortunately, anywhere near as good as Adler.

He was in a league of his own as a harmonica player.

Further, his close friendship with the Gershwins and his love of their music makes his versions of some of their stuff outstanding for pieces played on a harmonica.

He even plays the Rhapsody in Blue on harmonica, - there is a version on his 1994 album The Glory of Gershwin.

A story of Larry Adlers explains how he first met the Gershwins,

He was 12 years old and playing harmonica to crowds waiting to go into thetres in New York.

3 men walked towards him, a big guy in front and 2 "minders" stood slightly behind him, - in Adlers words they looked like "hoods" (New York gangsters)

The big guy stops and says to Adler "Hey, kid, can you play the Rhapsody in Blue?"

Now Adler, not wanting to admit that he couldn't (at that time) play the rhapsody in blue covers himself by saying "No, no I don't like the rhapsody in blue"

To which the big guy turns to one of the 2 men behind him (his minders) and says "Hey George, get a load of that, this kid don't like the rhapsody in blue!"

The 2 men then both smiled at Adler, walked passed him and then into the theatre through the artists entrance.

When Adler looked up to see what was on at the theatre he was playing to the queue at he then realised who he had just spoken to.

The "big guy" was orchestra leader Paul Whiteman, and his 2 "minders" were George and Ira Gershwin!

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I'm currently doing my degree now at the age of 40. I'm the oldest one the course and feel out of place with the young ones :(

It's great that you are doing your degree as a mature student and have an interest in furthering your education. It's never too late to learn.

But how sad that you feel out of place with the young ones.

As a teacher I work with young ones, mostly around 40 younger than me, and I find the input of the A level students into topics often interesting and thought provoking with discussions between us frequently showing that very little has changed in what students do in the last 40 years so that I rarely feel out of place with them.

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I've tried that!

I can play it, the real thing, a Hohner super chrominica, but NOT, unfortunately, anywhere near as good as Adler.

He was in a league of his own as a harmonica player.

Further, his close friendship with the Gershwins and his love of their music makes his versions of some of their stuff outstanding for pieces played on a harmonica.

He even plays the Rhapsody in Blue on harmonica, - there is a version on his 1994 album The Glory of Gershwin.

A story of Larry Adlers explains how he first met the Gershwins,

He was 12 years old and playing harmonica to crowds waiting to go into thetres in New York.

3 men walked towards him, a big guy in front and 2 "minders" stood slightly behind him, - in Adlers words they looked like "hoods" (New York gangsters)

The big guy stops and says to Adler "Hey, kid, can you play the Rhapsody in Blue?"

Now Adler, not wanting to admit that he couldn't (at that time) play the rhapsody in blue covers himself by saying "No, no I don't like the rhapsody in blue"

To which the big guy turns to one of the 2 men behind him (his minders) and says "Hey George, get a load of that, this kid don't like the rhapsody in blue!"

The 2 men then both smiled at Adler, walked passed him and then into the theatre through the artists entrance.

When Adler looked up to see what was on at the theatre he was playing to the queue at he then realised who he had just spoken to.

The "big guy" was orchestra leader Paul Whiteman, and his 2 "minders" were George and Ira Gershwin!

My love / curiosity for the harmonica came from my dad who learned to play in the army and later would entertain us when we were just kids. I never knew much about Larry Adler (great story by the way Dave) except that dad spoke about him in glowing terms.

It's only recently that I took up playing but I it doesn't come easy and I can't play anything yet without using tabs.

I wonder - do you have to be born a musician?

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I wonder - do you have to be born a musician?

I think that to some extent you do.

I've tried for years to learn to play simple tunes on a keyboard. All with no sucess.

I can play the melody with one hand without any problem. I can play the chords with the other hand without any problem.

What I can't do is play the tune and the accompaniment at the same time.

I think it must be the way my brain is wired.

In my working career I was successful at electronic fault-finding but I had to concentrate on one thing at a time. At computer programming which involved multiple variables I failed miserably. In the same way when my wife gives me six things to do, I can only remember to do the first one.

I'll keep on trying when the muse takes me but I'm not holding my breath. :rolleyes:

HD

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I'm currently doing my degree now at the age of 40. I'm the oldest one the course and feel out of place with the young ones :(

I can sympathise to some extent. When I was doing my archaeology at TILL we had some joint lectures with younger undergrads. The archaeology ones were fine, probably from common interest in the subject, and I found them easy to get on with. However, they were in the minority, and the majority of the class were 'wrinklies' like me!

However I also had to do a computer literacy module (despite having spent 15 years as an IT manager, which they deemed 'not relevant'). There were undergrads from various courses there, and most of them spent the lectures playing online games and/or texting their friends, which I found distracting and very annoying.

When I started the course, there was an introductory day for all new TILL students, and we went round the group saying why we'd chosen to study and why our particular course. I was newly retired, and my answer was that I'd spent thirty-odd years going on various work-based courses of varying interest, but this time it was for me, doing a subject I was very interested in.

Have I worked harder on my researches since then? Possibly, it's difficult to tell, I get so absorbed in the subject while being free to go off on interesting tangents, I really don't notice the effort, just the rewards!

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Guest TheBotanical

It's great that you are doing your degree as a mature student and have an interest in furthering your education. It's never too late to learn.

But how sad that you feel out of place with the young ones.

As a teacher I work with young ones, mostly around 40 younger than me, and I find the input of the A level students into topics often interesting and thought provoking with discussions between us frequently showing that very little has changed in what students do in the last 40 years so that I rarely feel out of place with them.

Thanks for the replies. I am finding it fascinating to be honest. After being made unemployed 5 years ago and not finding another job I decided to retrain. That also meant a 2 year access course. The subjects that I thought were my weakest (Britain in the Global Economy) have turned out to be my strongest. You can teach an old dog new tricks after all. lol

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Guest TheBotanical

It's great that you are doing your degree as a mature student and have an interest in furthering your education. It's never too late to learn.

But how sad that you feel out of place with the young ones.

As a teacher I work with young ones, mostly around 40 younger than me, and I find the input of the A level students into topics often interesting and thought provoking with discussions between us frequently showing that very little has changed in what students do in the last 40 years so that I rarely feel out of place with them.

DaveH, I don't suppose you have any shadow teaching/volunteer placements at your school do you? I've tried several so far with no joy for next year.

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My husband has been known to get the third degree now and again - does that count?

Lyn

he he I like your style, nice one Lyn.

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My love / curiosity for the harmonica came from my dad who learned to play in the army and later would entertain us when we were just kids. I never knew much about Larry Adler (great story by the way Dave) except that dad spoke about him in glowing terms.

It's only recently that I took up playing but I it doesn't come easy and I can't play anything yet without using tabs.

I wonder - do you have to be born a musician?

Larry Adler

I found I could read the music on a stave quite easily with a bit of practice, although only for relatively slow pieces.

The hardest bits were playing just a single note, as even if you open your mouth a little too wide, or take your tongue off the mouthpiece, it plays a chord. Although it is difficult to play a dissonant chord because of the wat the notes are laid out too many players just "vamp" and play accompanyments, but to sound like Adler you need to play single clear notes.

The other hard bit was learning to play continuous runs of draw (suck) notes, - on a C based instrument this is D,F,A and B. The harmonica is the only wind instument played by drawing / sucking and although most musicians can blow into an instrument for ages drawing / sucking quickly runs you out of breath by overfilling your lungs. Long legato flowing runs of these notes, with no chance to breath out were particularly difficult.

Then, putting Adler aside and moving into the blues, a different musical genre played on a slightly different instrument, the "blues harp" to play the blues involves a different tuning and note arrangement (Koch tuning instead of Octave tuning), a style of playing called "cross harp" which involves playing in a different key to the one the instrument was designed for so that even more draw / suck notes have to be used, - Why?, because some of the notes are missing and can only be played by "bending" (which itself is quite difficult to do) the next note higher down to approximate the missing note. This invariably leaves that note "flat" and this gives the blues its characteristic sound.

So it may seem a simple instrument that looks easy to play, - but take it from me it isn't easy to play at all.

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I think that to some extent you do.

I've tried for years to learn to play simple tunes on a keyboard. All with no sucess.

I can play the melody with one hand without any problem. I can play the chords with the other hand without any problem.

What I can't do is play the tune and the accompaniment at the same time.

I think it must be the way my brain is wired.

In my working career I was successful at electronic fault-finding but I had to concentrate on one thing at a time. At computer programming which involved multiple variables I failed miserably. In the same way when my wife gives me six things to do, I can only remember to do the first one.

I'll keep on trying when the muse takes me but I'm not holding my breath. :rolleyes:

HD

Are you saying that your brain accepts information through a serial port and not a parallel port as it can only handle one bit at a time? :unsure:

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Guest plain talker

Are you saying that your brain accepts information through a serial port and not a parallel port as it can only handle one bit at a time? :unsure:

I'm from the Homer Simpson school of learning...

I'm convinced that every time I learn something new, it pushes an old bit of knowlege out of my brain!!!

(especially now I'm getting older!)

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DaveH, I don't suppose you have any shadow teaching/volunteer placements at your school do you? I've tried several so far with no joy for next year.

Unfortunately not,

With the current economic climate and falling rolls in secondary schools we are doing well to avoid redundancies at present, mainly due to staff leaving.

The situation is due to get worse over the next 4 years before bottoming out and to make matters worse we have a number of staff out on secondments due to return within a year.

I am one of the older staff now so if I don't get made redundant I may be high on the early retirement / retirement list to ease the situation.

We do still take students on a regular basis but these invariably come from local colleges and universities on official teacher training courses.

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I'm from the Homer Simpson school of learning...

I'm convinced that every time I learn something new, it pushes an old bit of knowlege out of my brain!!!

(especially now I'm getting older!)

If I remember this correctly it goes something like this

HOMER

It's no use Marge, I can't learn any more, my brain is full, every time I learn something new, it pushes an old bit of knowlege out of my brain, like the time I learned how to brew my own beer and I forgot how to drive!!

MARGE

You didn't forget how to drive Homer, you were just drunk!

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Thre is something to the theory, whilst in my early 20's (very early) I came towards the end of my Degree - final trvision involved cramming which I found to mean flicking through the entire course, for each subject - taking that exam, then cramming again which drove out all other knowledge of almost everything till the next exam and so on.

In one ear and out the other - just with a different meaning to the original intent.

I'm from the Homer Simpson school of learning...

I'm convinced that every time I learn something new, it pushes an old bit of knowlege out of my brain!!!

(especially now I'm getting older!)

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Guest TheBotanical

Unfortunately not,

With the current economic climate and falling rolls in secondary schools we are doing well to avoid redundancies at present, mainly due to staff leaving.

The situation is due to get worse over the next 4 years before bottoming out and to make matters worse we have a number of staff out on secondments due to return within a year.

I am one of the older staff now so if I don't get made redundant I may be high on the early retirement / retirement list to ease the situation.

We do still take students on a regular basis but these invariably come from local colleges and universities on official teacher training courses.

Thanks anyway DaveH.

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Are you saying that your brain accepts information through a serial port and not a parallel port as it can only handle one bit at a time? :unsure:

You've got it in one.

My neurons must be arranged that way. However I console myself with the fact that the best CD players use single bit DACS rather than multi-bit ones.

I wouldn't like to swap my 64 bit processor and OS for a 1 bit one though.

I once tried to get an elderly 4 bit microprocessor that controlled a large Asea car-building robot working. When the robot suddenly spun around and almost punched it's way though a 9" brick wall I gave up on that one.

HD

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My brother plays the harmonic also the accordian and a keyboard.

I know it may sound strange but my sister plays the mouth organ very well too.

I know that when she first started learnig she had very sore lips :unsure::wacko: but she persevered.

What people do for fun :)

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You've got it in one.

My neurons must be arranged that way. However I console myself with the fact that the best CD players use single bit DACS rather than multi-bit ones.

I wouldn't like to swap my 64 bit processor and OS for a 1 bit one though.

I once tried to get an elderly 4 bit microprocessor that controlled a large Asea car-building robot working. When the robot suddenly spun around and almost punched it's way though a 9" brick wall I gave up on that one.

HD

There are 11 types of people, those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who couldn't care less.

I think this addition to your signature also just about sums this up.

In binary 11 = (2x1)+(1x1) =3 which is the number of options you give, makes sense to me so I suppose I fit into those who do understand.

But to many the statement 11 = 3 would be nonesense so they dont understand binary

Then again I think the vast majority of people couldn't care less!

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My brother plays the harmonic also the accordian and a keyboard.

I know it may sound strange but my sister plays the mouth organ very well too.

I know that when she first started learnig she had very sore lips :unsure::wacko: but she persevered.

What people do for fun :)

Many years ago ukelele lady I played ukelele (hence my many Formby references)

Interestingly it is now making a come back and becoming a popular instrument again and our music department gets kids playing it.

Recently, while checking my forms end of year reports for spelling mistakes I found out that ukelele is more commonly spelt ukulele these days which looks wrong to me so I checked it out and it more common to see the wrong looking ukulele than the more familiar ukelele, after George played the "uke" not the "uku".

More annoyingly many recent re-releases of Formby's songs have the ukulele spelling!!! :angry:

Oh well, I already have to put up with sulphur being spelt as sulfur!!! :angry:

When I was talking to some of my form about playing the uke, encouraging them to keep it up, we discussed the unusual tuning of the instrument compared to other string instruments, in that the open strings do not just increase in pitch from top to bottom, the 3rd string having the lowest pitch. When I referred to this as the "My Dog Has Fleas" tuning they didn't know what I was on about and found it amusing.

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If I remember rightly from my studies looking at memory. New memories often hook on to memories you already have. So if it is entirely new information as an older student you may find it difficult, but if it is new information that builds on information you already have you will have an advantage over younger inexperienced students.

Consequently I find historical research easy but working out how to use certain parts of my computer and using new software is extremely slow work for me.

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