So I’ve arrived at the end of the first week of my study. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t difficult to stay on task. Sometimes there’s so much else to do (I could totally clean my room right now instead of writing this blog post…). Sometimes I find myself gripped by the ennui which Botton warned us about. It’s a struggle, but it wouldn’t really be any fun if it wasn’t. I’ll supply some thought as to how I can better focus myself to this study at the end of this blog post, but, for now, I’ll write a bit about what I’ve learned.

During the first week of my study I’ve read Part I of Helmholtz’s On the Sensations of Tone – As a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music. I was quickly enraptured by the text, and dug into the reading, but soon found the content to be a little overwhelming. In the introduction, Helmholtz won me over by explaining the reason for his research and writing. His goal was to unite two schools of thought: “physical and physiological acoustics” and “musical science and esthetics” (Helmholtz 1). This matched descriptions of the book which also promised a comprehensive, yet easy to grasp, understanding of sound from a scientific point of view. The early material consisted of describing how sound works. It was detailed enough that I could easily follow it, and it cast new light on subjects which were already familiar to me. However, I soon lost myself in the rapid current of new information that Helmholtz began introducing. I found myself adrift, reading about descriptions of experiments which I didn’t fully comprehend and hoping to find paragraphs or sentences which could tie together the different terms and ideas that were being developed. Though I understand, and greatly admire, the extensiveness of Helmholtz’s research, I couldn’t retain or connect to some of the stuff he was throwing at me. His analysis of the human ear, for example, was something that I was initially interested in learning about, but the content was so dense that most of it went over my head.

My solution was to find supplemental sources which provided similar information in a more readily digestible form. These sources gave me a means to get my head around the depth of knowledge Helmholtz was throwing at me.

The above example helped me immensely by affording a moving visual representation of the inner workings of the ear. Though Helmholtz undoubtedly goes into more depth, the video provides information in simpler terms which I can retain more easily. I also found it helpful to perform the experiments that Helmholtz described or, if they were too complex, at least look up video demonstrations. For example, after reading about sympathetic resonance, I sung a D note into the hollow of my acoustic guitar. When I stopped singing I found that the D string was vibrating. Another source, HyperPhysics, has information on everything I wanted to learn about and more.

Part II of On the Sensations of Tone looks like it will be easier for me to connect to as it addresses topics more musical in nature. I will, however, look for other sources whenever I encounter something I don’t understand so that I can connect with and fully appreciate what Helmholtz has to teach me.

As I move forward with my study, there are a few other things I’d like to keep in mind. The first is that I should better maintain my personal journal. Writing this blog post has helped me touch down and grasp what it is I’ve been doing so far. I’ve written down my thoughts a few times, but I think it would help me more to make it a regular, perhaps daily, routine. I’ve also found that I’ve been putting my goals too high, and the result is that I’ll burn myself out before I reach my goal. Rather than set a huge list of daily goals, I’m going to try to start thinking more in terms of weeks. In this way I’ll spread out my workload so that things like the reading will be easier to get through, and I’ll have more time and energy for daily things like practicing music or writing in my journal. Lastly, I’ve realized I don’t have a full schedule for my study up (woops). I have a draft right now which I’ve been agonizing over. I plan on finishing and posting that tomorrow. My hope is that it will act as a guide I can follow for the rest of this study.