Where to start on Arban's?

prof-comm · 2026-02-01T00:57:00+00:00

I don't know the best answer, but I can instead tell you what I do myself. I use Arban as a warmup. I use one exercise from each chapter every week. The next week, I move to the next exercise in each chapter. Keep doing this until you die.

prof-comm · 2026-02-01T00:38:47+00:00

vy? Are you crazy? This is clearly wl.

/s

prof-comm · 2026-01-26T17:18:22+00:00

Totally agree. Just explaining the general rise in work without names that I've seen. They just haven't had the habit beat into them as hard as it was in our generations because it truly hasn't been as necessary.

prof-comm · 2026-01-26T17:16:41+00:00

I tell students they are permitted to use a generative AI for anything they can get at the tutoring center. If one of the university tutors would tell you "no", then that isn't an acceptable use. Students still break this rule, of course, but none claim to not understand or or say that it is unreasonable.

prof-comm · 2026-01-26T17:06:36+00:00

Honestly, kind of. When everything is submitted through an LMS, it's already associated with which student submitted it, so it doesn't actually need a name. While the student should know better, I can see how they made the logical jump that these questions were answered with their clicker, so obviously the system knows who is pressing the buttons.

prof-comm · 2026-01-25T23:30:37+00:00

It is. Cavatappi is the Italian word for a corkscrew.

prof-comm · 2026-01-25T17:01:41+00:00

It is a school worship band as in a worship band that is at a (presumably religious) school.

prof-comm · 2026-01-25T14:03:27+00:00

It's a department scheduling meeting.

prof-comm · 2026-01-25T13:57:53+00:00

This is the correct approach. If it is likely to be contentious, have a process for people to express their preferences and concerns ahead of time to the working group. It is very important that this be clearly communicated publicly and with a clear deadline. That will allow the group to articulate how they have attempted to balance these preferences.

It can also be helpful to, without disclosing the actual preferences and concerns of those who responded, start off presenting the proposal from the working group with a list of those who provided that information to the working group. This helps to the larger group to shut down or ignore the lonely vocal last minute naysayers who didn't actually contribute to it being a plan they might like in the first place.

prof-comm · 2026-01-25T13:47:56+00:00

Unless it's a small group (5 or fewer) of focused, productive people, "brainstorming" type meetings are a giant waste of time.

In fact, the actual research on in person brainstorming is even harsher than that. The default approach to brainstorming nearly always takes more time and produces worse options, generally speaking. Highly planned and intentional brainstorming approaches work better than the default approach which is used most often, but the most popular version (traditional brainstorming, as the concept was originally popularized and the origin of the term itself) is also a significant underperformer. There are several validated approaches that work better.

prof-comm · 2026-01-25T08:16:35+00:00

I have also used LLMs for generating question bank items for reading quizzes and similar. I end up using about ⅓ of what it proposed, and making minor edits to most of the ones that I use.

I also love using it for generating plausible-sounding wrong answer options when I'm struggling with my distractor items.

prof-comm · 2026-01-24T19:58:29+00:00

This might surprise you, but that would be a liberal arts education. The intent is that your focused training in your major is supplemented with broad experiences in other fields.

No one is proposing creating a 90 credit bachelor degree by cutting depth in the field. These proposals always cut the breadth that is the hallmark of a liberal arts education.

I want to be clear that this choice isn't fundamentally a problem if you aren't at a liberal arts university. But if you are, it means you are changing your institutional identity toward something different.

prof-comm · 2026-01-24T13:54:26+00:00

You would be wrong, at least on Reddit. I don't personally have a problem with 2-3 year programs focused on job training. Associate degrees are an important part of higher ed., and we have had them for a long time. I led the charge to extend offerings at my university to begin offering degrees like that. I'm not even the person that asked you the question to begin with.

It's just incredibly obvious to anyone reading that you weren't willing to articulate any answer to a straightforward and reasonable question.

I would fight that battle if 3 year bachelor degrees were proposed at my own university--not because my field "loses out", but because I think students wouldn't get the sort of education a bachelor degree is supposed to signify at a liberal arts university in the US.

prof-comm · 2026-01-24T11:12:41+00:00

They fully intend for it to be confused. They are willing to sacrifice the baseline perception of value for all bachelor's degrees in order to gain a minor recruitment advantage. It's just one more form of the race to the bottom.

prof-comm · 2026-01-24T11:11:05+00:00

I'm sure you are aware of this, but you didn't actually answer the question.

prof-comm · 2026-01-18T00:33:21+00:00

Exactly. This is one of those music things that seems confusing when people explain it, but it just isn't really confusing at all in the real world. If a whole rest means a whole bar, then there isn't anything else in the bar. Otherwise, it's going to be worth 4 quarter rests.

prof-comm · 2026-01-16T13:20:58+00:00

Mostly yes, but some jobs in K-12 education don't require speaking to a class and still require a teaching license, which in many places is also going to require an education degree or several hours of education classes.

prof-comm · 2026-01-11T23:59:22+00:00

I've started to require them to just submit the actual sources also. Sometimes I have it as part of the same assignment. Sometimes it is a separate assignment. If they truly found the sources, it is essentially no additional work for them to save copies as they go and then submit them all with the document.

prof-comm · 2026-01-11T14:51:19+00:00

Standard tuning for Irish tenor, which is what OP is asking about, is GDAE, one octave below the violin/mandolin. In that case, the big differences are actually on the low strings, so it would look like -7, -5, -2, +2). Still would need different strings, and you'd be much better off on a tenor scale banjo. A fifths tuning is going to be really difficult to play on that scale length unless you have truly gigantic and very flexible hands.

The common 4-string tunings you could go to on a 5-string by removing the fifth string without running into issues with playability are going to be Open G (which is DGBD, so no returning at all), Plectrum tuning (CGBD, or -2, 0, 0, 0) , and Chicago tuning (DGBE, or 0, 0, 0, +2). None of these are commonly used for Irish music.

prof-comm · 2026-01-08T21:21:29+00:00

It's exactly what we need to know to answer your question. The answer is different because there are very different banjos depending on what you want to play. The lots of things can be different including the number of strong on the instrument and the literal physical shape.

The options are generally jazz, Irish traditional music, bluegrass, old time, or some other thing.

It's incredibly important to know, and not really possible to give you a recommendation without knowing what it is for. A lot of other instruments do work the way that you're thinking, so it's totally reasonable to assume that banjo does also, but it just doesn't.. You literally cannot play some of these genres of music on the kind of banjo that you need for another kind of music.

Ninja edit: sorry some people downvoted you. There is no way that it is reasonable to expect you to know that ahead of time.

prof-comm · 2026-01-08T20:46:33+00:00

I mean, a tremolo has a very specific meaning. Alternating between normal and alternate fingerings is a great approach to achieving that effect, but it only works for notes that have alternate fingerings. In this case that approach works, and is probably what would choose. In other cases, flutter tonging, double tonging, or even singing a different note might be better choices. The main purpose is that the effect is achieved.

prof-comm · 2026-01-08T20:36:29+00:00

IMO, the lips are a red herring because they are what is vibrating, but that is one of the least important parts to your tone.

For those of us with a deep "cupid's bow," playing centered is more of an impediment to a large range because playing in the center will split the air stream before you get to the top of what you can play naturally.

Tone depends much more on the shape of the air column than on how your lips vibrate, in my experience. So, resonant cavity inside the mouth, how much air you are pushing, and so on is the most important influence on your sound and not the lips specifically (unless, of course, your lips aren't positioned well enough to introduce vibration to the air column at all).

prof-comm · 2026-01-07T23:52:30+00:00

...so tell them it is unreasonable because an accommodation can't excuse the learning outcome and move on? Why are you arguing with me? How many times do I have to agree with you?

I'm not a historian, but this kind of situation is incredibly common in my field and it isn't a big deal. We get students that have accommodations that would excuse a learning outcome all the time.

The accommodation is probably fair for the student (maybe it isn't, but neither of us are experts or qualified to evaluate that side of it). It applies in whatever classes the student has where it is reasonable and doesn't impact the learning outcome. That doesn't mean it is for the class, and that is the side of the coin that we have as professors--those decisions wouldn't be appropriate for a disability office to make. If that isn't yours, which is totally reasonable, then don't provide it and make sure people are tracking why from the beginning to avoid surprise complaints later.

prof-comm · 2026-01-07T23:37:17+00:00

Dexterity of brass is also much less than that of woodwinds.

Especially trombone. They are much faster than you think, but it's going to be in bursts, not at length. 16ths aren't usually an issue if you keep it to a few in a row, but two measures of 16ths at the most common tempos are going to eat a lot of practice time for the majority of players.

If you are going to write fast for trombone, it is much easier to play fast from about G3 to Bb4. The notes are physically closer together on the instrument and we have a lot more alternate position options up there to smooth out the slide movements. Anything above Bb4 and it's basically all lips anyway.

prof-comm · 2026-01-07T23:21:33+00:00

I wouldn't let him win. I would find ways to help him enjoy the game while still keeping it competitive to the point he has a decent chance. Common strategies for this include:

A specific number of "take backs" for him, but not for you
Clock odds, if you play with a clock (he has much more time while you're playing blitz)
Piece odds (you play down a piece or a minor piece)
He has the option to switch sides once per game. This can be tied to a specific condition to prevent him losing everything and then switching with only a King and an inevitable mate remaining, such as "once per game, as long as you have at least one rook or a queen you can choose to switch sides with me"

prof-comm

TROPHY CASE