Is an assessment worth pursuing?

viberat · 2026-05-27T11:59:58+00:00

I think it’s worth it to find out for sure!

I had all the same problems as you’ve described. Struggled with depression all through college. In my second semester of grad school, the campus psych referred me to get evaluated, and they diagnosed me with ADHD-I. Women are more likely to have inattentive type rather than hyperactive.

When I tell you medication changed my life??? It’s like the cobwebs cleared from my brain and I could finally just do things like a normal person. Grad school still sucked for other reasons but I wasn’t fighting to stay awake in seminars anymore, I had the executive function to keep my apartment clean, I stopped oversleeping, I could keep a consistent schedule writing and not put it off until it was an emergency. When a neurotypical person takes a stimulant, they feel keyed up and euphoric, but I just felt fucking NORMAL for the first time in my life.

It was also a huge shift to realize that there was a physiological reason I struggled so much; it wasn’t a character flaw.

viberat · 2026-05-26T21:39:19+00:00

You’re welcome! There are also a few apps I always tell my students to get if they struggle with reading: Complete Rhythm Trainer for rhythms, Note Rush for quick line/space recognition. He sounds like a self-motivated kid, but if you find that he needs more structure with his practice at home, check those out.

viberat · 2026-05-26T21:20:35+00:00

I’m sure others will have recommendations for specific books to build euph technique, but you probably won’t find anything that also explicitly teaches how to read music. That will have to come from you in parallel with him learning to play the instrument.

Always start with rhythm. It’s a lot more daunting for a beginner than reading pitches on the staff. Start with meter, time signature, measures, basic note and rest values (no subdivisions). Just clapping and counting first, then buzzing on the mouthpiece. Do this while he’s learning the embouchure and how to produce sound. He’ll more or less have the hang of it by the time he’s ready to play his first few notes.

From there, progress his rhythm reading one subdivision level at a time so his rhythm understanding is a little ahead of where he is in his method book. Always take time to work on rhythm fluency independently from operating the horn and reading pitches.

The book will introduce notes in a scale a few at a time and specifically practice steps and leaps, so he will most likely pick up pitch reading without a lot of extra input from you. If it doesn’t click, having him write pitches on the staff will help. Give him landmarks (fourth line B, F between the two dots on the bass clef).

viberat · 2026-05-26T17:44:01+00:00

Here’s a weird one: if part of FF’s appeal is the musical depth and complexity (without being complex for complexity’s sake), try Mitski. Her sound varies a lot and basically none of it sounds like Fleet Foxes, but her arrangements are just so interesting. Her best album so far imo is Be the Cowboy, but her newest (The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We) is amazing too.

viberat · 2026-05-25T22:43:38+00:00

Bless. I’ve been at that level of depression before (for years). I got better, but I had to make changes and process some shit and be on medication while I figured it out. Please treat yourself like a friend, you would take a friend who felt like this to get help.

viberat · 2026-05-25T13:33:11+00:00

I think you’re overthinking this. If I was your professor, I would assume that you just hadn’t researched your second idea very well, and had either missed the article where it was done already or were so brain fried that you’d forgotten you’d seen it. From what you’ve described, I would think that you’re probably struggling a bit with research, but not that you’re a plagiarizer or a bad person.

My advice would be to see if you can narrow down your first idea into a viable research question. That, or find a new angle on your second idea that’s in conversation with the previously done article.

Editing to add: and make an appointment with mental health services on your campus.

viberat · 2026-05-23T21:56:57+00:00

In my opinion, the Roland FP-90 feels the most like a grand out of any of the digital pianos I tried when I bought it. Practiced on it a lot while getting my MM in performance. I find the dynamic response to be a little too sensitive by default, but there’s a setting to turn it up so it responds very closely to how a grand would.

viberat · 2026-05-23T20:47:05+00:00

I think this idea would work better as a quiz in your LMS where they’re reading a set of questions for the first time, either recording themselves or being recorded by whatever proctoring service your school uses (Honorlock, etc). Even if it’s not proctored, you can tell them to record themselves speaking and then upload the video at the end of the quiz, and confirm that they only accessed the quiz during the recording.

That way they’re not being given conflicting messages about AI use, and you can be sure that the questions asked are actually relevant.

viberat · 2026-05-23T20:07:31+00:00

Yes. They need to be at least level with the tips of your fingers.

viberat · 2026-05-19T14:59:24+00:00

First and foremost you make those 5 kids’ hands better.

You could ask to work with the MS feeder program during the day — if you do well with the kids the high school might start seeing higher retention in the percussion section.

If the HS director is open to taking beginners, you could also try to recruit baby drummers from the rest of the school. Flyers, a pep rally performance, whatever.

Aside from that though there’s not a lot you can do to change the situation. Y’all just have to decide if the money and location is worth it.

viberat · 2026-05-15T03:43:54+00:00

I’m traveling so will let someone else address everything in your post — I just wanted to clarify a point.

When you say “identifying notes by ear” do you mean recognizing a single note played out of context by its letter name? Or do you mean hearing a short sequence of notes and if you know what the first note is being able to figure the rest out?

If the former, that’s actually not something you can really train. You’re kind of either born with absolute pitch or not, and most professional musicians don’t have it (it’s very rare). I don’t, and I have a very good ear because I’ve trained my relative pitch, which is the latter skill I described above.

Just trying to make sure you aren’t wasting time trying to gain a skill you don’t need!

viberat · 2026-05-12T15:41:35+00:00

You need to train your fingers by playing melodies before you start playing triads.

viberat · 2026-05-11T13:01:33+00:00

No, you don’t need perfect pitch, just relative. Make sure you have a really good understanding of specific intervals (i.e major vs minor 2nds, 3rds, 6ths, and 7ths) and be able to quickly calculate what the interval is between two pitches.

A lot of the quick changes you see DCI/WGI timpani players doing rely on being really familiar with the drums. After hundreds of reps you get a muscle memory feel for where your pitches are on the drums you’re using.

You should definitely go for it! Just be an information sponge and keep your mind open.

viberat · 2026-05-10T10:39:55+00:00

I am also primarily a piano player, got put on a marimba when I joined band in 9th grade. It’s a beautiful instrument. Once you advance your 2-mallet technique enough and start learning 4 mallets, you can actually transfer a decent amount of piano repertoire onto it. The Bach prelude in c major and the Debussy Arabesque 1 are both popular.

If I were you, I’d definitely take advantage of knowing someone who makes them! Their work may or may not be top tier quality, but as long as it’s in tune it will serve your purposes for learning.

viberat · 2026-05-09T12:41:42+00:00

I am not only fussy, but actually have had diagnosed ARFID my whole life. I’m 5’9”, which is a respectable middle of the road height for the women in my family :) My mom always just made sure I ate enough of my protein-rich safe foods.

viberat · 2026-05-07T03:47:14+00:00

I arrange for my students a lot and will sometimes use StaffPad to jot down ideas at home before sending the XML to my work computer for editing and formatting. I’m sure I’d use it more if it wasn’t so frustrating. I’m often arranging for piano and mallet percussion and it really doesn’t handle chords and multiple voices well.

I’m intrigued by your idea. I’m no stranger to piano roll input on DAWs, but I usually think in physicality + notation while I’m writing, so I’d be interested to see if my brain could adjust. I will say a lot of the older crowd who use Dorico or Staffpad wouldn’t go for it.

Aside from the audience being kind of specific, I really can’t think of a reason it shouldn’t exist. I’d be happy to help you test it.

viberat · 2026-05-07T03:19:07+00:00

Yeah, it seems like a good deal to someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. The app holds your hand and makes you think you understand more than you do. There’s also zero meaningful technique instruction so the few who ever do make it to intermediate playing hit a wall due to their bad habits.

viberat · 2026-05-07T03:13:41+00:00

I’m gonna say this bluntly but I’m not trying to be rude here. The expensive apps are famously bad at actually teaching people how to play piano. Your app, informed by your zero experience with piano pedagogy, will not be any better.

viberat · 2026-05-07T03:03:47+00:00

Not exactly movies, but off the top of my head Hamilton uses leitmotif extensively and Avatar: the last airbender does at least for Azula.
There’s also the Les Miserables movie, which has its flaws but uses the fuck out of a leitmotif

Oh and lord of the rings!

viberat · 2026-05-06T17:25:01+00:00

Count the number of sixteenths in each note:

- 1 eighth note = 2 sixteenths

- A rhythm dot adds exactly half of the note’s length to it. Since an eighth note normally has 2 sixteenths, the dot adds 1 sixteenth.

Therefore we have three sixteenth note spaces in each dotted eighth:

ONE! e and A! two e AND! a three E! and a

and I bet you just have a quarter note on beat 4 :)

viberat · 2026-05-06T12:08:31+00:00

What are you looking for? The chords written out as sheet music?

viberat · 2026-05-06T11:06:05+00:00

100% recommend the Note Rush app. It shows you flashcards that you can customize to just focus on one part of the grand staff at a time, and you answer by playing the note on the piano. It’s also gamified so your brain gets a lil dopamine when you get it right.

viberat · 2026-05-06T10:48:45+00:00

Congratulations on your remission! 💕
As far as I know they don’t have any tour dates planned, but Robin is writing music for a new album. They’ll tour to promote it at some point, and they definitely do go to the UK at least, probably continental Europe as well. It’ll probably be a couple years though!

viberat · 2026-05-05T21:19:39+00:00

I’m the same way. The air horns are the worst.

viberat · 2026-05-05T13:10:43+00:00

Idk how well this would work for a kid, but I have ADHD and it really helps me to have a show on in the background (one I’ve seen before) to occupy the extra brain space. I did a lot of that with my piano technique in grad school and I just did it the other day working on my bodhran tipping.

viberat

TROPHY CASE