Wow, the response to my Stille Nacht video has been overwhelming, both from my colleagues at USD to my friends in Germany. I displayed my work during our last class earlier this work and I was thrilled at the response I received from my peers. I am hoping that once the end of the semester rolls around to continue my work and perhaps complete the song. The response from my friends in Germany was positive as well. They were impressed with my pronunciation and noted that I made vast improvements from my first dry run with the lyrics.
Of course, there were a couple of hiccups with the production of this video. I am musically oriented, but by no means do I have perfect pitch. It did not occur to me until after I had finished recording that I sang the song in a different pitch than I played on the keyboard app on my iPod. I was baffled when the two harmonies failed to mesh, but then quickly realized the problem. Also, I think it would have benefitted my video to include the lyrics of the song somewhere for viewers to read as I sang along. To someone who is not familiar with the language, my song would have sounded great, but adding lyrics would have given validity to my voice.
This has been quite a journey over the past few months. Originally, I decided to attempt to learn the German language, a task made only more daunting by the fact that I had a very limited throughout my average workweek to tackle such a project. Had I not treated this as a formal-ish project, I probably would have continued to bumble and stumble through the Duolingo module, convincing myself that I was somehow learning. However, I had the opportunity to reflect on my learning experience, and after listening to feedback from my peers and other folks from the worldwide web, I came to the conclusion that I should attempt something more meaningful with my time.
The result? No matter how hard I try, I simply cannot get Stille Nacht out of my head. I find myself singing the German song in passing, when I’m driving, and the like. What does this mean? Unlike my previous attempts to learn the language and forget the material promptly afterwards, I have made this excerpt of the German language meaningful to me. It’s something that took precious time and effort to construct and it was something I was keenly interested in. These qualities combined to create a learning experience that I became intrinsically attached to, and I found the end product to be quite rewarding.
To put in simpler terms: I was learning, and I had fun doing it.
Of course, there were a couple of hiccups with the production of this video. I am musically oriented, but by no means do I have perfect pitch. It did not occur to me until after I had finished recording that I sang the song in a different pitch than I played on the keyboard app on my iPod. I was baffled when the two harmonies failed to mesh, but then quickly realized the problem. Also, I think it would have benefitted my video to include the lyrics of the song somewhere for viewers to read as I sang along. To someone who is not familiar with the language, my song would have sounded great, but adding lyrics would have given validity to my voice.
This has been quite a journey over the past few months. Originally, I decided to attempt to learn the German language, a task made only more daunting by the fact that I had a very limited throughout my average workweek to tackle such a project. Had I not treated this as a formal-ish project, I probably would have continued to bumble and stumble through the Duolingo module, convincing myself that I was somehow learning. However, I had the opportunity to reflect on my learning experience, and after listening to feedback from my peers and other folks from the worldwide web, I came to the conclusion that I should attempt something more meaningful with my time.
The result? No matter how hard I try, I simply cannot get Stille Nacht out of my head. I find myself singing the German song in passing, when I’m driving, and the like. What does this mean? Unlike my previous attempts to learn the language and forget the material promptly afterwards, I have made this excerpt of the German language meaningful to me. It’s something that took precious time and effort to construct and it was something I was keenly interested in. These qualities combined to create a learning experience that I became intrinsically attached to, and I found the end product to be quite rewarding.
To put in simpler terms: I was learning, and I had fun doing it.