This Post = Fail

Hrm, it has happened. I have NO idea what to write about today. I was considering doing Music Theory for Dancers Part 2, but I don't really have the time and attention span required for that today. Fortunately, The BCS (BioChemist Sister) sent me a link to a nice little video this morning. She even said it fits the theme of my blog. So, I shall share it with you.


Go watch this video.



Did you figure it out?



I bet most of you did.



It also reminded me of a commercial from a few years ago. It was for a Dyson vacuum cleaner. I couldn't find the specific commercial so I can't quote it directly, but it was something about how failures are better than success because you can learn more from a failure. This video clip basically sums it up in non-commercial format. Same basic concept as the first video.

Science is not about perfection. It is not about "being right" all the time. Science is about finding out how things work. One of the best ways to understand how something works is to push it past its limits and break it. That is when you start to get a glimpse into the black boxes of the world. One of the best ways to find a solution is to gather a bunch of data from failed attempts and let that data guide you to what will work.

You know what else it reminds me of? Tap Dance. Yep, see what I did there?
In the tap dance community, if someone falls down during class, the following tends to happen:
1) Make sure the person is not injured
2) People clap and/or say "good job"
Why? Because if you fell down that means you were trying. In fact, you were trying so hard that you failed and fell down. Good for you! You'll never get better if you never push yourself.* Plus, now you have another data point of what NOT to do and that will help guide you to the solution.

*NOTE: The TDE does not condone reckless tap dancing. Push yourself, but not too far.  

It's about time we start celebrating failures. We should start a movement.
- Scientists should start throwing parties when experiments fail. It doesn't have to be over the top. Just have someone make some "hooray we failed!" cupcakes.
- Someone should design some "congrats on your failure" greeting cards. I searched the internet already and there appears to be a pretty big gap in the greeting card market here.
- The next time someone tells you about a failure say something like "Great, what did you learn?"
- Don't hide your failures from the world. Own them.

Go forth and fail!

Mouthwash Charades

I'd like to introduce you all to someone very important in my life. Please meet The Information Technology Husband (the ITH)!

He is a little ridiculous.

I'm not entirely sure how this first started, but at some point long ago we were getting ready for bed and the ITH took a swig of mouthwash and then decided there was something he needed to tell me immediately. This quickly became a Charades challenge which has turned into a game we play multiple times a week. Typically the message is very mundane. Its more about playing Charades.

Last night this happened:

ITH: mmm mmmmu *points at me*

TDE: me.

ITH: MMMM mmmu

TDE: me?
clearly he's trying to communicate the first word, but emphasizing the "mmm" really doesn't help.

ITH: *squats and sticks his butt out* MMM!

TDE: Poo.

ITH: *nods, but does that hand circling thing that means "please elaborate"*

TDE: poop?

ITH: *pushes palms towards each other clearly indicating "shorten it"*

TDE: poo?

ITH: *shakes head*

ITH: *starts making barking and howling sounds*

TDE: Dog?

ITH: *nods*

TDE: Dog poo?

ITH: *shakes head somewhat defeatedly*

ITH: *has "aha" moment and starts a new thought process*

ITH: *puts hands near the bedside lamp*

TDE: lamp?

ITH: *shakes head*

TDE: light?

ITH: *nods*

ITH: *holds hands as if he's holding an invisible orb and holds this over his head*

TDE: Light bulb?

ITH: *shakes head, points to the window*

ITH: (while pointing to the window) mut-mide
This was surprisingly easy to understand.

TDE: outside.

ITH: *nods*

ITH: *holds hands as if he's holding an invisible orb and starts to move it in a big arc*

TDE: the sun?

ITH: *nods*

ITH: *takes invisible orb and makes the orb "set" below a shelf*

TDE: sunset?

IHT: *nods*

ITH: *puts wrists on the bed and sticks fingers up*

TDE: *stares blankly at this*

ITH: mut-mide *does fingers thing again*

TDE: something growing?

ITH: *nods*

ITH: *rubs hand along the bed*

TDE: something growing out of the bed!
I knew he was going for "ground" but it's fun to mess with him

ITH: *shakes head and looks defeated*

TDE: the ground

ITH: *nods and does the fingers again*

TDE: grass?

ITH: *nods*

ITH: *does the sunset thing* mmmen *signs grass*

TDE: the sun sets THEN grass

ITH: *nods*

ITH: *takes a finger and rubs it on the kitty's mouth*
This one, once I knew what he was trying to do, is just absurd.

TDE: (because I have NO idea) kitty puke (she puked a few times this past week)

ITH: *shakes head and then tries to stick a finger in MY mouth*

TDE: *shakes head and covers mouth*

ITH: *indicates that the finger that was just on the kitty's mouth is NOT the one headed for my mouth*

TDE: I don't care. I just put on chapstick!
I didn't want him to wipe off the chapstick

ITH: *leaves the room, goes to the bathroom, does NOT spit out the mouthwash that he has been swishing for significantly longer than required. Instead, he gets his hands wet and comes back and does the "grass" sign again.*

TDE: wet grass?

ITH: *nods*

TDE: The sun sets and then wet grass

ITH: *holds palms up and shrugs a little* mmy? (inflection clearly indicated a question)

TDE: Why?.....   Condensation.
Yep, of COURSE I said "condensation." This could have been another case where I was just messing with him, but I really wasn't, which makes it even funnier.

ITH: *stares at me with a look that says "seriously?" and asks "why" again*

TDE: dew?

ITH: *nods enthusiastically!*

TDE: dew

ITH: MMM mmu *points at me*

TDE: Do you! Do I?

ITH: *nods enthusiastically!*

TDE: You did ALL that just to get to "do"?

ITH: *nods*

TDE: Do I what?

ITH: *pause*

ITH: *realizes that he has completely forgotten the rest of the question.*

TDE: *starts laughing hysterically as she puts together everything he was trying to do just to get to the word "do" and then laughs more that he's now forgotten what he wanted to say.*

ITH: *goes to bathroom and spits out mouthwash*

ITH: *comes back to the bedroom where the TDE is still giggling*

IHT: I don't remember what I was going to ask you. At all.

And really, that's OK. Because, Mouthwash Charades is rarely about the message, its about the communication process.

I Used to Have Super Powers

Its true. Or at least it sure FELT like a super power.

What was this power I speak of? Mental Math!

It used to be that buying a pack of 10 widgets was always cheaper (per widget) than buy a 5-pack or a single widget. Or, the 20 oz bottle was cheaper per oz than the 10 oz bottle. But, at some point that started to change. The bigger packs aren't always the best buy. Lately it seems that the bigger packs are rarely the best buy. I know this because I had my super power that let me figure out which pack of widgets WAS the best buy. I'd do some quick division and know for sure which one to buy.

Or, sometimes the single pack or smaller bottle will be on sale but the bigger quantity isn't on sale. Then which one should you buy? Well, with the power of mental math, I could figure it out! It felt like I had special insider info. Whenever I would find something unexpected (like the big pack costing significantly more per weight/unit or a sale price not being the best buy) I got the privilege of being one of the few who knew this information. I could grab the best buy and walk away with my head held high, feeling pretty darn proud of myself.

But alas, I have been stripped of my powers! Look at this:

Do you see it? This item's price is $2.39 or 14.9 cents per once. Its on sale for $1.88 or 11.8 cents per once. It hurts even more that they give the sale price per oz too. 

Kroger stores are particularly guilty of this; almost all items in our local Kroger have the price per oz/unit listed right on the price tags. I've seen it in other stores too. Its not brand new, but it seems to be taking off and becoming the norm. 

So now everybody can quickly and easily see what used to require the power of mental math to know. I can't help but feel a little miffed. Sure, it makes my shopping experience easier too, but now everyone has been giving my power. And once everyone has it, its no longer a super power. :(

The worst part... now I don't know what to say to students when they ask "when am I ever going to use this?" while learning long division. 

Music Theory for Dancers - Part 1 (Beat and Tempo)

Weeeeednesday! Blog day!

Today I'm finally going to bring a little Tap Dance into the Tap Dancing Engineer's blog. This will be part 1 of a multi-part series. I will do a new part every few weeks and depending on how much I like them, will then maybe compile them on a separate webpage or something. We're going to discuss very basic music theory for dancers. I'm writing with the assumption that my audience knows zip zilch zero about music and knows at least a little bit about dance. This is for all dancers, not just tap dancers. However, tap dancers will probably benefit more than other dancers as we are playing audible rhythms along with our music (or sometimes AS the music.)

First of all, I did a quick Google search for "music theory for dancers." There are some resources out there, but I still feel its useful to discuss it here. If you're interested in learning more about this topic, you should consider getting the DVD "Music Theory for Tap Dancers" with Rusty Frank and Steve Zee here. I've not actually watched this DVD, but Rusty and Steve are solid tap dancers and have great personalities so I'm assuming the DVD is equally solid and fun.

Then there is this online course. It seems to be more for ballroom dancers and the little bit I went through jumped immediately into things that aren't actually necessary for dancers to know, at least not when first learning about music. It's also not the most user-friendly site. A navigation side bar would do a lot of good there. However, the content seems to be solid so if you want to dig into this more, it's worth checking out.

Now, where to start? Lets start with something you already know. The beat!

One of the first things dancers learn is to dance to the beat of the music. Well, I mean, after you've gotten past the phase of dance where it's just about being able to pay attention to something for an hour and mimic your instructor. Once you're old enough to actually start learning dance, you learn to dance to the beat. The funny (and sad) thing is that most dance instructors don't actually teach you this. Instead, dancers pick it up along the way. So, lets go back and pick up some details you may have missed.

What is the beat? Can you actually define it. I bet a lot of dancers would struggle to put it into words. In fact, I'm even struggling with the best way to define it for you. The "beat" refers to the downbeats of the music. The downbeats are the numerical counts that your teacher yells out (2, 3, 4! or 5, 6, 7, 8!) We'll go into downbeats in much more detail in a later post. The beat is a hard thing to define because it's mostly something you feel. If I put on a catchy song, you might start tapping your toe to the beat of the music. It is the underlying meter of the song. The pulse. The beat defines and is defined by the tempo of the song.

I know you're all imagining the heartbeat scene in Dirty Dancing... or you SHOULD be. Nobody puts Baby in the corner!

Wait, what's tempo? That's a crazy music term and we don't know anything about music!

The tempo is essentially the speed of the song. It is defined in beats per minute. The pulse that you feel in a song that makes you tap your toe is the beat. The tempo is how many times you tap your toe in a minute. You can find the tempo of a song by counting toe taps in a minute (or in 10 seconds and then multiply by 6, or a happy medium of counting beats in 30 seconds and multiplying by 2.) In live music settings, someone will count in the song before everyone starts playing. They count in the downbeats (the beat of the music) to set the tempo of the song so that everyone starts playing at the same time and at the same speed. The same song can be played faster or slower by changing the tempo of the song. This will also make the beat faster or slower. The beat and the tempo are intertwined.

Think of driving down the road at a constant speed. Those white (or yellow) dashed lane markers fly past you at a steady rate. They are spaced equally apart from each other so that if your speed is constant they come past in a predictable way. The white dashes on the road are the beat. The speed of  your car is the tempo. When your car goes faster the white dashes go faster. The beat is there, equally spaced in time just like the white dashes are equally spaced on the road. The faster your tempo the faster the beat.

Photo via Flickr: Julie Tauson http://flic.kr/p/2boMsY

The reflectors are &s! More on that later.

In music the tempo is defined by beats per minute. Imagine if instead of the speed of your car being defined in miles per hour it was instead defined as "lane marker dashes per minute." We could even work out the conversion factor between mph and car tempo in dashes per minute (dpm) because the lane markers have a standard length and spacing. Hey, lets do it!

First of all, this wikianswer explains that there are 176 lane marker dashes in 1 mile. Next we just convert from miles per hour to dashes per minute as shown below:

Now we know that 1 mph = 2.93 dpm. So, if you're going 45 mph that would be 132 dpm and 65 mph would be 191 dpm. Now the analogy really works! The dashes are the beat and speed of the car in dpm is the tempo. Huzah!

Note: Apparently the TDE is incapable of writing a post without including some sort of geektastic math/science. 

Better yet, think about driving through a construction zone. Sometimes you get pushed onto the shoulder and have to drive over the rumble strips. These are also equally spaced. In this situation you can actually hear and feel my analogy. The rumble strip sections are the beat. The faster you go the more often you hit a rumbly patch of pavement. If you're going at a steady speed, the frequency of the rumble noises will be predictable. You could even tap your toe to it!

So, that basically sums up beat and tempo. Next time we'll go into time signatures and relate that to how your teacher counts you in (6, 7, 8!) Eventually we'll discuss topics such as upbeats/offbeats and syncopation, different types of notes (1/4 notes, 1/8 notes, triplets, 1/16 notes, etc.) and song structure/form. There will probably be some other topics that come up as I do this. And, in between we'll have fun with random math and science and whatever else I feel like sharing.