1) The guest discusses how playing the double bass helped him develop as a musician through overcoming difficulties with practice, lessons, and perseverance over his high school career. 2) Learning the double bass was challenging because errors were more obvious as the sole or one of two double bass players, compared to the violin section where mistakes were masked. 3) The guest learned the importance of understanding the emotional atmosphere of pieces and their role in the orchestra beyond just practicing techniques. Ways of knowing like emotion and perception aided their musical development and understanding.

1. Senior Seminar Script “Music”
Interviewer: Hello everyone my name is ____ and today we will be interviewing our fellow
class member Ian Reau, say hello to the camera!
Guest: Hello.
Interviewer: Alright now that the formalities are done and over with, let’s begin this
interview! First off; give us all a little introduction about yourself and this presentation.
Guest: Hello as mentioned before my name is Nawalert Ian Reau, but just call me Ian. I’m
seventeen years old and I have attended ISB since kindergarten. Also in today’s presentation
I will be talking about how the different ways of knowing have affected my learning
experiences in the musical arts field and helped me grow as an musician and student in
general.
Interviewer: Interesting topic to pick from, alright then what was a significant event or
experience in which you learned something unique that has helped you through your high
school career?
Guest: Hmm, I would have to say one of my greatest experiences in my high school life
would have to be going through the strings program since my freshman year.
Interviewer: O, whys that?
Guest: Well to put it bluntly, I was quite terrible when I first started playing the double bass
as I just had transferred over from playing the violin to a more complex instrument. However
eventually over my constant practice, lessons, and rehearsals I had over my high school
career I was finally able to conquer this learning difficulty.
Interviewer: Why was learning how to play the double bass so much harder than playing a
violin though? They’re pretty much the same thing, stylistically anyways?
Guest: Well, that’s because I was even more so terrible at playing the violin as well but my
sound was masked by the many other violinists who had played at that time, so when I
transitioned to played the double bass which consisted of me and another person, my
intonation, rhythmic, and other errors were much more obvious.
Interviewer: So your pretty much saying that this example of you playing the double bass is
recognition of responsibilities, and realization that it would be much better to just practice
rather than to suck while playing.
Guest: Sort of … it’s an example in shift in previous thinking and behaviors in response to a
much more demanding environment, in which not mere practice can overcome but truly
understanding the emotional atmosphere of the piece being played, and the purpose or role of

2. the instrument you are playing and its effect in the overall orchestra.
Interviewer: Right, so how has this realization of your role and responsibilities helped you in
that class or school in general?
Guest: One of the main ways of knowing that has helped me overcome my musical struggles
was emotion. This is because to fully understand a musical piece, or “find knowledge” you
interpret the emotional response that is being received from the piece. Being is it a slow
rhythmic pace, meaning I should elongate the sound I’m making to match the orchestra, or is
it very abrupt and fast making me shorten and use harsh sounds to match the orchestra. All
these factors I’ve just mention are incorporated by emotion as it is found through an
individual’s intuition and gut feelings.
Interviewer: How does this differ from any of your other classes though?
Guest: Well for example, Math is a class based purely on reasoning and numbers to find
knowledge, and everything has but one solution, or absolute truth. However in music,
interpretation is subjective and changes from each individual, thus knowing which
interpretation to choose from is key aspect to knowing what to play.
Interviewer: Is emotion the sole thing that has helped you so far in playing your double bass
at an adequate level though, or are there other ways of knowing that have aided you in this
progress such as perception?
Guest: O no, perception has also helped me a lot in becoming a greater double bass player, as
perception is basically knowledge we obtain or gain from our five senses. Thus through the
continuous practice of the same songs allow me attune both my hearing to know when I’m
playing a note right or wrong which is one of the most key parts of music, being intonation,
and my positioning as knowing where to press on the strings are vital with a large instrument
like the double bass due to its high range of uncertainties. Thus by combining these two
senses being touch and hearing, I can then begin to physically memorize how to create each
note. This also then can link again to intuition and how through muscle memory can I
become a greater musician as a whole.
Interviewer: Interesting, so how does this apply to your other classes or how you would
approach learning in the future?
Guest: One of the things that I know about myself as a student that will change how I view or
try to solve my struggles in the future from this is that I’ll try to see things from a non linear
way, and try to see all the other possible options through lateral thinking. Examples being
English, in which instead of doing the typical analysis in which I just state the common
literary features I can detect, I can also properly state what my emotional feel (tone) for the

3. piece of literature is through the knowledge I obtained from music. For example seeing how a
piece of literature that I’m analyzing frequently contains many commas, or breaks in the
structure, I can comment on how that creates a staccato tone in which everything is in abrupt
pace, thus showing the effect of music on my cognitive learning experience.
Interview: Well glad to see how this experience has helped you with your academic career,
thank you very much for joining us today! Good bye everyone.