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Gerard Kaplan
This lesson began with the basics of electricity. It explained that an atom is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons. It got a little tricky for me when I was reading that electrons are negatively charged and protons are positively charged, leaving neutrons to be neutral. It was easy for me to understand that protons are positively charged and neutrons are neutral but I had trouble understanding why electrons were negatively charged. I think it was just the wording of them. It started making more sense to me when I was reading about how an atom with more electrons would make the atom negatively charged and an atom having more protons would make the atom positively charged. What also helped me understand this concept was when they spoke about negatively charged atoms attracting positively charged atoms and that the attraction between the two creates electricity.
The next part of the lesson discussed resistance, voltage, and current. I learned that resistance is basically how freely electricity will flow. I also learned that resistance is measured in ohms which is something I had never known before. Voltage is the measure of force of electricity. I liked the lesson's comparison between the flow of electrons to the flow of water. Current would compare to water, as resistance would compare to a valve and the voltage would compare to water pressure. This made these subjects easier to understand for me. When I started reading about basic electronics, I learned that voltage equals current times resistance. So then current equals voltage divided by resistance and resistance equals voltage divided by current. Then I read about the two types of electronic circuits, which I had heard of before. The first one being analog and the other being digital. I never got the full understanding of each type of electronic circuit, but what I learned from this lesson was that analog can be broken down into two categories, series or parallel. Series is a continuous circuit while parallel is a changing circuit. Digital circuits on the other hand, could be broken down into alternating or direct currents. I learned that direct currents send electrons only in one direction while alternating currents have the ability to send electrons back and forth. To me, this was something I had never really learn much about so it was difficult to understand at first. With help from all of the lessons comparisons and examples though, I now have a good understanding of it all.
My session this week with Edwin Ramos was exciting as always. I am always thrilled to go to his studio and see what he's working on. This week I had brought up to him that this lesson was a bit more difficult for me and we spoke a lot about it. After speaking with him about it, it became more understandable for me because he explains it in his own way. I was able to comprehend it a little bit easier than just reading it. I asked him if we could go over the lesson together and I asked him about all the things I wasn't confident about before I took the quiz. After we went through the chapter I took the quiz. I was hoping to get 20 out of 20 right but I did get 2 answers wrong. I was a bit disappointed in myself because one of them was a giveaway. The first question on the quiz was pertaining to the two types of circuits of electricity. When I was finished with the quiz, I felt like I could have done more to get a better score. Edwin said to me don't be so hard on yourself, these first few lessons are tricky. He then went into a reggae record he was working on mixing and showed me the three major parts of clear radio ready record. 1 being a limiter, 2 being an eq and 3 being multipresser. He also showed me how he stacks tracks three times. The first track straight up the middle, then a track to the left, and in the third track to the right. This to me was cool because recording for the amount of time I have been on my own I've never seen this method used. When I went home and tried it, I couldn't believe the difference in sound I had crated on my own.
I am looking forward to the upcoming lessons and the upcoming sessions with Edwin.
