Aloha! This blog post is being written from Honolulu, Hawaii! As outlined in my Musicianship Goals Action Plan, today (February 20th) I am going to be writing about my guitar progress so far. I will be discussing any improvements or challenges in the following areas (my Criteria/Indicators of Success): Chord Memorization, Chord Transitions, Strumming Patterns, and Ability to Sing at the Same Time.

Photo by Hannah Gullixson on Unsplash

Criteria (Indicators of Success)
  • Chord Memorization:

At this point, I have now memorized all of the chords that I will need to know this semester! These include the Am, A, Em, G, G7, D, D7, and C chords.

  • Chord Transitions

The chord transitions for the first song that I am learning, “Slow Burn,” are now memorized, however, the transitions between Am to C and G to D are still very tricky for me so I do those ones slowly. Similarly in “Happy Birthday,” I find it challenging to transition in a timely manner between G and D and G and C. I still have not learned the transitions for the Alphabet Song yet because I have been focusing more on the other two songs. My goal for before the midterm is to start practicing the Alphabet Song more.

  • Strumming Patterns

I have maintained my strumming pattern knowledge for “Slow Burn” as outlined in my first blog post, (“Down, Down. Down, Up, Down, Down”). I still have not figured out a strumming pattern for “Happy Birthday” that I like yet but I will probably end up using this video from my last post. I asked classmates about the strumming pattern for Happy Birthday in our last class practice session and they also gave me some good ideas. For the Alphabet Song, I will be using a “Down, Down, Down” strumming pattern that I have yet to memorize.

  • Ability to Sing at the Same Time

I still am not able to play my songs and sing at the same time very well yet. Whenever I try, I have to play an extremely slowed down version of the song. I am going to continue working on it when I get home.

What I Am Learning

So far, I have learned that learning how to play guitar really hurts your fingers if you want a good sound to come out of your instrument. I still think about what my classmate Maddy said about pushing on the strings as hard as I can in order to make fuller sounding chords every time I play. Even though I stuck to my practicing plan very consistently for the weeks leading up to reading break, I will not be able to practice during our week off because I do not have a guitar with me in Hawaii. I am listening to “Slow Burn” often and am hoping that will keep me in the musical guitar mindset.

Mahalo and see you at the midterm!