Category: Music

Hello there! Today is the final day to show my guitar progress in EDCI 306A! I will discuss my final progress on my criteria, goals, and how the overall experience went.

I have all of my chords memorized, I have memorized the transitions between the chords (they could be smoother, but that will take more time to master), I have memorized the strumming patterns, and I am now able to sing at the same time. I mentioned on my Musicianship Goal sheet that by the final, I would hopefully be able to add dynamics to some of my songs. In the song “Slow Burn,” I add a few harder strums every so often to create a louder and more emphasized moment for musical effect on certain lines.

One of my goals that I do not think I have fully met yet is playing the songs with smooth chord transitions. Despite my regular practice, I think in order to play smoothly one must practice for longer than 3 months or have had previous guitar experience. Since I have never played the guitar before this course, I am proud of the chords that I have memorized. I enjoy that now that I know these chords, I can apply them to different songs. During one of our in-class practice days, Kiya taught me “Stand By Me” and we were able to play the song together by the end of the class. I had a lot of fun learning the guitar with my peers and individually this semester.

Here is my video.

Hello everyone, today is exactly 6 days until I post the final video of my guitar progress! I find it so easy and fun to practice the guitar when it is beautiful outside. I have come to a realization that despite my best efforts playing for 10 minutes a day 6 times a week (sometimes longer), I have not made many major strides in terms of my technical skills (especially the chord transitions). I am doing about the same as I was doing at the midterm. I have found that while I am not progressing with a lot of technical prowess, I have a lot of fun and look forward to my guitar practice times. With that being said, here is my progress on my indicators of success.

Criteria (Indicators of Success)

• Chord Memorization:

All of my chords are memorized and to make them sound most whole and full, I need to keep working on pushing down each string fully.

• Chord Transitions

As mentioned above, my technical progress in chord transitions remains the same as at the midterm. I will keep working on the following transitions:

• Slow Burn: Am to C and G to D
• Happy Birthday: G to D and G to C
• Alphabet Song: C to F 

• Strumming Patterns

Memorized:

• Slow Burn strumming pattern: “Down, Down. Down, Up, Down, Down”
• Happy Birthday strumming pattern: “Down, Down,”
• Alphabet Song strumming pattern: “Down”

• Ability to Sing at the Same Time

As mentioned before, I need to play a slowed-down version of the songs in order to play the chords, the chord transitions, and the strumming patterns accurately.

Hello and welcome back to my music blog! Today is my first progress report after the midterm and I will be outlining my progress on my criteria/indicators of success.

Photo by Tony Rojas on Unsplash

Criteria (Indicators of Success)

• Chord Memorization:

I have now memorized the F chord that I introduced at the midterm. I need to remember that I must push hard with each finger on the strings and also strum only the bottom four strings. All of my other chords are memorized, what I need to work on is pushing hard so that the sound is full.

• Chord Transitions

Similar to my midterm progress, my chord transitions between Am to C and G to D in “Slow Burn” are still not able to be played accurately yet. The G and D and G and C chord transitions are improving but still not smooth in “Happy Birthday.” Finally, in the Alphabet Song, I find the transition between C and F difficult but it is way easier than during the midterm. All I need to do is move my middle finger and ring finger down/up one string each when transitioning between the two. 

• Strumming Patterns

I have completely and accurately memorized the strumming pattern for “Slow Burn” (“Down, Down. Down, Up, Down, Down”). For “Happy Birthday” I am learning to strum “Down, Down,” however, it is still on the way to being fully memorized. Finally, in the Alphabet Song, I use a be using a simple “Down” strumming pattern that I have memorized.

• Ability to Sing at the Same Time

In order to sing along to my songs, I still must play them in half-time. 

Hello everyone and welcome back to my guitar blog! Today is the midterm—I get to discuss where my guitar journey has taken me so far. I will be updating you about my progress on my indicators of success (chord memorization, chord transitions, strumming patterns, and my ability to sing at the same time). In addition to this post, here is a video which will show my confidence in playing all of the chords needed in my songs. I will be showing my attempts at transitioning between them, my work on trying to apply some dynamics to each song, and showing where I am with playing the guitar and singing at the same time. I will be discussing how my progression relates to my timeline that I outlined in my Musicianship Goals document. Let’s get started!

Criteria (Indicators of Success)

• Chord Memorization:

As I have mentioned in my previous blog post, I have now memorized all of the chords that I will need to know this semester! These include the Am, Em, G, G7, D, D7, and C chords. I have learned a new version of the Alphabet Song which requires me to know how to play the F chord, I will show this in my video. I have not memorized how to strum that one in a way that it sounds full and nice. I am still working on it!

• Chord Transitions

The chord transitions between Am to C and G to D in “Slow Burn” are still tricky for me however, I am continuing to work on them. G and D and G and C chord transitions are difficult in “Happy Birthday.” Finally, in the Alphabet Song, I find the transition between C and F difficult but I know it will become easier with practice because all I need to do is move my middle finger and ring finger down one string each. 

• Strumming Patterns

I have memorized the strumming pattern for “Slow Burn” decently well (“Down, Down. Down, Up, Down, Down”). For “Happy Birthday” I am learning to strum “Down, Down,” however, it is not memorized. Finally, in the Alphabet Song, I use a be using a simple “Down” strumming pattern that I have memorized.

• Ability to Sing at the Same Time

In order to sing along to my songs, I play them in half-time. I will show snippets of this in my video. 

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!

Here on February 1st, 2020, I am presenting my first blog post for learning the guitar in EDCI 306A! In this post and all subsequent ones to follow, I will be outlining my progress in the criteria for learning the three songs that I specified in my Musicianship Goals Action Plan.

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

Criteria (Indicators of Success)

• Chord Memorization:

So far, I have memorized the Am, A, Em, G, D, D7, and C chords. I still have yet to memorize G7 for the Alphabet song.

• Chord Transitions

For “Slow Burn,” I can transition between Am and Em and G nicely. The hardest two transitions for this song are the Am to C and G to D. In “Happy Birthday,” it is difficult to transition between G and D and G and C. I have not learned the transitions for the Alphabet Song yet.

• Strumming Patterns

In “Slow Burn,” I have memorized the strumming pattern. It is “Down, Down. Down, Up, Down, Down.” I have not figured out the strumming pattern for “Happy Birthday” yet but I will be using this video to do so. For the Alphabet Song, I will be using this youtube tutorial video to learn the strumming pattern.

• Ability to Sing at the Same Time

I am not able to play and sing just yet although I attempt to sing a very slowed down version of “Slow Burn” while playing the chords. For the other two songs, I am not fully able to sing and play at the same time yet either.

What I Have Learned So Far

Thanks to our classtime instrument session, I learned a lot from my classmates who have previous guitar knowledge and skill. I learned that when a chord sounds wonky, muffled, or weak, even when my fingers are in the correct place, it could be from not pressing down on the strings hard enough. D chord used to never sound right to me but after my classmate Maddy told me to press harder, it has been working beautifully ever since. I really valued our classroom collaboration time and cannot wait to see what else I will learn during the next one. I have been staying on track with my 10 minutes minimum per day, 6 days a week guitar regimen and I can feel my fingers getting stronger and more used to pressing the strings. I also feel my hands becoming accustomed to stretching out and using all of my fingers in different places (something I never really did before). All in all, my guitar practicing has brought me some significant progress since the middle of January leading up to this first blog post and I am excited to see where the rest of the semester takes me!