Blog Post #11: finishing touches

This week, I decided on what song I will be presenting for my Ted Talks. I have decided on playing the very first song I learned because it was the song I knew how to play the best. Also, my mom has decided to help me with my presentation by singin along when I present. This week, I also bought a Kapo on Amazon. I expect it to arrive this Friday, and by using this I can play a wider variety of songs. One of my strings on my guitar broke, but it was expected to happen because my guitar is relatively old. Hopefully my dad and I will go to the music store soon to buy some new strings.

Blog Post #10: Another song complete

This week, I started and finished another song. The song was told to be kind of difficult, so I just adjusted some of the chords the song required to make it easier for myself. All I need to learn is pacing myself and being consistent. I also expanded my list if songs I want to learn, so over the summer I can do something with my free time. After looking at multiple songs and trying them out, I learned that I have gotten better in transitioning between chords. It use to take me about a week to become at least mediocre at transitioning, but now it only takes me about a day. I have set a new goal for myself also. I want to learn an perform 4 different songs before the school year ends.

Blog post #9: practice makes perfect

This week, since I was gone for the weekend, I did not have the time to start looking for a new song to learn. So I just practiced all the song chords I did know, trying to perfect the transitions and the rhythm. I also experimented with some songs I did know, trying new strumming patterns that might make the song sound better in my opinion. Throughout the weeks of searching YouTube, I learned that a wide variety of the songs I wanted to learn required a kapo. This costs aroud $30, and I plan on buying one soon.

Blog Post #8: New Song???

I have done it. I have now learned to consistently play a song without messing up. I learned to transition between chords well, and that has also helped with my transitioning in other songs. Now that I have learned how to play a song well, I don't know what song I should learn next. I've been learning pieces of songs, but I always end up looking for another song to learn because the song is either too hard or I lose interest in that song. I've been looking through my playlists and YouTube for another song to start learning, but so far I have had no luck.

Blog Post #7: One Song completed

This past week, I was able to fully learn a whole song. I am very proud of myself, even though I still need to practice the song some more to perfect it. I still mess up a little bit as I play, mainly when I transition between chords, but I fully memorized the order or the chords and the strumming pattern. Hopefully I can perfect it within the month. I also started learning a new song, this time a finger style pattern. There is no strumming involved, as it is all plucking strings with your fingers. It is very challenging, but it is a song I really like and I know that I want to learn it eventually.

Blog Post #6: no progress

For this week, I think that I have practiced playing guitar for a maximum of 1 hour. I was very busy this week, and I had little time to practice. This week was a step back in my progress, for I had forgotten some of the chords I had learned before. Hopefully for this next week with Spring Break, I can relearn all of the skills I had forgotten while continuing my progress in playing guitar.

Blog Post #5: Progress is Slow

After about a month of teaching myself to play guitar almost every other day, I feel that I haven made as much progress as I should have. Some of the chords I play from songs for sound like the song itself. I know that it will be extremely hard for it to sound exactly the same, but I feel that it could be better. Also, I am finding it hard to stick to learning one song at a time. I find myself switching songs that I want to learn, mainly because I don't like to be repetitive and play the same thing over and over again. I know that by doing this, I won't be able to fully get better at a song. Hopefully with spring break coming soon, I can focus on learning guitar more.