I feel that, while I’m still making progress, my progress this week has been a lot less. Maybe that is because I have already learned most of the easy stuff, or maybe my practice has been lacking this week. Nonetheless, I have still made progress this week. I have almost fully memorized Upside Down by Jack Johnson. I just have to memorize some of the picking in the middle of the song and at the end of the song. I have also fully memorized the Arabian song that I was learning. However, I can not yet play it up to speed without a bit of mistakes. I am pretty good at memorizing songs, partly due to the fact that I have memorized songs in the past on the piano. I am also just good at finding patterns in the music which makes it easy to memorize when I look closely at it. I think I will be able to fully memorize Upside Down by the end of this week. And by the end of next week, I hope to be able to play it at full speed. Switching between the A chord and the B chord is still a bit difficult to do without a slight pause in between the chords. After that, I want to finish learning and memorizing I’ve Just Seen a Face by the Beatles. I think that I will definitely be able to fully learn at least 3 songs. Including, I’ve Just Seen a Face, Upside Down, and that Arabian song. I think most likely I will be able to learn one more song in addition to those within the 12 week time frame. Although, I have not yet decided what song that will be. I kind of want to learn the song Yesterday by the Beatles, but I’m not sure how hard of a song it is.
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Progress
I have continued practicing the song Upside Down. I have been practicing it nearly every day. However, I miss a few days every here and there. I have been playing through the song by following along with the guitar TAB and chords. My goal is to memorize the song and play it up to speed. I have also been practicing the song I’ve Just Seen a Face. I have not been practicing this song very much because it is not what I am focused on right now. I have continued to sort of mess around with my guitar more. By this, I just mean experimenting with new things like scales and riffs, and also making up stuff to play. Arabian Music I have had a sudden fascination with learning Arabian guitar music. It started with learning a few Arabian sounding scales and then a simple lick. I think it sounds really interesting and it is very fun to play. When Mr. Barker brought his acoustic guitar during spirit week I think that he played a little bit of Arabian style music for a little bit. This reminded me of it, and the next day I started looking into learning the scales that the playing style is built around. I looked on YouTube to learn an Arabian song. I found one that is about two and half minutes long and I can already play through the full song and I have it memorized after just two days. It is a surprisingly easy song but it sounds harder than it is and it is fun to play. I just need to learn to play it a bit faster. Here's a link to the video incase you are wondering: https://youtu.be/4aTw5X3a4Ok Overview So far I am pleased with the progress that I have made. I have been really enjoying learning guitar so far, and I have found myself looking forward during the day to when I get to practice. I am definitely going to continuing playing the guitar even after this project. This week I’ve continued to focus on learning the song Upside Down by Jack Johnson. I’ve been practicing by just following along and sight-reading the music at a slow pace. My transitions between chords are getting smoother and I can play through the song at about half speed. I think I will be able to play the song up to speed within the next few weeks.
I have also begun to learn the song I’ve Just Seen a Face by the Beatles. The song is a lot easier than I thought it would be. However, the song is very fast-paced and sounds hard to play. At slower speeds, the song is pretty simple but it is definitely a challenge to play up to speed, I can barely even strum that fast. It has a really nice sounding strumming pattern that sounds kind of like chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo. It goes down-down-down-up-down-up, but it is kind of swung in a weird way and it’s is played really fast. I also learned the intro to the song which is mostly played by picking the G and E chords in a sort of fast-paced triplet pattern. I can also sing it, but not at the same time as I play it. My fingers are now a lot stronger than before. During the first few weeks, the strings were pretty hard on my fingers, now the skin has gotten a lot tougher. I think I should try and learn some scales on the guitar soon. I think learning basic things like that will probably benefit me in the future. So far, I’ve been learning at a steady pace and am on track to meet my goal of learning a few songs. I am enjoying this project so far and I am glad that I am finally learning guitar. This week I’ve continued focusing on learning Upside Down by Jack Johnson. I’ve gotten the picking part of it down a lot better. I can also move between the chords a lot quicker now. However, there are still a few chords that are hard to move between fast. Some of the chords are tricky because you have to put your finger all the way across and then use your other fingers below that. Some of those chords that are tricky to play are the f# minor chord and B Major chord.
I’ve started playing through the song by sight-reading it, instead of just learning it from a video. I’ve also gotten better at the strumming pattern for the song. It goes something like this, down-up-mute-up-up-up-down-up-down-up. This week I also learned to play the intro to a song called Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson. The intro is picked and is very fun to play. It is pretty easy to play and it sounds nice. A few days ago I had a song called I’ve Just Seen a Face by the Beatles stuck in my head. I looked up a guitar tutorial for it and it looks like something interesting that I could learn. I think I’m gonna learn it after I finish learning Upside Down. It has an interesting strumming pattern. So far I have been able to consistently practice about 15-25 minutes per day of guitar, with the exception of a few days here and there. I’m satisfied with the speed at which I’m learning so far. I think I’ll probably be able to learn about 3-5 full songs. However, it is a bit hard to tell how much I’ll be able to learn during this project, as I haven’t gotten very far along yet. I would say the project is going pretty good so far, and I’m looking forward to how it is going to turn out. My genius hour project is focusing on learning to play guitar. I have an acoustic guitar that I will be learning with. I am using youtube videos to learn to play. I will measure my progress based on the songs that I learn. The first song I want to learn is Upside Down by Jack Johnson. Some days I will focus on learning the song and some days I will watch basic videos to teach me the skills I need to play the guitar effectively.
I have started learning the song Upside Down by Jack Johnson. I’ve been practicing it for about 2 weeks. I’ve learned the chords and I’m working on moving between the chords efficiently while strumming. I’ve learned the strumming pattern and I’ve been practicing it every day. I’ve also learned the intro to the song. The intro is not strummed, it is picked. It uses things like hammer-ons, and finger vibrato, and also involves sliding fingers down a string while it’s being picked. I have found that I enjoy playing the guitar fingerstyle or picking it more than strumming. It’s harder than strumming but it sounds better and is more fun. It reminds me of playing the piano. I think during this project I am going to try to learn how to play fingerstyle in addition to strumming. Yesterday I tried to see if I could sing and strum at the same time, and to my surprise, it was actually very difficult. I want to be able to sing and play at the same time, but I don’t know how long it will take. It reminds me of playing boogies on the piano because the left hand has to play a boogie pattern while the right-hand plays all sorts of stuff. This is hard to do because it takes a lot of practice to be able to do two different parts at the same time without messing up and while keeping tempo. Whenever I try to sing at the same time as strumming, my strumming just sort of falls apart. I’ve had a guitar for a few years but I hadn’t really decided to actually take the time to learn it until now. I have family members that can play the guitar and it makes me want to learn it. I think playing the guitar is a good skill and hobby that is definitely worth learning. I enjoy music and I want to be able to play songs on the guitar. I want to learn songs from the Beatles and some songs by Jack Johnson. |
Logan TronsenI'm a 10th grader at Davie High. I'm learning guitar as part of a project called genius hour in my English II Honors class. Archives
December 2022
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