Music Growth Midterm Check-in:

I think I have easily met my midterm goals for musical growth in EDCI 306A. In my plan I wrote that:

By the midterm period, I hope to: 

  • Learn about the guitar instrument (research about the instrument as well as exploring strings and notes).
  • Be able to play some simple scales.
  • Be able to pick some simple songs (e.g: happy birthday, etc).
  • Learn some basic chords and their names.

How have you met these goals?

I have done/ can do all of these things and MORE!! I have demonstrated all my progress through posts (that you can find under the “Free Inquiry” category) on my website. In one of my first posts, I talked about the guitar as an instrument; I explored the evolution of the guitar as well as the the open strings. After that, I practiced picking some simple songs like Happy Birthday. I did this through reading a guitar tab. I also played Purcell’s Canon, a three part harmony piece, and recorded it on GarageBand. In another one of my posts, I played a bunch of different scales for you. In my most recent posts, I have started learning and performing some simple songs on the guitar as well (using some basic chords).

How have you found your journey this far?

I actually have found the guitar to be much easier than I thought it would be. Picking up songs and figuring things out using my ear was quite simple for me, thanks to my ukulele and music background. Also, I found myself spending a lot more time practicing than I had anticipated. Practicing guitar was actually something that I looked forward to, and ended up playing around on the instrument every few days.

What’s next?

In the second half of the term I look forward to challenging myself a bit more with harder pieces. Maybe I will look to explore songs with more difficult chords or combine both picking and strumming into some songs. However, thus far I feel like I am on track with my goals.

Featured image by  Gabriel Gurrola on Unsplash