The question I chose to explore for the term:
How can I, as an already skilled ukulele player, transfer some knowledge of note reading, music theory, and basic songs to the guitar?
My end of term goals:
Learn at least 3 simple songs with 3 or 4 chords that I can sing and play. As the term goes on I hope to take on pieces of increasing difficulty. Maybe even trying to do some songs with both piccing and strumming. I hope to reach a confidence level where I would feel comfortable performing these pieces in front of an audience/ recording myself on GarageBand.
I feel that I have met this goal. Since the midterm period, I have learned, practiced, recorded and played a bunch of songs on the guitar. This includes:
- Don’t Worry Be Happy
- Edelweiss
- Love Story
- Here Comes the Sun
- For my final submission, Here Comes the Sun, I was able to incorporate both picking and strumming, record it on GarageBand, and then edit it on IMovie. This is something that I feel very proud of. I also feel like it demonstrates my full capability on guitar at this point in time.
My Music Growth Plan (for reference): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1liBW5zRAgTxgbFCiLuMRGhEHp4hLvfntsdH52QrzdTY/edit?usp=sharing
Throughout the term, I have scaffolded the tasks I set out for myself. I started by learning about the guitar as an instrument (where it came from, names of the open strings). Then, I learned how to play some simple scales, explored picking some songs (like Happy Birthday), and some chords. After I felt confident in this, I proceeded to learn some songs. As the term went on, I took on more challenging pieces.
Overall, I am very proud of how far I have grown as a musician. Learning guitar has been something that I have wanted to do for a very long time, but never got around to. Having a better, and more generalized understanding of music and musical instruments can help me, as a teacher, to integrate music into my classroom. As well, there may be some opportunities for playing guitar both in, and out of a school environment.
As I move forward into next term, I will definitely continue to play and practice guitar. This experience was very enjoyable for me, and it is something that I hope to continue. I think that I will try to still work on being more “musical” in my playing, rather than just playing the notes/ chords.
Hi Teagan, I love how much growth you have had throughout the term with your guitar. I am also learning how to play the guitar, it is really interesting to me to see how much difference we have between our progress. It is interesting to see the difference between you having previous experience, and myself having no experience.