This
is my first blog post since the pitch, which was a lot of fun in my opinion. It
was really cool to see how everyone’s projects were coming along. The Hach
center seemed to be a good location too. I brought Sawyer’s guitar and played
the four songs I knew how to play the whole time. Yes, I played four songs, not
three, as I learned how to play Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd pretty
much the day before the pitch. The song includes three chords and a couple of
non-chord notes, so it was pretty easy to learn. I’m finding that the more
chords that I learn how to play, the easier it is to play a wide variety of
songs. I just look up the chords to the songs that I want to play on the
internet, and I can usually just sit down and play them, which is pretty cool. I
definitely still have not met my goal, but people got to ask me how I was
doing, and I said that I was making progress.
For
the pitch, I created a big tri-panel poster that showed my progress so far, all
of the songs that I could play, and a QR code that was a link to this blog!
This was definitely a good idea, but I wish that I had had some other way of
getting people to visit my blog. Anyways, Mrs. Hechlik was going around taking
pictures of everyone in front of their presentations, and she got and action shot
of me playing the guitar. Here it is!
Since
the pitch, my brother changed the strings of his guitar so it sounds a lot more
crisp and clear than it used to. Under normal circumstances, this would have
made me want to practice even more, however I have been extremely busy lately
with a new job and a class that helps me study for the ACT (I'm retaking it),
so it was sort of difficult to get the normal amount of practicing in. What
practicing I did do was late at night in my basement. Nevertheless, I did
manage to continue to make progress.
After
the pitch, I upgraded my chord repertoire. I learned how to play an e minor and
a b minor. This helped me learn to play I’m Yours by Jason Mraz. Again, the
more chords that I learn, the more I’m able to just look up chords to a song
and be able to play it. That’s a total of five songs that I know how to play
(Ring of Fire, Hurt, Let it Be, Sweet Home Alabama, and I’m Yours).
There
are some chords that are really hard for me to play which require me to put one
finger down across all of the strings at once. This is usually only required
for songs in a strange key, but it still hinders me when these chords come up.
Sawyer is thinking about getting something called a capo, which is sort of like
a bag clip but for the guitar. This will hold all of the strings down on a
certain fret to make these chords easier to play. I’ve heard that you can make
your own out of a pencil though. We’ll see.
Hayden
