I'm Yours

 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

Progress

Learning a new instrument is definitely a slow process. Playing the instruments that I know how to play now is easy. I can just sit down and play them! I don't have to think like I do with the guitar. I do know that it gets easier as time goes on. My initial goal was to be able to be able to just pick up the guitar and play something like I can with the piano or the violin. I want to keep this goal, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to reach it by the end of the year.

So as far as new songs go, I'm starting to learn how to play Let it Be by The Beatles. It's not too difficult. Most of these songs that I'm learning all use the same chords, give or take a few. I just have to learn how to put them all together. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to go from a C do a D minor, which I've never done before. Practice makes perfect!

As requested, here is a video of the song that I can play the best. Keep in mind that I'm a beginner, and it took me a long time to get a video without any mistakes. This is Hurt by Johnny Cash (chords).

Now, it's business as usual. Time to prepare for the pitch!

Hayden

Also please let me know if the video doesn't work. Adding videos is weird.

Tab

So far, the guitar practice is going just fine. I feel like I've gotten really good at both songs that I began with (Hurt and Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash). I can easily play an F chord now, which I was having trouble with, and I can go from chord to chord without too much trouble. Sawyer has been listening to a lot of Pink Floyd, so he's trying to teach me a couple of their songs. I'm really excited to broaden my guitar playing ability from one artist to two!

Another thing that I've been doing is trying to learn how to read tab. Tab is like a sheet of music, but it doesn't have traditional notes and key signatures like a normal sheet of music would. Instead, it shows the strings of the guitar and a bunch of numbers. The numbers mean what fret you should put your finger on at that moment. So if I wanted to play a D scale, it would look like this:

e --------2-----------------
B ------3---3---------------
G ----2-------2-------------
D --0-----------------------
A --------------------------
E --------------------------

Here the one means to put a finger on the first fret, a two means put a finger on the second fret, and so on. The zero means play the open string. It's pretty easy to read if I take the time to do it. I'm just trying to be able to sight read like I can with normal sheet music. Learning to play the violin was a little easier than the guitar because I already knew how to read sheet music, which is what the violin uses. The fact that I had professional help might have made it a little bit easier as well.

There are also a bunch of new symbols that I wouldn't usually see in normal sheet music.

p = pull off
h = hammer on
\ = slide (downward)
b = string bend
/ = slide (upward)
~ = string vibrato

I understand what most of these mean, but I've never heard of a hammer on. Sawyer will probably know.

Other than that, it's business as usual! Hopefully by next time I'll have a few more songs to play.

Hayden

Hurt

So I pretty much did nothing to do with guitar over spring break, but I did practice a little this week. I'm slowly getting better at playing Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash. The D chord is becoming easier to play from the C chord, which makes the song sound much better. I have also tried playing Hurt by Johnny Cash. I don't know why I'm playing Johnny Cash songs. They get stuck in my head a lot, so I guess that's why I like them. They're also really easy to play, so that helps. However, Hurt presents a whole new challenge to me: the F chord. Apparently Sawyer never uses F chords, so I might be on my own here. It shouldn't be that hard though. There are plenty of ways for me to figure it out. I know how to play an F chord on the piano, so if I just apply that to the guitar, I should be good to go.

Sawyer showed me how to use his electric guitar, which is pretty cool. It's really loud though, and my mom likes to take naps, so that's an issue. The acoustic guitar sounds better in my opinion. Ring of Fire doesn't really work on an electric guitar. If I could learn a Van Halen song or something like that, I think the electric guitar would work much better. I've still got a long way to go until then.

I've gotten pretty good at being able to hear a song and then play it on the piano, so I think being able to play them on the piano will help me be able to play it on the guitar.

Hopefully this week I will get good at Ring of Fire and be able to play Hurt as well. I'd like to start playing other stuff too, preferably not Johnny Cash. I'm sure my brother will help me with that.


Hayden

Starting out

So since this is my very first blog for 20 time, I should explain what I'm doing. I want to learn how to play the guitar. I'm not exactly sure how much I will be able to play by the end of this project, but I guess my goal is to be able to play a wide variety of chords so that I can just look up song chords and be able to play them. This is what my brother and my uncle can do (they both play). This is why I've chosen Sawyer (my brother) as my mentor. It is sort of a challenge because he is only 14, but he knows how to play a lot better than I do. He's been taking lessons for a couple of years now, and I think he could be a good teacher.

I've sort of messed around with his guitar for a while, never really learning anything. I figured out what each string was on my own, so I guess I have a tiny head start. I've also been playing music for over 10 years, so learning a new instrument isn't completely foreign to me. Since we were assigned 20 time, I have asked him to show me how to play a few chords to get me started, and I think I have them down. I know how to play  A, A minor, C, G, and D chords. Just with this information, I think I can easily learn to play songs, as several popular songs only use three to four chords. I looked up how to play Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash on Google, and this website popped up that showed the chords. The whole song consists of just G, C, and D, so I am able to play it. Of course, I'm playing it very slowly, and it's just the bare chords without anything else, but I'm excited that I got it to sound like Ring of Fire. I can go back and forth pretty easily from G to C, but I'm having trouble with the D chord.

That's me taking a picture of what a D chord looks like. I don't know why, but it's just confusing. I'm sure that with more practice, it will become easier.

I'm thinking of buying my own guitar. I could just use Sawyer's, but I feel like if I had my own I could get a lot more done. Beginner guitars go for like $30 or so on eBay , so it's not that expensive. I'm not certain that I want to do this just yet. It's just a thought.