12/1/2021 0 Comments Week 11/12 For this week of my Genius Hour project, I'm sad that we're already on week 11. It feels like this project has flown by so fast and I have really enjoyed getting more into music because of this music and I'm so ready to continue to keep playing guitar and maybe in the future to learn more instruments. This has been one of the most fun projects that I have done at school. For this week, I am going to try and focus on getting my presentation together and touching up final details and working more on my struggles at the guitar I have to work on until Saturday, because that is when I leave for vacation until next Friday, and I highly doubt I will be able to bring my guitar with me on a plane and that there will be one there for me to practice.
I have also decided that I was going to get rid of my guitar videos tabs because putting more thought into my final presentation, I think that I want to show the beginning results and the end results from the 12 weeks in my presentation, rather than just giving away what I sound like at the end. I want to surprise people in what I can now play on the guitar just like I surprised myself. At the beginning of this project, I thought guitar was going to keep getting easier and it did, but not as easy as I thought it was. I am not 100% happy with my progress on songs I can play on the guitar in 12 weeks, but I am very happy with the quality in what I can play and that is what I find important in playing an instrument, especially guitar. I do feel confident in my progress though because it will really help me in the future and when I start playing more and learning to play some of the songs I planned to learn on the guitar during the 12 week period but couldn't quite get as I am still just a beginner or I didn't have time to learn a complicated song that I thought was going to be easier to learn. So, for my wrap up of this week, I am going to continue working on perfecting my end results that I am going to put on my final presentation and working on my struggles that I had before just to make it easier for me to not struggle with playing in the future and will hopefully help me learn songs more faster and easily than I did just as a beginner! For week 12, I didn't really have much to update on my guitar because of my vacation and I didn't start playing until I got back on Saturday, but for this whole week, I just focused on finishing final touches to my presentations and putting in the videos of me playing and thankful I did most of the presentation beforehand because it caused me less stress!
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11/23/2021 0 Comments Week 10 For this week for my Genius Hour project, I've been working on the final products and also planning and working on my final presentation and getting myself ready for it. I have been planning on the songs and the bits of different songs that I have learned in my final presentation and starting to rerecord the songs so I am not showing my progress but the final product. One thing that has been very been very useful for me is recording my early progress of me learning guitar. I think. that I am going to put one or a couple of these videos in my presentation which I was debating on for a while but I think that it will really show my growth.
I have been practicing guitar a lot more than I did at the beginning of the project, which I wish I actually started playing the guitar sooner than I did because when I try to record myself playing, it makes me really nervous and I don't do as well when I am being recorded. The same thing does happen when I play around other people, but I still really enjoy playing in front of them and showing my friends and family my progress. For the last couple weeks of the project, I have been reflecting back on my work a lot and looking things I would have done differently or would give suggestions to people that are going to start Genius Hour. I wish that I would have used a planner more in the beginning because it has really helped me manage my time better and helped me find more time to practice. A piece of advice I would give to people starting Genius Hour is really find something you enjoy because there was many times that I procrastinated practicing when it was difficult, but I am glad that I really do enjoy playing and wanted to continue playing even with my struggles, and I'm so happy I did have time to actually do this project. But to wrap up this week, I am going to keep practicing guitar and working on my final presentation so it will leave less stress on me later so for the next two weeks I can really focus on the guitar and have fun with it! 11/17/2021 3 Comments Week 9 For my blog post for this week, I am proud of the accomplishments I have made for the week. I have found myself to learn songs on the side I don't plan to finish before the end of the project, but pieces that are more complex and that I plan to learn after the project and get more in depth to have been fun and I found out that by learning these, they really do help me pick up on learning songs easier and helping me remember the chords better because I am a very forgetful person and tend to forget which chords are which and often have to look them up to remember.
I have also found myself not struggling to remember to play the guitar, it comes to me more as something I usually do regularly or attempt to try and fit in my schedule or even just practice songs I've learned while watching shows or sometimes listening to music very quietly in the background. I've really enjoyed playing guitar for this project and of course I have my struggles like every beginners do, but I am very proud at teaching myself how m=to play the guitar on my own and not hiring a teacher to help me during the project, but I do plan on maybe getting one in the future so a professional can judge my playing and not just my family, friends, and I and can help me improve in ways that I couldn't do on my own. I also have preferences for playing the guitar that I find unique like for example, I prefer a pick instead of just playing with my finger because it's easier for me to strum and to pick different strings. I also like to do the chords of the songs that I learn and then I like to work on the strumming because the chords and the switching are still a struggle for me, but I have gotten a lot better from week 1. I also like to sometimes put band aids over my fingers when I play because sometimes I don't want to cut my nails just to play and it still does hurt to play sometimes, and I found band aids help with it don't hurt my fingers but still allow me to play. 11/10/2021 0 Comments Week 8 Last week for my project, I made my promise and made changes to my websites set up and the format of it. But for this week, my main focuses are work on the songs I have been playing on guitar and try to improve more on them. Something that I find is really fun about learning the guitar and being able to play simple songs, but a lot of people are shocked that anyone can play, it is nice to see how people react and what they have to say about playing the guitar. As I have said before, my motivation from playing the guitar came from wanting to accomplish playing songs on it by the end of this project but now, my motivation is how much I really enjoy to play it and how I found it to become much easier to play the more I play it and how it makes the experience more enjoyable for me!
But talking more about my progress and what I am going to attempt to accomplish this week, I hope to master some of the songs that I have been working on. I also plan to work more on my website in depth and make it look even better than I attended it to be and what I worked on it last week. I also do find it very difficult to balance out things I do after school and school, like I've said before it does get stressful a lot. But, I also did benefit in making a plan and writing what I need to do out in a planner and it has been helping me a lot. Something else not related to my project but just music to me in general, we got my grandma's old pianos this weekend and I have always wanted to play and I hope I can start learning the piano after I feel more comfortable with the guitar and maybe in the future do more with either the piano or the guitar! For the videos I upload to my guitar section to show how I am playing the songs I learn, it does make me nervous to upload them because I do mess up a lot on playing the guitar and I feel like I mess up on it a lot. But, I hope this goes away soon and I can upload more videos to show more of my progress and not just what I am comfortable with posting. 11/3/2021 0 Comments Week 7 For week 7 of my Genius Hour project, I have made progress like what I discussed in last week's blog, but my main focus for this week is to clean up my website and make it neater. I am also going to upload the videos of me playing the guitar on my guitar video section of my website like I have been meaning to for the past couple of weeks.
Like I said before, my main focus for this week is to clean up my website, but I do have more specific updates on how guitar has been going for me. I was busy again last weekend and didn't get enough practice in as I wanted, but I do have plans this weekend to sit down and practice guitar. I also went to one of my friend's houses, and I got to look at his electric guitar and ukulele, and was looking at difference I saw on electric guitar compared to the acoustic so later when I want to start playing the acoustic guitar, I would have already seen what it looks like and hopefully can get more comfortable with it more easily. This week, I have been more consistent and productive with the guitar and I've been finding the songs I started to play easier because of the amount of practice I have been having with it. I am tracking my progress and hopefully next week I can become more confident in playing the guitar! But for my short blog post this week, I promise that cleaning up my website is going to be worth it! But for a wrap up on week 7, I do feel confident in the progress that I have been making and I am very proud of myself for learning the guitar and I am so happy I got the opportunity to do this project. I am not only happy about my progress, but I have been happy to share it with others and maybe inspire others that are instruments that they can do it and to not give up and to learn the instrument that they want to learn! For week 6 of Genius Hour, it has definitely felt like it has gone by so fast. I still have made tons of progress in my project, but it feels like the end of the project is coming up so quick and it can be very stressful sometimes. But, I am excited for the end to look back and reflect on all of my blogs that were from the past and be able to see how I thought before I started to improve and see my growth over the 12 week period.
Talking about my progress since last week, its been a very slow process trying to catch myself up and to continue practicing old songs I have played so I don't lose my progress with those songs. This is important to me because I tend to notice if I don't play songs for even just a couple of days, it gets difficult for me to play as well as I played the time before. This gets super difficult in the days before that I said was very difficult for me to practice once and some times when I feel like slacking it off, but I do think it is really going to pay off in the end. The songs and chords that I discussed in my last weeks blog how I was looking at to play very soon, I'm starting play them but it is a very slow process so far since I am still new to the guitar. I do think that slowly learning these songs and not trying to cram learning them in a short period of time is going to help me understand how to play the guitar so much better and will make the songs that I am playing going sound so much more better. The reason I am trying to learn the songs that I talked about learning closer to the end of the project and being able to play is because if I learn a lot of these songs earlier than I thought I would, I would have much more time to practice them and get better at them, so I can really see how much I improved on the guitar over the 12 week period. 10/20/2021 0 Comments Week 5 This week for Genius Hour, things have definitely changed for me. One of the first things I noticed was how difficult it keeps getting for me to find the time of day to practice the guitar. Like I discussed in my blog post last week, I was going to try and improve on this aspect, but it is much more difficult to say rather than do. A lot of things in my life will come up that make this goal very difficult to achieve, but I still think that I can do it. For my blog last week, I wanted to post a video of me playing Love Me Tender, but I was busy so I never got to film myself doing it, but I do plan to post myself playing in this blog. But overall, I do think this project was a very good idea for me to do and almost half way through the project, I am very proud of my accomplishments. I never thought I could change between chords or simple things that I can now do, even if it still needs a lot of practicing for me to get really good at. As I talked about before, it really is beneficial to look at the sheets with the chords of songs. For example, I added a picture of a beginner sheet with basic chords that just helps me remember what the chords are so when I play and read chord sheets, they aren't as difficult. Something that I would also like to add that isn't related to my progress in guitar is a lot of the cool guitar straps that I have been finding that I really like. I personally don't really use a guitar strap that much and I just have a plain black one, but I have so many that I really like. For example, I put a picture of a Jimi Hendrix guitar strap that I found that I really love, and I hope I can get it soon, even if it is a little pricey. For wrapping up the end of this week's blog post, I also have found it really fun to play guitar for my friends when I have the chance to show them my progress and the different songs I can play and this really motivates me to practice and learn more songs, and I will definitely be using this strategy in the future. But finally, here is the video I took of me playing Love Me Tender on guitar.
For this week for Genius Hour, I have a lot of updates on how my project is going and how playing the guitar is coming along for me. For four weeks into the project, I am going to put a recording of me playing guitar so far so I can listen back on it later and see improvement to better myself at the guitar. But playing the guitar is getting a little easier for me, I am starting to get used to the chords but I am still working on the chord changes and still working on how to make those easier, which I talked about improving in my last post. I also started to look at other chord sheets that I found on the app that I have to look into the future and start to see me accomplishing my goal for playing the songs that I planned to play from the beginning. For example, here are a couple of the chord sheets that I am looking at. The one below is Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, it's a very simple song I found that I want to play and I actually think on playing the full song very soon! Below is a picture of the chords, Blackbird by The Beatles, a song in which I am planning to play later and maybe closer to the ending of this project. Something else that I noticed during playing the guitar more often is that it really sticks in my brain the more that I go over chords and practice and if I forgot or don't have time to practice in a day, the next day it is much harder than it would be if I would've practiced the day before. I asked my friend who plays guitar about this and he said it's definitely harder at first when you don't practice and it can be really aggravating, but it really does get easier and that I will get used to this and he taught himself how to play and he can play guitar really well. But for the ending of my blog post for this week, here is a video of me playing
10/6/2021 5 Comments Week 3 For week 3 of my Genius Hour project, I started getting sick from Sunday through Tuesday, so this set me back this week more than I had intended. I didn't even pick up my guitar the days that I was sick, but I did find myself making more progress on the guitar, but not as much as I want to to reach my goal that is only in nine more weeks. For the picture below, I've found out how to play these chords and I figured out that I need to work on how to play them more efficiently and put them more together so it actually sounds like I'm playing the song Love Me Tender by Elvis Presley. I've been learning about just the guitar in general for the past couple of week's and a big struggle that I am going to work on more since I feel better is working better on switching between the chords and remembering all of the different factors in just playing a note every time that I play or practice. I think this will be very beneficial to me and help me in the future and for my goals, and it is going to be the main focus that I am going to work on this week. I also think this week I am going to find more beginner and easier songs to play so I find the chords easier to play and develop my skills in working on making songs flow when I play them. So including everything that I discussed in this week's blog post, I think sometime soon I am going to start recording videos of me to track my progress and playing songs that I have in the past to just hear how I've improved but to also see how I play and how I've improved in that. I also plan on really watching these videos and finding things that I need to work on things that I am doing wrong. I plan to fix them and work on them. But , even with my flaws right now, I think I am making good progress for my project and I'm really excited to see where I end up at the end of it!
9/29/2021 0 Comments Week 2 For the second week of my Genius Hour project, I definitely now found out at least three songs I want to attempt to learn by the twelve weeks. The songs that I have chosen to learn are Blackbird by The Beatles, Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, and Sweet Creature by Harry Styles. I tried to stick with easier songs that are more for beginners because I've found playing the basics and just learning everything about the guitar to be very challenging. I've also found it challenging to pick the strings of the guitar without a pick, which is going to be a struggle when moving onto some of the harder songs I have in mind that I want to play, but I am determined and motivated to do it. I've been finding a bunch of music sheets for songs that I think I can play and I'm starting to get better at reading the chords. I definitely think that I am going to try to teach myself guitar as best as I can. The only help that I am going to try to get is from some of my friends who play guitar, YouTube videos, and from other guitar sources like apps and other applications like that. I understand that this is going to be difficult for me, but I researched it and it is possible for me to do and I am up for the challenge. I think this will be beneficial for me in many ways and will help me build other life skills in the process in learning the guitar by myself with no help form a teacher. I do however think that after this project, I will get lessons from a teacher to correct my mistakes and not me judging my mistakes only by myself, but from a professional as well! Recently, I have also bee watching videos of people doing covers of songs and just watching them play to see if any of these will help me. Below, I put a video in a video that I liked and inspiring me to play Blackbird, which the link to this video is https://youtu.be/yMoh1WHIFwo .
9/26/2021 1 Comment Week 1: The Introduction to Guitar For my first blog post, I wanted to give updates on about how the guitar is going for me so far. The reason I chose to start to learn how to play guitar for my project was because I have always loved music and am very passionate about it. My mom got me a guitar for my birthday last year and I never came around to learning it, so I thought this project was a great opportunity for me to start to learn how to play! My goal for this project is to learn more about the guitar and music in general so I can learn more about it to help me in the future when I keep continuing to play. I have a normal acoustic guitar that I'm going to learn on, and maybe when I get more advanced, I can learn how to play the electric guitar! I think that this was a good project for me to choose because I really do see myself playing guitar more and more in the future and seeing it as something that I am really going to enjoy after I get through the hard stages of learning the guitar. I'm still not completely sure what exact songs I want to learn how to play, but I would like to start playing Blackbird by The Beatles and Sweet Creature by Harry Styles in the future. For the first week of Genius Hour though, I have been just practicing basic chords and I'm starting to look into really basic and beginner songs. Over the next 12 weeks, I really hope to achieve this goal or come close to playing a song I find I really want to play! Starting to play hasn't been easy just even past the first week, but I really hope that it'll get easier over time so I can achieve my goal. Another thing that I learned playing guitar is that it hurts your fingers when you play and even after. But for my next week, I plan to talk to some of my friends that already play guitar and ask them for tips that may make it easier for me to start getting into it and tips for the future. And also by next week, I want to start planning on songs I want to learn by the end of the twelve weeks so I can figure out a better plan to playing.
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