Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Almost There

Hi Everyone! Welcome to my blog! For the past couple of weeks I have been documenting my progress on the guitar. If this is your first time here, I welcome you along my journey towards success.

Now, let's talk about my actual guitar playing. On my last blog post I talked about my first lesson with my new guitar teacher! So far he has been absolutely wonderful and I've learned quite a bit from him. On my last lesson he gave me more exercises to practice at home. One of them is the tune to a song called "A Horse With No Name." Weird name right? I thought the same thing. Who would title a song that? However,  I figured it wouldn't have made a difference if I asked. The conversation would probably have gone something like this: "Dan, why is the song named that?" "Well, I don't really know." See, that wouldn't have been much help. Anyways, the tune consisted of two chords: Eminor and A9/F#. He mainly used this song to teach me strumming. It sounds super cool, but it's also really easy to play.

To be honest,  I don't understand the A chord used in the song AT ALL.  I understand the letter, but I am COMPLETELY lost on the number portion. I also don't understand why it is paired with a F#. I asked about it and he told me that for now I should just play and not focus on the name of the chord. Okay, that will be easy (I thought). 

Dan told me to buy this tablature book so he could write all his lessons in it and I could practice at home. When I was with Mike, I was basically just memorizing everything. It's really nice to write it down. It sounds strange, but it's true.  I LOVE the tablature book. I can't wait until it gets filled up! It has that I'm-better-than-any-other-book look to it. Here's a picture: 

To end this blog post, I just want to say thank you for everyone that has come to my blog. I hope you all continue to stay. If you have any suggestions on ways I can learn, please comment! I can use all the help I can get. Thank you all (again). Have a wonderful week! 

Lauren

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Hi Everyone! During these couple of weeks I haven't really had the chance to play my guitar much. The week before spring break was crazy and I couldn't find time to play. For spring break I went to North Carolina to see my family! It was great to see them because I haven't seen them in 2 years. However, I couldn't bring my guitar with me because there was no room in my car. So that was two full weeks without gaining anymore skills in playing the guitar. It was rough.

I have some news! My original guitar teacher, Mike, recently got a better paying job and had to quit teaching guitar lessons. I only had 3 lessons with him! He introduced me to a new guitar teacher. His name is Dan. I had my first lesson with him last week and I actually really like him! He had a plan of what we were going to do before I even walked into the store. He gave me some different exercises to get my pinkie finger stronger. He is definitely going much slower than Mike did when I first started with him. However, I think that this is better because it gives me more stuff to work on. Below I have attached two recording for the two exercises he taught me:
file:///C:/Users/owner/Downloads/New%20folder/New%20Recording%2016%20(4).m4a

file:///C:/Users/owner/Downloads/New%20Recording%2017%20(5).m4a



I've also been practicing the song "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. So far, I have only been practicing the first 4 chords of he song because I want to make sure I get this down before I  move on to the rest of the song. It is very challenging to move from chord to chord. I've played the so song many, many times but still haven't been able to move fast enough. Here's a recording of how it sounds so far:
file:///C:/Users/owner/Downloads/New%20folder/New%20Recording%2018%20(2).m4a

This process has definitely been more challenging than I expected. Between school and homework, it is hard to set aside time to practice. But, I know I will reach my goal soon!

Lauren

file:///C:/Users/owner/Downloads/New%20folder/New%20Recording%2016%20(4).m4a