So, I've been doing this project for a week, and I think I've been making some good progress. My goals are to practice for at least a half hour every day. I know this doesn't seem like a lot, but it's more than I've done in the past (I'm not exactly the most diligent person), so I've been giving it a try. I've been kinda successful so far. Once I get really into it, I usually play for a while; it's the picking-up-the-guitar part that's hard.
My goal for this week was to learn I Know Places by Taylor Swift on the guitar. Using these chords on ultimate-guitar.com, I was able to pretty much figure it all out. Because barre chords are really hard for me, and I prefer to avoid them at all costs, I modified the F chord to an easier voicing (my old guitar teacher showed it to me, and while it doesn't sound quite as good, it still works). There are many different versions of chords you can use, but I decided on the ones I used because I know how to form all of them and I think it sounds pretty accurate to the song.
Something that Ultimate Guitar doesn't provide is a strumming pattern, so I had to pretty much just figure one out and go with what I thought sounded right, especially because I Know Places doesn't even have any guitar in it. I decided on a palm muting technique for the verses, since those are more subdued and wouldn't sound good with loud, full strumming. Palm muting is basically where, when you're strumming, you rest the side of your hand lightly on the strings. It mutes the sound a little bit without getting rid of it completely, and I think it sounds nice with the verses. For the chorus, I decided to go with a D DDU (down down down up) strumming pattern. It's one of the simplest strumming patterns there is, but I think that a more complicated rhythm wouldn't fit the song. The one I decided on works really well with the lyrics and tempo, and sometimes less is more.
Something I've noticed is that I pick up quickly on learning new songs. It was rough at first, because I had to figure out the chords and find how to string them together so it sounded like the actual song, but once I got the hang of it, I learned the song in no time. I thought that maybe I should learn more than one song a week, because I can learn a song in two days, sometimes less. But then I realized that I have to memorize too, and that takes a little bit longer. Also, if I have a particularly hard song, I may need the full week. So, I decided that I'm going to be sticking to my schedule, but if I get bored with a song, I'm going to probably try to learn another song that may not necessarily be Taylor Swift and play around with that.
In my last blog post, I said that I was thinking about getting guitar lessons, and I did! I'm trying them out with a new teacher this Thursday, so I'll probably be posting about that. I hope that this teacher lets me pick what songs I want to learn, because my last teacher always let me pick the song and I preferred that method of teaching. I'm mainly going to be doing the guitar lessons so I can improve on my technique and things like that, so hopefully they prove to be valuable.
Anyway, you can listen to this audio of me playing I Know Places if you so desire. I only did the first verse and chorus because it gets repetitive without lyrics. Also, please ignore all the mistakes I made. I would sing along, but whenever I hear my singing voice recorded I want to die, so I'm gonna stay away from that and not subject you to it.
Maybe I'll eventually post videos or sing along or something but I have to start slow. I'm really uncomfortable performing for people or even just posting a video of me performing, so yeah. We'll see. Also, ignore the fact that the background of the audio is a really old picture of Taylor Swift; I'm using my SoundCloud account from 7th grade.
Comments:
Sarah
Madi
Zoe
My goal for this week was to learn I Know Places by Taylor Swift on the guitar. Using these chords on ultimate-guitar.com, I was able to pretty much figure it all out. Because barre chords are really hard for me, and I prefer to avoid them at all costs, I modified the F chord to an easier voicing (my old guitar teacher showed it to me, and while it doesn't sound quite as good, it still works). There are many different versions of chords you can use, but I decided on the ones I used because I know how to form all of them and I think it sounds pretty accurate to the song.
Something that Ultimate Guitar doesn't provide is a strumming pattern, so I had to pretty much just figure one out and go with what I thought sounded right, especially because I Know Places doesn't even have any guitar in it. I decided on a palm muting technique for the verses, since those are more subdued and wouldn't sound good with loud, full strumming. Palm muting is basically where, when you're strumming, you rest the side of your hand lightly on the strings. It mutes the sound a little bit without getting rid of it completely, and I think it sounds nice with the verses. For the chorus, I decided to go with a D DDU (down down down up) strumming pattern. It's one of the simplest strumming patterns there is, but I think that a more complicated rhythm wouldn't fit the song. The one I decided on works really well with the lyrics and tempo, and sometimes less is more.
Something I've noticed is that I pick up quickly on learning new songs. It was rough at first, because I had to figure out the chords and find how to string them together so it sounded like the actual song, but once I got the hang of it, I learned the song in no time. I thought that maybe I should learn more than one song a week, because I can learn a song in two days, sometimes less. But then I realized that I have to memorize too, and that takes a little bit longer. Also, if I have a particularly hard song, I may need the full week. So, I decided that I'm going to be sticking to my schedule, but if I get bored with a song, I'm going to probably try to learn another song that may not necessarily be Taylor Swift and play around with that.
In my last blog post, I said that I was thinking about getting guitar lessons, and I did! I'm trying them out with a new teacher this Thursday, so I'll probably be posting about that. I hope that this teacher lets me pick what songs I want to learn, because my last teacher always let me pick the song and I preferred that method of teaching. I'm mainly going to be doing the guitar lessons so I can improve on my technique and things like that, so hopefully they prove to be valuable.
Anyway, you can listen to this audio of me playing I Know Places if you so desire. I only did the first verse and chorus because it gets repetitive without lyrics. Also, please ignore all the mistakes I made. I would sing along, but whenever I hear my singing voice recorded I want to die, so I'm gonna stay away from that and not subject you to it.
Maybe I'll eventually post videos or sing along or something but I have to start slow. I'm really uncomfortable performing for people or even just posting a video of me performing, so yeah. We'll see. Also, ignore the fact that the background of the audio is a really old picture of Taylor Swift; I'm using my SoundCloud account from 7th grade.
Comments:
Sarah
Madi
Zoe
Hi Hannah! It really seems like you've made a lot of progress, great job! I really love the idea of learning guitar and I cannot wait to see what you do with it! The audio sounds amazing - it's so cool that you've learned so much so fast. I can't wait to see (or hear) more from you!
ReplyDeleteHi Madi! Thank you!! I'll probably be posting an audio every week of the song I'm working on :~)
DeleteIn one week you've made a lot of progress and I'm really impressed with what you've been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. I know how much you love Taylor Swift and can't wait to see how you incorporate that into the final product! (and you should totally sing, I bet you'd sound great)
ReplyDeleteHi Abby, thank you so much!! I'm not sure about the singing thing, but thanks for the vote of confidence :~)
DeleteI'm amazed at how much progress you've made in your first week! I think guitar lessons are a great idea, whether it's just for learning new songs or purely technical reasons, a professional opinion is extremely valuable. The audio is coming along nicely!! I would love if the audio became a weekly thing so that we could look back and see how much you've improved over the next few weeks.
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah! I agree, guitar lessons will likely be a really valuable resource for me throughout this project. I probably will make the audio a weekly thing; I'll be able to see my own improvement, and it'll force me to put myself out there more :~)
Delete