Since Wonderland is a kind of electronic song with dubstep instead of guitars, a strumming pattern was not immediately obvious to me. Normally I just kind of play around until I find something that sounds okay, but this time, nothing sounded quite right. Some of the patterns I tried out for the post-chorus sounded alright, but they just didn't seem loud and chaotic enough. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I didn't want to just use a simple pattern that didn't sound exactly right. I had already gotten the chords for the song here, so I figured I had to find a YouTube tutorial where someone showed me a good strumming pattern.
I ended up watching this video...
... and kind of skipping around to find strumming patterns. I paused the screen at certain points to see what he had written because, let's face it, I don't have enough time or patience to watch this entire video. It looked like a bunch of complicated stuff that I didn't really feel like learning, since I thought I could make the song sound alright with just average strumming. So, I just kind of listened to how he was doing it but it was so hard to get down the pattern. He was going too fast for me to interpret exactly what he was playing. So I looked to where he had written some strumming patterns on the side and I tried one of them (D-DDU UD-DUDU). It sounded pretty good to me so I was like, "Okay, cool, got the pattern down for the post-chorus," except no, it didn't sound exactly like how the guy was playing it. So I messed around some more. And then maybe I found the pattern that he was using or maybe it's not even the same one, but it sounds better than the other one so I decided I'm gonna use D DDU DU DDDU. And, giving it second thought I don't think it's the same one he's using but I don't really care because I like it and I'm tired of trying to find a pattern.
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| My struggles as I tried to puzzle through which strumming pattern sounded the best. |
Another thing that happened this week: I had a guitar lesson on Thursday with a new teacher. I didn't really like him that much. He's making me play Count on Me by Bruno Mars, which is really simple and not a good song. I don't think that he gets I'm not that much of a beginner. So I might go back to my old teacher, Ben, because I think he had a lesson opening. He was much more chill and let me pick the songs I wanted to work on. He also liked Taylor Swift, and I got the feeling that the new teacher, Luke, doesn't like Taylor Swift that much, since when I mentioned I liked her he kind of ignored it. So let's hope I can just go back to my old teacher.
Anyway, here's Wonderland. I sang this time. That's a thing I did... Sorry my voice is really weak, and please ignore all the mistakes I made.
Comments This Week:
Okay Hannah first of all, I can relate so hard, strumming guitar SUCKS. But you're already so much better than I could ever be, all of your chords sound great and your strumming was awesome! I always struggle with up-strumming (whatever you call it) so hearing how it sounds in context was good for me. I also often end up knocking the pick out of my hand mid-strum, so good job at not doing that. Something I like to do when I start to feel confident is pick a song with one of those weird chords in it and try to play that, just to get the hang of the chord and the new sound. You're no beginner (screw Luke) so you're probably good, and you sound great! Good job!
ReplyDeleteI can't see your video.
ReplyDeleteHannah, I can't wait to see how the end result turns out! I really hope you get to meet with your old teacher soon, or at least have better luck with the teacher you meet with now. You seem really determined to play these songs right, and that's really helpful. I'm so excited to hear your final product, and hopefully get to see you play in person! You're doing so well!
ReplyDeleteHannah, you have such an amazing voice I'm jealous!! Your genius hour is coming along so well, maybe one day you will be the first musician to ride a horse AND play a guitar at the same time!
ReplyDelete