20% Project Final Blog June 2, 2014

We ended up presenting our project on Thursday may 29 using a Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation. Our project was indeed a success, the reason for this being that I learned a decent amount of guitar in such a short span of time that our method of learning guitar proved to be superior. Especially compared to conventional methods such as learning from YouTube, or having to read the notes in front of you. It is always better to have someone with more experience right in front of you teaching you first-hand. Also compared to other people our group was one of the few that actually managed to finish their project. This means that we were dedicated to learning and improving ourselves so much so, that we pushed ahead and finished what needed to be done. Overall I believe that if we had started with this project in the first place the final result would have been ten times better, because we would have gotten much more time to practice and to go over the steps that are needed to master the legendary instrument that was used before there brass instruments were even invented, the guitar...................

20% Blog #12 May 30, 2014

This past week I have practicing vigorously because I am planning to bring my guitar to school to present all of the work that I have put into this project. The songs that I am going to play are Emily- From First to Last, and Hey There Delilah- Plain White t's. Also just recently, I received my acoustic guitar from an online site called Musician's Friend. It is a Yamaha F335 Natural color with a red tortoiseshell pick guard.The advantage of having an acoustic guitar instead of an electric guitar is that it is much easier to hear the song since it is much louder without an amplifier. The electric guitar was OK, but the acoustic guitar is much more suited to my tastes because I don't like going over and plugging in my guitar whenever I feel like playing it. I am very nervous about presenting and I am pretty sure that I might mess up, but as the movie "The Sandlot" always says, " Heroes get remembered, but Legends never die....."

20% Blog #11 May 15, 2014

This week I have been practicing almost everyday, and I have started to learn a new song. The song is from a band named Incubus. This band used to be pretty famous back in 2009- 2011, but i guess their band broke up and the singer Brandon Boyd is on his own and he is making his own albums. However the song that I was learning is called "Pardon Me" by Incubus. I found this song while I was looking around on YouTube, and I really liked it because it is a little more difficult and the fact that I actually wanted to learn it makes me more determined to do so. Learning the Guitar is a great experience I think because it lets you do something productive in your past-time instead of watching TV whenever you have free time. Once you get past the part where you don't know any songs and your fingers get accustomed to the steel strings then it is so much more rewarding for every new song that you learn. Every song that you learn gives you a feeling of accomplishment and gives you an unquenchable thirst to learn more!

20% Blog #10 May 6, 2014

This week I have been practicing a lot because I have recently got a lot of inspiration to play the guitar. My inspiration comes from the idea that some day I will be able to play the guitar fluently and I will teach my kids to play guitar. This seems like a really inspiring way to practice guitar because I am doing it for myself and to make me a better person. Guitar is also a unique instrument, even though it has been played for thousands of years. It is different from other instruments like a trumpet, or a clarinet. This is because guitar requires determination to play it because of the strings that dig into your fingers. This is what makes most of the beginners quit trying to learn how to play. However once you get past this obstacle then it becomes much easier to actually learn and feel the music. Another reason it is unique is that  it takes lots of patience from the student to practice and practice and practice.... This is the reason that most people want to play the guitar but they quit trying to learn after it becomes to hard. The key to learning how to play the guitar is patience and determination, if you have these traits then nothing that the guitar throws at you can stop you from mastering it.

20% Blog #9 April 25, 2014

Lately I have been practicing a lot on my electric guitar and I have greatly improved on my skills. For example, I have been trying to learn some songs that I like and I try to play them on my guitar. Right now the songs that I have learned are; Emily by From First To Last, Stairway to Heaven by Ledd Zeppelin, and I am currently learning how to play 1234 by Plain White T's. I feel like I am progressing much faster now that I have more time and I get to practice the guitar everyday. Just in one night I was able to learn a whole song and that really encouraged my to play the guitar more often and believe in myself. Because when I learn to play new songs and I get really good at playing that song i feel really encouraged to keep learning more and more. I can already imagine how long it will take to get really good and not have to look at the guitar to be able to play it. But i am determined to become proficient in guitar.

20% Blog #7 March 27, 2014

What I have learned from playing the guitar is that it is hard work sometimes. Especially when you don't always have someone there to encourage you to practice and practice. A good way to motivate yourself to practice playing the guitar is to just think about the girls. You just have to keep critiquing yourself and saying "Am I good enough to play in front of someone yet?" Once you feel you are ready then you should definitely have a pretty good sense of the strings and how the guitar works. Another big motivator for me was that I knew that if I practice hard enough I can have the potential to be a famous guitarist and come up with my own songs one day.This should encourage many more people to play the guitar, because as everyone knows the guitar always gets the girls. I have also started to try and make myself comfortable with actual guitar notes so when I am not reading tabs I can make sense of a guitar song that written and played the way it was meant to be.

20% Blog #6 March 26, 2014

I have been practicing very little lately and this is because I have been busy with homework. The days that I do practice though I am really starting to get the song down and I really am starting to love the guitar. On the side I have been practicing separate songs like Everlong by the "Foo Fighters". The separate songs really help with practicing different styles of playing the guitar. For example for this song Everlong, you have to keep strumming and you only push down on the frets when you want to play a note. This also requires a D-chord. Because most of the songs I am learning require a D-chord it is easier to play them because I already know what I am trying to play. My fingers are pretty much used to the shape of a D-chord which is why I am able to play the song Everlong so easily and simply.

20% Blog #2, February 2014

My next step in learning to play the guitar will be to learn the chorus of "Hey there Delilah " which is a song by the " Plain White Tees". I have been practicing the intro lately with a simple D-chord that goes with the song. However lately i have not been practicing enough because i haven't gotten much of a break from homework. But i will definitely have the chorus down by next week because i will be practicing it for a few hours a day. By practicing a few hours a day i will gradually begin to get better. Another good way to know if I'm good is if I feel like I am good enough to play in front of someone by it sounding good. I feel that my progress is coming along very nicely and i am progressing very fast. I also believe that my time management is very efficient and it works for my kind of schedule.

20% Blog#5 March 7, 2014

   This week I have been practicing very much on my electric guitar. The reason for this is because I have had more free time now, which lets me get more practice time in. I have been trying to learn the main riff of Hey There Delilah. The Main riff is the middle part of the song also called the chorus. The difficult part about the chorus is that you have to switch to about four different chords. Also you have to switch fast which means that I have to practice even more to get the feel of the strings. My friend and teacher Eric has been helping me very much with his lessons I have been able to pick up the guitar much faster than if i was on my own. He said that it took him about two years to get to where he is now. I believe that I will be able to get to that skill level in a shorter amount of time.

20% Blog #4, February 28, 2014

Pocketstrings Portable guitar for practice on the go  :).

This week my partner and I practiced playing a song called Spanish Romance which is a classical guitar piece that is quite popular. I learned the first few chords which is the F-chord and I learned the rhythm of the song by listening watching a YouTube video. Knowing the Rhythm of the song is important to learning the song, because you have to know which note or chord to play when. Practicing the guitar is also tiring for beginners like me because the strings dig in to you fingers whenever you hold down a string. That's why professional guitar players have callouses on their fingers from their skin getting so tough. However at the end the end of the day when everything is done. Playing guitar isn't very hard at all. What makes it difficult is memorizing every single note, getting the timing just right, and the constant practice that you need to achieve these requirements.

20% blog #3, February 21

       This week i have been practicing very little because i have not had enough free time from homework. But I have been looking at different songs that i can try to learn to play. I have gotten interested in Mexican music because the solos in the songs are so much more fun to play. One song that I have tried playing is "Midnight Romance" which is Mexican song by Ambition. I personally think that it is a really cool song especially the intro which consists of a D-chord and picking individual strings at a time. If I had more time I think that I would be able to learn the songs much faster because practice makes perfect. Another song that i have wanted learn is "Smells like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana. I think that once i get a little more familiar with my guitar i will try to play this song since it is a little more difficult than the ones that i am learning right now.

This is like the guitar that I have.

20% Blog #1, 2014

We are planning on changing our project since we were not really getting anything done. Our new project is that my partner Eric is going to teach me how to play guitar. We have already started and he already taught me a basic chord. Called the D-chord, a chord is when you hold down more than to strings at a time. The first song that i will be learning is "Hey There Delilah" by Plain White-Tees. I started practicing every day when i have free time. I practice that D-chord and i also do some scales that i learned on YouTube. Scales are finger exercises that help you learn the notes and improve your picking speed. I will continue to practice what i know and try my best to learn quickly. My next goal is to learn the whole song of "Hey There Delilah" because right now all i now is the basic intro part. I hope that i will be able to continue my progress as smoothly as it is going right now.