Jen

Oct 24: Strumming

I played a lot of the songs from in my binder from my dad today. I’m really enjoying playing these songs and I’m glad I remembered that they existed.

I went hunting for Avril Lavigne songs. Joke intended; the chords are complicated, so I didn’t play any of them.

I haven’t memorized the wedding song yet, but I printed out the lyrics and it’s next to my chair. Maybe I should try highlighting it.

Oct 25: Incomplete

My back was hurting a lot today because instead of my daughter (5yo) attending virtual school today, she made a stop-motion movie. It meant that I wasn’t sitting comfortably, but helping her with the script, storyboard, making props, recording dialogue, and taking pictures. My husband helped her stitch the pictures, dialogue, and music together.

I’ll share the movie tomorrow, I think.

Anyways, all that meant that my back was hurting a lot so I didn’t play guitar for more than fifteen minutes.

To make up for it, I’m going to memorize the first verse of the wedding song.

Oct 26: Music

I had a really good music day today. I made no mistakes at all on the two Halloween songs from the learning app, which was awesome. I did no better or worse on the high level sugar plum fairy song in the learning app, which made me happy.

I played the newly discovered songs again and then recorded one. Here is I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash:

Oct 27: Memorizing

I played the usual songs from the learning app. I actually got 3 stars on all the parts for the sugar plum fairy!

I played several songs from the binder, plus my song. I’m really enjoying having these songs printed and am getting kinda annoyed with the song apps I have. They’re really tiny.

It’s ok. I’ll switch back to liking the apps later on because there’s more variety.

What? I know how I think!

I’m going to try to memorize the chorus of the wedding song today. I’ve got the first verse pretty much down.

I’m hoping that once I have the first verse and chorus memorized, the tune will pop into my head.

We’ll have to see.

Oct 28: I didn’t memorize

I didn’t bring up my binder today, or my song.

I did play my song though. From memory. With no mistakes. So that was pretty great.

I mean, I’ve got a year and a half to get it performance-ready, assuming my book is accepted by my publisher. So I feel like I’ve made good progress lol

I did NOT memorize the first chorus for the wedding song yesterday like I said I would.

I have time.

Provided we finish writing the book by the end of 2021 and it gets accepted by the publisher, it wouldn’t be published until 2024, so I’ve got a LOT of time.

Oct 29: Easy?

I’m finding some of the exercises that I do on guitar are getting easier. It’s really nice.

I think I dreamt about the wedding song last night.

I didn’t have much time to play today.

Oct 18: Chords

I had two minutes to play today. I practiced my chords.

Oct 19: Wedding song

I played a bunch of songs from the app, mostly melody lines. I feel like that helps my finger coordination and individual string picking.

Then to work on chords, I played Get to Know You and a couple Disney songs.

In other news, my music mentor’s wife is also a musician. Since her strength is in words, I sent her the lyrics for the wedding song. She took a look at it yesterday and helped me tighten up the chorus and bridge. She said she loved the story of it.

So I think the lyrics are done! Now I need to figure out the melody.

As I think I’ve mentioned, Get to Know You appeared fully formed in my head, including the melody. So I really feel like I’m starting from scratch with this one.

Should be an interesting ride!

Oct 20: Nervous

I played several melodies from the learning app; 2 Halloween ones, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Vivaldi.

Then I took requests from the family. That’s always interesting because my daughter always asks for songs I don’t have at first. I ended up playing Puff, Kiss the Girl, and Get to Know You.

Why am I nervous?

Because I’m nervous to try to put a melody to the wedding song.

I think my first step is to memorize it. Then maybe it’ll be less intimidating.

Oct 21: Requests

Today I asked my family for requests after I played a few songs from the learning app.

My daughter makes very difficult requests.

I have two song apps, one for guitar, which has a lot of older songs, and one for ukulele, which has more variety and a lot of newer songs.

Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of the uke songs on the guitar, because it has the same names for chords. It’s been working pretty well and I often forget that it’s not a guitar app.

Until today.

My daughter asked for Star Wars songs. The Imperial March sounded like it would be fun to play, so I went looking for it.

I found a lot of tabs (single string picking) and no chords. Makes sense, I thought. So I opened a tab.

And then I realized that I was in the uke app because it only had four strings.

Needless to say, I did not play the Imperial March today lol

Oct 22: Procrastinating

I keep delaying printing the wedding song. I’m so nervous about trying to put music to it.

Today I played some melodies from the learning app, some songs, and Get to Know you.

I realized that despite being able to sing along with one of my favourite Taylor Swift songs, I don’t actually know the melody.

So that was interesting.

And by interesting, I mean hilarious.

Oct 23: Old songs

I remembered that I had a binder of several songs that my dad had photocopied for me back in high school when I first tried learning guitar.

So after my learning app, I pulled out the binder. There were some songs that I was very happy to see, most especially The Rose by Amanda McBroom. I had forgotten how romantic that one is.

I think it was a song that I sang in high school choir, because the tune came really easily to my mind as I played. I really enjoyed my playing time today.

Oh, and I printed the wedding song. I’m going to start memorizing it.

Oct 12: Short

I had less than half an hour to play today. I played the two Halloween-ish songs from my app, which made the kids happy.

I played my song twice… My allergies are really bad today so my voice sounded terrible. It was kinda funny.

Then I played a couple songs from my song app. Pegasus was very happy to hear Puff the magic dragon. It’s one of his bedtime songs.

Oct 13: New song!

I played about five different songs in the learning app. The two Halloween ones, of course, and then I played a Mozart and a couple Beethoven. Lots of fun. Very hard. But fun.

Then I played my song, and a few others.

Lastly, I messed around with different chords for a NEW song that I wrote last night. I don’t have a tune for it yet, so it’s coming together quite different than the last one, which felt like it popped into my head fully formed. Should be interesting.

Oct 14: Playing for fun

I played a challenge on the learning app and did decently. It was called Skeletons.

After playing a few other songs from the learning app, I moved on to the other app and asked my son which song he’d like to hear.

He requested Puff the Magic Dragon. Zero surprise there lol!

I’m rather impressed with how much easier that song is to play now. Especially the strumming. It’s feeling so much more natural.

I played my song once. I still love it.

I didn’t work on the new song today.

Oct 15: Repeat

My practice session today was almost identical to yesterday’s, except I did worse on some songs and better on others. I had forgotten how frustrating Youcisian is as an app for chords. If you’re not perfectly on the string, it doesn’t register properly.

I played my song twice because I felt like the first time wasn’t good enough.

I sent my new song off to a musician friend to look the lyrics over. I’m not going to start trying to put music to it until I get feedback from her, because I told her that I wasn’t attached to it. Once I start memorizing it, I will get attached.

I’m going to need to name these songs so you won’t get confused.

The first song is called Get to Know You.

The second song doesn’t have a name yet, so I’ll refer to it as The Wedding Song.

Oct 16: No playing

I didn’t play today.

Sorry.

I’ll try to make time tomorrow.

Oct 17: Today

I played a bunch today to make up for not playing yesterday.

I started on the learning app, played a bunch of the classical stuff. It was fun.

Then I played Get to Know You twice. Sometimes I feel like I’m getting worse at it…

I then played a bunch of other songs from my uke app and guitar app. I consider this to be strumming and chord change practice.

Sept 30: Nerves

I didn’t have much time to play today, but I played my song a bunch of times. Made some mistakes, but not every time.

I’m really trying to keep my chord progressions clean. I feel like I so often end up dulling the strings underneath the ones I’m going for, especially when I play the C chord.

I hope I can figure it out before next Wednesday.

Oct 1: Panicking

Every time I played my song today, I made mistakes.

I’m panicking. Mildly.

^reasonable depiction of myself panicking

I also played a few other songs. I feel like my chord transitions are faster, which is nice.

Oct 2: Trying new things

I have decided not to continue with the lessons in the app I use. However, I discovered recently that there are weekly challenges in the app and I decided to give that a try. It’s interesting and kinda fun.

I played my song a bunch of times. I still love it, btw. Good thing, because I hear it a LOT.

I decided to try playing songs from my uke app on the guitar. It worked REALLY well. I was especially happy with how the Julie and the Phantoms songs turned out.

Only four more days of practice! Eep

Oct 3: Will I ever learn?

I played the challenges again today. This week is Baby Shark, by the way. I refuse to learn that, on principal. So I went back several weeks to Tchaikovsky. There’s the sugar plum fairy riff and melody and the swan princess melody. I completed the first. The second two are incredibly challenging. I did better than I expected, tbh.

Then I played my song multiple times.

And then I played a bunch of songs from my uke app (on guitar). I had a lot of fun.

The only problem? I played for almost an hour and now my fingers hurt. A lot.

Will I ever learn?

The next few days will be much shorter practice sessions, both because my fingers hurt and because my daughter has virtual school, so our days are scheduled around her breaks.

Oct 4: No damage done

My fingers felt great today, so I played a little longer than I had expected after the long time I played yesterday.

I played the challenge in the app and I did really well! I managed to play the whole sugar plum fairy melody that was up, and it was a level 5! I didn’t go past level 4 in the lessons, so I’m very proud of myself.

I played my song several times. The first few times made me cringe at the number of mistakes I made, but then I was very happy with the following attempts. Hopefully I can recreate the happy attempts when I perform on Wednesday!

I played a few fun songs after that. I’m really enjoying Perfect Harmony by Julie and the Phantoms.

Jeepers, I’m nervous for Wednesday.

Oct 5: Exploring the app

I decided to explore the app I used for my lessons a little bit more. I found the “search songs” function and filter. I played a bunch of low level classical songs today. It was a lot of fun!

Then I played my song multiple times. I had trouble with the timing of my strumming in the second verse.

Coupled with the horrifying dream I had early this morning where I was supposed to perform at a party but nobody had told me, so I didn’t have my guitar. A bunch of people offered me a variety of stringed instruments, none of which I had ever seen before. There was an electric stringed instrument with a button you pressed to set the capo, but the neck was wider than my entire hand and you didn’t strum. There was an orb shaped stringed instrument that you played by picking the strings with a metal tool that looked like tweezers. There was a long-necked string instrument that I didn’t look at for long because it only had two strings and played with a bow. So I gave up looking for an instrument and decided to just sing, but I couldn’t remember the tune very well and it was all over the place….

I think I’m stressing about the performance tomorrow evening.

Gah, tomorrow!!!

Sep 24: Late

Sorry this is so late. Not much to report today.

I played my song.

I played a bunch of other songs.

I had fun.

Good night.

Sep 25: Not Much Time

Today was a busy day. My mom came over and we went through half of my son’s clothing that we had stored in his closet… All of which was already too small for him.

In other words, not much practice time happened today.

I spent the entirety of it working on my song.

You know what’s annoying?

Messing up at a different part of the song each time I play it

Sept 26: Performing

I’ve been thinking a LOT about my upcoming performance (October 6! Ack only 10 days!) and every time I make a mistake (once or twice each time I play the song) I worry that I won’t be prepared.

Did I set too steep a goal?

I know that my writer’s group will be gentle, but I still want to do a good job for them.

Today, I tried to coach my daughter into singing in tune instead of screaming the lyrics. It worked pretty well.

She already knows all the words.

I’m so very impressed and proud.

Sept 27: Nothing to Report

I didn’t play guitar today. No spoons. I’m sad.

Sept 28: Back into it

I played for about twenty minutes today, almost exclusively my song.

I say “almost” because I played Frère Jacques for the kids a few times and then practiced my chords.

I’m feeling a little more confident about my playing.

But when my mom asked if I would be performing for them before I played for my writer’s group, I panicked.

I’ll get there.

Right?

Sept 29: Fun Stuff

I played for about 40 minutes today. I think I’m going to stick with the no lesson thing for the time being. I refuse to feel guilty about it.

I played my song a bunch. Kept making tiny mistakes that really bug me. Hopefully I can iron most of those out before next Wednesday. (Eep 1 week!)

Then I played Puff the magic dragon because my son has been obsessed with that song lately and I don’t remember all the words to the verses. I did much better tonight. Just the last couple that I still don’t remember.

I played a couple other songs too. 500 miles by the proclaimers was a new one for me and it was a lot of fun to play.

And of course Frère Jacques for the kids.

In writing news, I finished a novella I’ve been working on for about a week. It’s just under 19k. I’m really happy with it.

Today marks 3 months of playing guitar!

Sep 18: Audience

I was sitting in my living room today, trying to get up the spoons to practice, and I was trying to figure out whether I should bring my guitar up to play for my family, or play in the basement by myself.

I was leaning towards the basement because playing in front of an audience is nerve-wracking, when I realized that I needed to play in front of them to get used to doing it.

If my publisher accepts this book and if they like the song, then I’ll ask them if they want me to play it for the book trailer and at the book launch. (Two very big ifs, imho)

So yeah, I need to get used to it.

I brought up my guitar and played my song. (I didn’t do a lesson today because I’m low on spoons)

Much to my delight, I discovered that my 2yo son also knows the lyrics to my song, not just my turning-five-tomorrow years old daughter.

I do sing it to him every night at bedtime, but he doesn’t sing along with me normally.

He was behind by a word, so it was hilarious to try to practice my song with him singing along, but omg he practically kept up.

It’s one thing to have written a song that they enjoy.

It’s a whole other level that they like it so much that they sing along with me.

Sep 19: Pros and cons

There are pros and cons to practicing my guitar in the living room.

Pros: practicing for an audience, being with my family, warmer than 16C (our basement has a heating issue), sometimes they sing along

Cons: I can’t do my lessons because the kids won’t stop screaming (although since my lesson right now is that awful riffs lesson, this might fall into the pro category…)

I played my song a whole bunch of times today. It’s starting to feel more natural, I think.

I played a bunch of other songs, too, and that was a lot of fun.

It’s my daughter’s fifth birthday today. I can’t believe it’s been five years!

Sep 20: Short but sweet

I played too long yesterday and ended up with tingling fingers today when I started to play.

So I skipped my lesson again and practiced my chords and my song.

I am feeling ever more confident about it.

It’s a nice feeling to have.

Sep 21: Strumming

I didn’t do a lesson today.

I did practice my song and my chords.

My son strummed while I practiced different chords. That was fun.

Sep 22: Repetition

I didn’t do a lesson again today. Tbh, I’m a little intimidated at this point. Once I finish the riffs, the next chord lesson is my nemesis…. The F major chord. I don’t think I will be able to pass any of those lessons. I tried the F chord today, and was barely able to manage it, after much adjustment. It hurt my hand and wrist a little.

I played my chords and my song multiple times.

My son pulled the kid’s xylophone over and played it while I practiced. It’s very hard to keep tune while a different song is being banged out at your feet.

Or maybe it’s just me.

I have my writer’s group tonight… The last one before I surprise them with a performance. I’m nervous and have no reason to be (today). I hope I won’t be in a constant state of nerves for the next two weeks!

Sep 23: Short again

I played my song several times. I know exactly where I need to practice.

I’ve decided not to feel guilty about not doing the lessons. I just don’t have the spoons to deal with them right now.

Sep 12: Sore fingertips

I was right, my fingertips hurt today, so I didn’t do a lesson.

I played Frère Jacques while my daughter sang it. She’s getting better (as am I). Apparently my son (2yo) is starting to learning the song as well, much to my surprise.

Then I played my song several times, focussing on my rhythm. I think it’s going well.

Going to hopefully play some ukulele this afternoon.

Update: I did play ukulele this afternoon… With my husband, because we have two ukuleles.

That was a lot of fun!

Sep 13: Repetition

I did my lesson today, playing the first part ad nauseum to try to get it to three stars. I didn’t succeed. It’s really hard. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Then I practiced my chords (successfully) and my song (multiple times).

I played a few songs after that.

But mostly today’s practice session was all about repetition.

Sep 14: Callus damage

I played the lesson I’ve been working on the past couple days again today. I got three stars after working on it a lot.

The next lesson was so easy I passed it right away. That was weird.

The next lesson was very very hard. I ran out of time to play it more than once. I got one star across the board. Barely, imho.

Then I played my song. This is where I noticed that the callus on my middle left finger had split, right where I (obviously) prefer to have my fingers placed. Sigh. So it hurt to play a bit.

I decided that I shouldn’t play too much so as to not aggravate the damage. I’ll have to build up the callus again. Hopefully it won’t take too long. I’m hoping to perform my song for my writer’s group on September 22 (or maybe October 6… Haven’t quite decided yet).

Update: Forgot to mention: we bought a music stand! It’s pink and it’s awesome.

I used it today and it works really well. (Much better than the gorilla tripod and bookcase combo I’ve been using lol)

Sep 15: Short

No lesson today.

I played Frère Jacques for my daughter today. She sang along with it with no problems at all. I’m very proud of her.

I played my song once. It hurt. I didn’t play further today.

Also, allergies are hitting me super hard right now (ragweed?) and my voice cracked so bad on the first ooh of the chorus that no sound came out.

So yeah. That was fun.

Sep 16: Healing

I did my lesson today. I passed the lesson I was working on two days ago after a lot of practice. Then I got to move onto power riffs. My time ended after one attempt at the first song, which I didn’t quite pass.

I played my song a few times and then realized that my callus hasn’t reformed yet, so that hurt.

My throat is still raspy from allergies.

I’m still debating whether I want to perform next Wednesday or two weeks later.

Sep 17: I despise riffs

My lesson started out well today. I completed the first lesson, learned about fingertip muting, and learned some new riffs.

And then the next lesson came.

😮👀😱

There were only four riffs in it. And I just fell apart.

And my wrist started hurting.

They are not easy to do.

So I stopped the lesson and moved on to my song. My voice sounds like a croak. I’ve decided not to play the song at the writer’s group meeting this coming Wednesday. Hopefully I’ll sound more like myself at the one two weeks after.

My daughter sang Frère Jacques while I played the tenor ukulele for her class today. I made a mistake. She didn’t. I’m very proud of her.