July 7: Ouch
I played the riff I was having trouble with yesterday for the entire practice session today. I’m doing no better than I was when I started today.
Sigh.
I played the tabs I came up with for my song yesterday and while I still like them, I don’t feel like my singing went with them very well today.
I think I’m just feeling less productive overall today.
My fingers hurt.
Here’s hoping for a better day tomorrow.
July 8: Melody
I succeeded at that last riff!! On my first try today! Big surge of adrenaline after that!
Then I moved on to learning melody lines.
Apparently it’s a lot more pressing on strings because ouch my fingers hurt!
I did not pass the first melody.
Tomorrow is a new day.
I played my song (the first verse) and I’m in love with it again today. I need more practice to make sure I hit the right strings, but it’s coming along.
July 9: technical issues resolved
So I finally figured out why my phone wasn’t registering my notes properly… My sound was up too high. So it couldn’t hear my playing properly! And I thought that I wasn’t playing right!
So I ripped through 3-4 melody lessons and got 3 gold stars on almost every part today once I turned my phone’s sound down.
Then I listened to the first lesson on chords but couldn’t do the prescribed because I refuse to upgrade my account to get more practice time.
My fingers hurt, but I’m so exhilarated from doing well in today’s lesson that I don’t care.
Then I played my song. The first verse is sounding more natural, which makes me happy.
So I moved on to the second verse. The lines aren’t the same number of beats, so it’s going to need some adjusting. I can’t change the words too much because the character is supposed to have scribbled them down in half an hour and it’s supposed to be super rough, but I might have to modify them a bit if I can’t get the music to sound right.
Then I played the bridge and it sounds decent currently, so we’ll see how that goes.
I’m excited to start learning chords so I can put them to the chorus!
A note about me learning guitar
Something I haven’t really mentioned on here about when I go to practice the guitar…
I go to the basement.
Not to get away from the family, but because my son tries to tune the guitar while I’m playing it and refuses to listen to the word “no”.
He’s only 2. He’ll learn soon, right?
But every day, I encourage my daughter to come with me. (She’s always excited to join me… So far.) She’s almost 5. And she hates not being perfect at something on her first try.
So I’m not making a huge deal about it, but I talk out loud to myself. If I get something first try, I celebrate it. IfWhen I don’t get it, I say something like, “wow, that was hard! I’m going to need to practice that.”
And I talk to my husband about my feelings about my lessons in front of her, saying, “I feel like I should be further along because I used to play flute, and it’s frustrating to be going at such a slow pace. But I want to do this properly and I don’t want to skip steps.”
I’m hoping that she sees and hears that this is taking a lot of time, that I’m working really hard at it, and that I’m making a LOT of mistakes as I go.
Nobody’s perfect at something the first try. It takes a lot of time and effort to master an instrument (or reading, math, printing, drawing, colouring, etc).
If she refuses to listen when I tell her that, let her learn by example.
I hope.
July 10: I need to cut my fingernails again
I learned 3 chords today: Em, E, and Am.
My fingers hurt so much from pressing on the strings that I wasn’t able to do more than a ten minute lesson.
And my fingernails need trimming again because I’m not using the tips of my fingers, so it’s harder to put my fingers in the proper places.
When I tried learning guitar two decades ago, I bit my nails all the time, so I didn’t have this problem.
It’s kinda frustrating.
I played my song again and I fixed the notes for the bridge. I’m much happier with it now.
And I don’t think I need to change the lyrics to make the lines shorter, I just need to speed up the singing. (If that makes sense).
One good thing about writing the music for this is that I’m getting slightly more confident with singing. Hopefully I’ll be fully confident by the time I need to perform it.
I’m excited to see progress.
July 10 Part 2
I’ve started re-teaching myself scales so that chords make more sense to me.
It’s really strange, because it’s been so long since I last thought about this stuff, that I’m starting from scratch. But I kinda remember it. But not really.
So. It’s strange.
Song update
I recorded the lyrics at my first attempt at setting down the melody line.
They are so far from perfect it’s not even funny.
Like, I messed up on the second line of the first verse and on the third line of the bridge. The third line of the bridge is my favourite!!
However, I feel like I have made a good start.
I’ll be recording the lyrics again after I listen to it a bunch of times.
Ugh, listening to myself.
*shudder*
But that’s how I learn a song the best… Listening to it over and over.
Hopefully I won’t ingrain the wrong tune in my head for those two lines!!
And then I get to try to figure out the guitar to go along with it…
That’ll be interesting.
Am I doing this backwards? Lyrics-learn guitar-learn how to write music-write music for guitar?
I mean, I suppose it could be MORE backwards!
July 11: chords are hard
Today’s lesson was all about switching between Em and Am. I did not do very well. I’m not sure if it was me missing the strings or me strumming poorly.
Probably a combination of both.
So today my fingers hurt and my wrist hurts (left hand).
I played my song. I think it’s going alright. I think I like A major for the initial chord for the chorus. I’m tempted to just use it all the way through, but I’m sure I’ll figure out a better progression than that!
I also think I should try a key change for the bridge and final chorus… We’ll see how things go.