Rachelle+12

=__Weekly Cat Blog Updates About Guitar Class 2012__=

Monday/8/2012/February
====I chose guitar because I decided to learn to play an instrument, I've always wanted to play guitar, but never had the chance to learn. I really want to learn as much as i can by the end of the semester. I've never learned any kind of guitar, but I used to play piano. Even though both instruments aren't similar. I'm enjoying learning guitar and I predict I will enjoy the rest of the semester learning songs. I'm not looking forward to performing, but I feel I'll be more comfortable with performing as I become better and practice more with playing guitar. I first wanted to start playing because I've written songs and I had wanted to put a melody to it, though I've began to stop writing slowly, I still look forward to learning the songs given to me and the songs I choose to achieve to learn on my own and during class time.====

-Rachelle



Monday/13/February/2012 Last week I learned how to play The Spanish Fandango and Something In The Air by Tom Petty. Something In The Air introducing strumming and The Spanish Fandango introducing finger picking. Tomorrow we will be preforming these songs either in a group or solo. I will be preforming with Amelia and Thalia. We have practiced for two weeks each block using our time with the guitars thoroughly by playing simultaneously. We will be getting a new song today and after that we will have to look for new songs to play that introduce two new chords. I will be introducing a song I have been practicing on my own time at home. I lok forward to performing with my classmates and learning new material we will have in the future to also perform either solo or in groups. So far guitar class has been a great experience for me in class.

-Rachelle



February/19/2012/Monday Last week we performed the songs "Something in the Air" and "The Spanish Fandango." It was less scary then I thought it would end up being and less intimidating. I ended up playing one of the songs perfectly and stuttered a bit on the chords on the other, but it all worked out for the best because i learnt from my mistakes and I know what to expect for the next performance coming up. I unfortunately had to do the performance alone this week because my group performed when I was a way, so I am hoping next week I will be able to perform in front of the class with my group instead of performing alone. This week we are learning a new song which I am familiar with called "Brown Eyed Girl." We also have the options of choosing a different song as long as it has the chords "D "and "Em" (Which we leaned in the song "Something In The Air") and two other new chords. I am planning to try one of the two other songs I've been practicing on my own, which are "Eight Days A Week" or "Losing my religion" hich both follow the guide lines of which this week asks of us.

-Rachelle



February/27/2012/Monday Last week we were given the choice between the chosen song "Brown Eyed Girl" Or choosing our own song to learn. The song had to include Two chords from the previous week and two new chords to learn this week. Even though I know "Brown Eyed Girl" well I decided to look on the internet for other possible options. I found one called "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M. This is a song I've known for a while so it wasn't hard for me to learn the beat. I practiced that song at home because my partners and I had decided to play "Brown Eyed Girl." I was having troubles with learning this song because of the fast pacing and because I was more interested in playing "Losing My Religion." The night before Performance night I sat in my room and forced myself to perfect "Brown Eyed Girl" which I had eventually did until I was confident with the strumming and chords. As Performance day on Friday came both my partners were not there. I was told it would be best if I went that day as opposed to waiting until monday when my partners came. I then decided that I would perform "Losing My Religion" infront of the class, mainly because I wanted to do that in the first place. Although the performance was a little "shaky" I believe I played the best I could in front of the class and I'm happy with that fact. I am excited to learn "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster The People this week as our performance song and hopefully will FINALLY get the chance to perform with my group this up coming friday.

-Rachelle



March/26/monday/2012 Not here... IN MEXICO!

-Rachelle



April/2/Monday/2012

So before I start I've realized I'm taking my blog too seiously and it's really boring (More so the writing than the pictures)... With that I'm going to just try to take it casually like a regular blog... Anyways we're finally back from spring break... Or atleast I am since I wasn't here last week to update my guitar blog... But I'm ready to play guitar again and I'm excited about that! The week before spring break we Performed pumped up kicks and to be honest I don't remember playing it because it was so long ago, but I do remember it went well and I knew the song! As for last week didn't take as good of a turn. We played I'm yours by Jason Maraz... I had three days to learn it and I learnt it the day before we performed because I was off playing other songs I wanted to play... I'm kind of ADD that way... Or maybe I'm just looking for other things to do because I'm bored.. EITHER WAY I didn't learn it greatly and "bombed" the performance... Oh well, you can't get the gold all the time, right? Whatever, this week we are learning songs with the "F" Chord... Yeah, not excited about that, but what can you do? I'll probably get my dad to help me out with that because he's better at guitar then me, guess I'm lucky!! So yeah, that's my goal for the week... Maybe If I'm lucky I'll find a song I like with an "F" chord to perform. I find it's easier to perform a song you know for the past to play because you can follow the rhythm easier (Obviously... haha). Wow, I'm writting way too much! Until next time... Bye!!! :)

-Rachelle

April/16/2012/Monday

HIIIIYYYAAAAAAAA! Last week we didn't update because it was a short week.... But it's okay because we only practiced last week, and even with all that practice... I still bombed the Performance on friday. I went up and played One Tin Soldiar with Amelia and Randi I completely screwed up during the performance. I don't know why because when I practiced the song I was fine with it and I was actually doing pretty good, but I was screwed up so bad that I just walked off laughing of failure, Iguess my embarrassment got the best of me that time and made me not do so well. Hopefully this week goes better! We plan on playing either House of the rising sun or grenade. We also get two weeks to practice these songs because we have a shortened week this week, so maybe I'll learn from last weeks mistake and do a better job when performing and practice some more at home. I'm excited to learn more songs these next weeks and am excited to update my blog again next week to update how everything is going! SEEEEEEEEE YAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

-Rachelle



April/23/2012/Monday

SOOOOOOOOO I just wrote a whole thing and then my computer busted and I don't know what happened... Basically, I am learning two songs with one new chord and a chord we learnt last time we are also doing some finger picking and I'm excited to learn more songs and get better at what I love doing which is playing guitar and teaching myself new things! So I'll update monday how the friday performance goes! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Enjoy cats.... lol, k bye. Excited to update monday! Yay for performing two more songs! LOL I FORGOT TO SAVE AND I HAD TO WRITE IT AGAIN! CAT IS LAUGHING AT MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

-Rachelle

Monday/April/30/2012

So last week was fun because I thought I was going to completely bomb the performance, turns out I did okay! yay!!!!!!!! Now this week we get to write our own songs! This is a good thing because I've already written my own song... But I don't have lyrics, so Randi, Amelia and I are planning on combining ideas to make one SUPER SONG! Okay yeah, so I'm excited now for some reason, the only thing is I can't sing and I'm nervous to so I need to suck it up and not be a baby!.... I think I'll be okay though, so, that's that! uhm uhm uhm uhm,.. Yeah, I'm going to look through lyrics I've written already to find some see if any of them are worth using! Hopefully I don't embarrass myself next friday on performance day... Anyhow! I don't know if anyone reads this but wish me luck? I hope this song is good, I'm motivated to make a good song. After all... I have to perform it!

By the way, the picture below is by far my favourite now... Just to let everyone know.

-Rachelle



May/7/2012/monday

This week we are still making a new song! My partners are Amelia and Randi!!!! I am finding writing a song is more frustrating than I thought. I do enjoy writing though. The first thing we came up with was the strumming and the chords. The chords are G, Em, Am, C. At first we tried a strumming pattern I thought would sound good, and then one Randi made. The three of us agreed Randi's was more fun and we went with that. As the week went on we realized the lyrics did not match the chords, so we ended up going back to the original stumming pattern. We are practicing hard for fridays performance... Both nervous and excited!

-Rachelle



Last week was good. Randi, Amelia and myself wrote a song and during the last half of the second week Randi was not there so Amelia and I finished the song with lyrics and chords. We worked hard and practiced a lot.When friday came that we needed to to play the songs we wrote I got really nervous. We had to sing the song and needless to say, if you heard me sing, you don't want to hear it again. So at first, I decided I'd lose the marks and not perform it, but then Amelia and I decided we'd just play the chords and not sing to atleast get partial marks and it went pretty good in my opinion! Now we choose a JAck johnson song for this week.... Hmmmm.... Which one will we choose... haha, Performance thursday!!!

-Rachelle



May/22/2012/tuesday

So... This week we have to use four bar chords... Last week we had to perform upside down by jack johnson (The Curious George song!). I tried learning the song during the four day week we had and I found it really complicated. During performance day, I was suppose to play the song with Amelia, but since she wasn't okay playing a song she wasn't comfortable with yet, I played alone. I feel I did okay on it, not my best, but okay, I feel if I had one more day to practice I would've perfected it, I guess that just means I need to practice more at home! Which I am completely fine with because I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE guitar and I like challenging myself... SO I will push myself to do that this week so I do better on friday's performance! Anyways, I'll try finding a song I know with four bar chords... And if I can't I'll change them to bar chourds! Woot!

-Rachelle



May/28/2012/Monday

Last week we played father and son by cat stevens and we did pretty good with the performance, this week we need to do a group of four for our performances. Not really anything much to say this week.......................................................................... Probably play Blackout by Breathe Carolina... We will see if that's even possible and if we can do that, because I love that song and I really want to strum because finger picking is too hard... So yeah... Until next time.

-Rachelle



Wednesday/6/June/2012

So last week we did group performances! We did pretty good we played Blackout by breathe carolina, we sang and strummed :). Our performance was good and we didn't screw up! yay! This week we have decided to play with the same group. We had two options to play and we chose the song "Stand by me" by Ben E. King which is a finger picking song. The song isn't TOO hard to finger pick, and I'm fairly confident with the song. We perform it on friday... So we'll see how that goes. We can also strum to the song if we decide to sing (Only the one person that sings) but I don't think any of us want to solo sing so we're just going to sing it with the group and all of us finger pick and maybe add something extra to the song?... I don't know... So.... That's what we're doing.... Until next time... :P

-Rachelle



Monday/June/11/2012

This week is the last week of guitar class :( WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH :'( I don't want to leave! But we havce to... Going to miss guitar class... Oh well, I've had fun updating this weekly cat/guitar/random blog. Going to miss it, this week we are doing one last song and I'm not too sure what we're doing but we have to perform two songs because last week we didn't perform because lack of members that showed up... So yeah, that's what we're doing! Anyhow.... Going to miss this

-Rachelle