Victoria+12

My name is Victoria and I am in Grade 9. I am very into dance but I also have an interest in music. And I have always wanted to learn how to play the guitar. Last year, we did a little bit in Music but we only learned a few chords. So I am really hoping that this year, I will be able to play some different songs. Though right now, I am still working on getting the fingering down. Let's hope that I will improve by the end of the year!



The first song, I have learned how to play is __You Belong With Me by: Taylor Swift__. It was a surprisingly easy song to play. The chords are D, A, G and E minor. By about the 4th time playing, I had the song memorized. What was also really helpful, was that I already knew the song so I didn't have to learn the lyrics or the beat. Here are the lyrics and the chords. And here is the music video.



This week the song I am playing is __Baby Girl by: Sugarland__. Country songs are always great to play on the acoustic guitar. The chords are G, C, F, D minor and A minor. It is a little more difficult than __You Belong With Me__ because it has more chords. But it also easier in a different way, because it's a song written to be played on the guitar. Here is the music. And here is the music video, if you want to know what it is //supposed// to sound like.



Last weeks performance was sadly not as good as expected. While my chord changes were smooth, my guitars were out of tune. Needless to say... It wasn't my greatest performance. This week I am playing __Pumped Up Kicks by: Foster and the People__. It uses the chords E minor, G, D and A. It is a fairly easy song to play. Here is the music and the video.

The performance of __Pumped Up Kicks__ went really well and it a great song to play. I also did an extra project of filming 2 music videos. I played __Mine by: Taylor Swift__ and __Baby Girl by: Sugarland__. It went well and I even managed to find some awesome places to play outside. The only downside was that it was really cold so by the end of the day, my fingers were so cold that the chords may not have been very smooth. I will post the link to the videos once they are edited. This week I am attempting __I'm Yours by: Jason Mraz.__ It is one of my favourite songs. The chords are G, D, E minor and C. Here is the music, the music video and a tutorial for the introduction, which we are also learning to play.



Last week I performed __I'm Yours by: Jason Mraz__. Unfortunately I decided to join another group so there was more people at the last minute. And keep in mind that I had never played with them before. Needless to say it did not go very well and I am not going to try something like that again. Once got started though the playing was smoother so overall I think, while it wasn't my best performance, it wasn't the worst one either. The song I am playing this week is __Grenade by: Bruno Mars__. It has the chords D minor, A minor, B flat, C and F. Here are the chords and the music video for this song. Continuing to work on __Grenade__ has proved to be difficult. I think it is safe to say that B flat might just be the hardest bar chord that I have learned. But I have made progress on playing and it is slowly sounding like it is actually supposed to so hopefully I will be able to play it well by Friday.

On Friday Carlin and I performed the song we wrote. I think it went pretty well, although we didn't sing. This week Carlin and I will be performing 'Mean' by Taylor Swift because we never got to perform it a few weeks ago. It has A, D, G, and Bm chords in it. The chords and lyrics are higher up on this page.

On Friday Carlin and I performed 'Mean' by Taylor Swift and 'Upside Down' by Jack Johnson. It went pretty well and we sang both of the songs. I did not want to sing in the beginning but it wasn't that bad once we had started. Carlin and I also finished writing our song that we were supposed to hand in a few weeks ago. But we're done now!



Last week I was in a new group with Carlin, Amelia, and Rachelle and we performed __Blackout by: Breathe Carolina__. And now its our last week of guitar! So this week we will be performing Stand By Me __by: Ben E King__ and The Way I Am __by: Ingrid Michaelson__.