February 2012
4 posts
Today, I spent a while exploring youtube looking for different videos that teach you how to play a song. Of course, I don’t currently have the skill to learn these songs, BUT it was interesting to hear the lingo and the way that the people in the videos try to teach the viewers how to play. It would take a while for someone to learn a whole song, depending on skill level. I would like to...
Interview
I interviewed my friend Ben who goes to the University of Iowa.
When did you start to learn to play guitar? - I started playin like 11 years ago. For what reason did you have interest in learning to play the guitar? - Pretty much everyone in my family played an instrument, so I asked for a guitar for Christmas and started taking classes after that. How did you go about learning? (Lessons,...
Playin' a few chords
Today I broke out the guitar once again and decided to attempt to learn a few other major chords and practice other ones that I’ve learned.
I don’t feel that I have picked up the guitar playing skill yet, even though its been a few weeks now. It takes time! It’s a very tough skill to acquire - especially when teaching yourself. If I were doing this outside of school, maybe in...
Artifact Post 2
The second artifact that I feel goes with my community is the radio. I will be using this artifact for my writing in class.
The simple radio (also including mp3/ipod connection and a cd player) is a device networks music enthusiasts and musicians. It also allows them to connect. Think about it, musicians aspire to be heard or played through the radio, and music lovers turn to the radio to hear...
January 2012
14 posts
Artifact Post 1
One artifact that I chose to symbolize my topic is a guitar pick. The guitar pick is used in variation by different types of guitarists. It is a small instument used to pluck or strum guitars. I feel that this symbolizes my topic pretty well because of the fact that so many guitarists use it, and when one pictures a guitar it is very common to associate a pick with it.
The pick comes in a few...
Controversy
As I read through this weeks required or special blog posts and saw that I would have to find a controversy dealing with my topic, it hit me that this may be a hard task. I searched the internet and other places to find something, anything that might go with a controversy dealing with learning to play the guitar or the guitar in general. I was not wrong when I guessed that it would be hard to...
This post is on the special blog post idea about reading a memoir or an account of someone with a literacy related to my topic (http://www.helium.com/items/615636-testimonies-learning-to-play-the-guitar?page=2). This man had previously learned to play the guitar. He offered tips for beginners and a lot of insight on good techniques and such to help someone who is trying to learn to play guitar. I...
Today, I practiced for a while. I learned a few new chords and also revisited ones that I learned earlier. It really is not coming so easy to me. Still, my hand positioning is affecting how the guitar sounds when I strum sometimes, so I still need to work on that a bit. I am making improvements in remembering the chords that I am learning. It would be so cool to be a pro guitarist and be really...
I decided to look into things that one should know when first learning to play the guitar. I gained a lot of insight on ideas and practices that are usually best when first learning to play the guitar.
It is known that the acoustic guitar is the best starting guitar to learn - preferably one with nylon strings because the metal strings are said to injure fingers of beginners. I have a metal one,...
History of the Acoustic Guitar
I made the decision to look into the history of the acoustic guitar today. I was not aware that the Acoustic guitar has been around for more than 5,000 years! Thats a very long time! The acoustic guitar has been forever evolving and changing since it was first invented.
During the medieval times, an acoustic guitar model would be smaller versions of what we know today, having anywhere between 3...
I chose to look into a certain style of the guitar today instead of doing something very normal. I looked into the blues. I watched a few videos and read an article on this type of music. They were quite interesting. The blues is a great genre to express emotion and feeling. I have never listened to much Blues before. The videos and article can be found here:
...
3 tags
As we continue on...
Today I am writing about the other “Special Blog Post” for this week. One less traditional form of reading that goes with my topic of learning to play guitar is not reading words, but reading sheet words or music. Now, I attempted this type of reading but it was quite difficult because I don’t really know any notes yet. This is a great video to learn how to read sheet...
Day 5
This post is in response to the “Special blog posts” part of the assignment. I found a blog that is similar to my topic and use RAIDS to analyze the blog posts. The blog that i found is called “Learning How to Play the Guitar Blog”. The link can be found here: http://learntoplayguitarblog.com/
Revision: The author is trying to inspire ideas for his audience who is...
2 tags
Day 4
I began today feeling like I really wanted to learn a few chords. I watched a video all about the 5 major chords (http://www.guitarlessons.com/guitar-lessons/guitar-chords/essential-guitar-chords/).
All of the chords I learned are “open” chords, meaning that they are in the first position and also that when you play the chord, there will be one open string. These chords, along with...
Day 3
Today, I decided to learn all that I could about the parts to the acoustic guitar. I also practiced for a while. There were a few videos that taught me about the parts. One can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs5RjfUDRmM&feature=bf_next&list=SP308001EEAAC80A6A&lf=list_related
It is a good thing to know the parts for hand placement. I learned about the strings, fret,...
4 tags
Day 2
Today, I continued with a couple more videos in the same location as yesterday. I learned a few over things about rhythm, but it was very very basic stuff, so I searched elsewhere. I came upon a site by the name of guitarlessons.com (you couldn’t have guessed it). There, I found a few videos to watch.
From one of the videos, I learned the names of the guitar strings. From the top to bottom,...
4 tags
Day 1
Today is the first official day of me learning to play the guitar. Yesterday, my RA Kyler offered to let me use his acoustic guitar for the 30 days that I will be learning for this class, which is very cool. As I thought about the most convenient way to go about learning to play, I realized that lessons with an actual instructor daily may not be right for me. So, I began to look on the internet...
3 tags
My First Post
My name is Jordan Medellin and I am a Freshman at Michigan State University. In my WRA150 course we are doing an assignment in which we must take something that we want to learn and learn about it every day for 30 days, using tumblr to document what and how we learn. I have chosen to learn how to play the guitar - something in which I have always wanted to do but never actually committed to....
