Well, the midterm musical growth assignment has passed. I can now say that I am gaining a lot more confidence in playing the ukulele!
Prior to uploading my midterm video, it took me a while to get the courage to record it. I tried a few times, and ended up getting very frustrated. I could play the songs just fine, and then as soon as I turned my camera on, I would mess up a chord or get the timing all wrong. At one point, I actually tried to record myself for an hour. It took me a while to finally realize that if I just wasn’t getting it, then I needed to take a break and come back to it. I’m quite a perfectionist, so I had to make sure that I performed to the best of my abilities. After a couple days, I was finally able to sit down and play both songs all the way through relatively well. I was so proud of myself after, I had finally did it! I’m still a bit self conscious of my abilities, so I made my video private so that only people with the password could view it.
I think that I have gotten significantly better at playing the ukulele. I’m learning how to play chords using more than one finger at a time, and also practicing to sing along! I’m hoping that by the time the final video comes along, I will be even better than I am now. I know I have lots to improve on, thats for sure!
I had originally planned to play and sing along to “Over the Rainbow” by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, however upon practicing the song, I found that it was a bit too difficult for my abilities. I could get the strumming pattern and the chords, but transitioning from one chord to another fast enough, and singing along at the same time was too hard for me. I hope that one day I will get better at playing it, cause I love the song so much and have always wanted to learn it!
I changed my goal for the musical growth final to playing “Bruises” by Lewis Capaldi. I also really love this song so I am passionate about learning it, and the chord transitioning isn’t as difficult because there is no strumming pattern, you just strum on some of the words. So I think I will be able to confidently play this song for my final video. I’m excited to keep learning and perfecting it!