I am becoming more and more frustrated with the free Yousician app and the limited amount of practice time it provides. I have debated buying the monthly membership for $9.99 (a price that I am constantly reminded of while using the app), but I have come to the conclusion that I am just too cheap! I do like the way Yousician gives me constant feedback while I am playing and allows me to play the song as many times as I need in order to master each note. It's almost as if I am taking lessons from a teacher. I am just becoming impatient because I want to learn chords!
So this week I decided to take things into my own hands and learn the chords myself. I know that I need to be familiar with a A minor chord, a D chord, and a G chord to play the verses of Yer So Bad. I looked up a chord chart on Pinterest and this was what I found:
I really liked this chart because it showed me how I should position my fingers. I found the chords that I needed and attempted to play them. What I found out is that you have to press on the strings really hard to have each note come through clearly when you play the chord. This was challenging for me, and after a while it really hurt my fingers! I also discovered that so far, a G chord is easiest for me to play. We will see if this holds true as I learn to play different chords. I eventually was able to play each chord after careful finger placement and tests. These videos show my progress on the chords.
My goal for next week will be to find a way to play different chords all together, fluidly. Right now I am only able to play each chord after studying the finger placement chart and carefully following its directions. I can also only play one chord at a time. I will still continue using Yousician, but I think I will try to integrate more YouTube videos into my learning this week. I am not limited on the amount of YouTube videos I can watch at one time, so I can have unlimited practice time. However, I lose the feedback feature when I use YouTube. I will also continue to reference the chord chart and practice moving my fingers around to different chords faster.
What I learned about online learning this week is the importance of feedback. Feedback can sometimes be what is missing when you are learning from YouTube and other online sources, but it is an important part of learning. If I integrate online learning into my classroom, I will keep in mind how much I appreciated the instant feedback from Yousician and try to implement that into my online sessions.
4 Comments
3/14/2016 08:07:42 am
Fingers hurting from guitar practice is the worst! I notice that a lot of really legit guitar players have built up thick finger tips from all the blisters they got from learning the chord progressions. Have you found any tutorials for the specific song you want to learn?
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Sophia Monaco
3/16/2016 04:34:58 pm
The ones I have seen are a little out of my league! I did just find an easy "Free Fallin'" Tutorial that I am testing out this week. But now that I am practicing more chords, things are getting easier.
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3/15/2016 10:07:49 am
Sophia,
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Sarah Hunter
4/27/2016 12:46:13 pm
You are totally, a super human! So much fun to be able to watch your progress!
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During my time at CSUSM, we participated in a 20% project. This blog chronicles my 20% journey!
Cover photo credits: http://bighassle.com/publicity/tom-petty-the-heartbreakers Archives
April 2016
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Ms. Monaco