Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Day 10 - 2nd Aug 2011

G Major scale was what we learnt today.

Very similar to C-major but tougher. :(

Monday, August 1, 2011

Day 9 - 28th Jul 2011

C Major Scale was what we were playing today. C major supposedly is the easiest of the scales and the first to learn. So tried it out. Wasnt difficult, wasnt so easy either.

The numbers on the strings are the frets to be played upon and the fingers to be used are the ones traced by the lines.

Day 8 - 26th Jul 2011

Happy Birthday, Airtel tune, Ode to Joy - emotional ups and downs with my classes. I havent been the brightest student nor the dumb one. Exciting with Happy Birthday, dull with Airtel and joyous with Ode to Joy. Today we had nothing new for learning. We had to play all the exercises and the tabs we had practiced. Thats when we were allowed to move ahead with new stuff. Though it went off well, the ecstasy of learning newer things wasnt there. But I guess only when we are patient and we practice more during our basics, we would perform well whilst learning tougher chords. Good luck!!



Day 7 - 21th Jul 2011

My first real song, Ode an die Freude written by Friedrich Schiller and best known for its music by Ludwig van Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony. The Ode To Joy literally brought merriness around. Here's the tabs for it.
Simple yet lovely piece of music. Once I mastered playing the tabs for this one I felt elated, coz it sounded like a song.

Day 6 - 19th July 2011

We had to play all the exercises and the Happy Birthday song well today to move ahead. And we could. So we were taught the Airtel tune. It was a testing time for Oscar winner A.R.Rehman's tune. We could barely play beyond the first few notes. The only thing to look out for is a different notation. The fret's combined by the lines are to be played continuously without pauses.
Njoy playing a complex piece of music for a beginner.

Day 5 - 14th Jul 2011

Today is my hubby's birthday and guess what... today I got to learn to play the Happy Birthday song. Coincidence....I was very excited as soon as Sian played this song for us but was a bit doubtful whether I would be able to play it the same way or atleast closer to the song being deciphered. My luck it was a easy one and I learnt well coz I wanted to impress.

As Sian told from today the strings he would draw for me would be read from top to bottom and from left to right. All the numbers on the strings would depict the fret to be played. Thats how we were supposed to be interpreting TABs. Here goes Happy Birthday to You....Champ
There's nothing much tricky in this song. Play it slow, play it fast it will just give you the same song, just that the tempo will be different. Place your fingers on the frets mentioned in the picture and strum the string on which the fret numbers are mentioned one by one. And you will hear Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To You!
Similarly we will hear the next two lines, Happy Birthday Dear ..... Happy Birthday To You!

A great way to to wish someday on their birthday now that I can play this song.

Day 4 - 12th Jul 2011

More exercises were on the cards for day four.We expected better. But as our teacher had mentioned we had'nt yet perfected our exercises and we could not play the guitar any better than we could on day one.
We start playing with 1st finger on 1st fret of 6th string, then 2nd finger on 2nd fret. On the 5th string, 1st finger on 1st fret, 2nd finger on 2nd fret and 3rd finger on 3rd fret. On the 4th string, using all the four fingers of the fretting hand, 1st finger on 1st fret till 4th finger on 4th fret. Repeat the same for 3rd, 2nd and 1st strings and then try it backwards.

The second exercise was as simple and similar to the 1st one and here we go, the last exercise as our teacher had promised.
1st finger on 1st fret of 6th string and 2nd finger on 2nd fret. Then 1st finger on 1st fret of 5th string and strum serially till 4th finger of 4th fret on 5th string. Repeat the same for the remaining 4 strings and try backwards.

That was boring I said on the day of my class. But was excited about my next class coz I would be learning songs. Hurrah!