Project Conclusion

At the end of this project, I was satisfied with all that I have done. at first I was a little nervous to say my speech in front of everyone, but at the end, I wasn't scared. I realized that everyone was doing the same thing, and that there was no need to be worried. I ended up having a blast presenting in front of everyone who wanted to see my project. At the beginning of the year, I didn't want to have anything to do with this project at all. Now that I have learned guitar, I'm satisfied with my project, and I'm thankful that I had the privilege to learn something that I love to do.

Project Essay

20 Percent Project Speech

This year, I worked on a project that would last the whole year, and hopefully my whole life. While I didn’t quite reach my goal, I still completed my project. For my 20 percent time project, I learned how to play guitar. It took me a while to actually get a guitar, and it took me a while to actually pick it up and play. About a month ago, I had my first guitar lesson.

At first, I was determined to teach myself to play. I wanted to be able to just jump in and play all these different kinds of songs, but as the time went on, I began to realize that I couldn’t teach myself. I then asked my mom to get me lessons, and the next week I had my first lesson. By this time, I thought I would’ve had at least one song down (not counting “Mary Had a Little Lamb”). I’ve gone a little slower than planned, but I have learned the basics of guitar.

So far, I have learned to play some chords, how to play up and down the scale, and a few short songs. I’ve also learned that guitar is nothing like piano. I thought reading music for guitar would be like reading music for piano, but instead of notes, there are numbers on each line. The staff of a guitar has different notes than piano, too. What I still would like to learn is how to play full songs, and hopefully it won’t take much longer ‘til I learn how.

One of the challenges that I’ve had with this project is actually getting a guitar. I didn’t actually get a guitar until Christmas, which took up half of my time to do my project. When I did start playing guitar, I began to get frustrated. I would get angry because I couldn’t teach myself how to play and when I tried to play a note, it wouldn’t sound right. It took me a while to realize that I couldn’t teach myself, but when I finally did, there was only enough time for about a month of lessons.

My biggest accomplishment was probably coming up with the project. My parents have always wanted me to play guitar, so I thought this would be the perfect time to learn. Even though I didn’t spend as much time on my project as I was supposed to, I have started on it, and hopefully will continue to play. I also think my biggest accomplishment was deciding to get lessons. I can be pretty stubborn, so I’m glad that I realized that I needed help learning to play.

I really enjoyed this project. I’m glad that I was able to pick up a guitar and learn how to play. I never really had the desire to play guitar, and at first I only wanted to do this because I couldn’t come up with anything else to do for my project. Now that I’ve begin to play, I realized how fun it is and how much I’ve enjoyed it. I haven’t learned much, but I hope that I will be able to continue playing guitar, and learn a lot more. This project helped me start something I love to do, and I’m thankful for it.

End of Year Presentation

I finally got guitar lessons and I'm presenting my project next week. It only took me about a day to write my speech, but I'm having trouble with my poster board presentation. I think for my multi media component I'm going to video tape myself playing the guitar, but maybe not. This project kind of threw me off guard, but at least I accomplished my goal. Last Tuesday, I learned how to play "Leave Your Lover" by Sam Smith. I'm happy that we were able to do this project, and hopefully I will stick to this project for my whole life.

Update

So I couldn't really teach myself how to play guitar, so I got my mom to sign me up for lessons. Last week my mom signed me up and hopefully I will be able to start next week or the week after. I'm now just looking at Youtube videos and starting to figure out some notes. But for now, im just going to wait for my first lesson.

Progress

So far, I haven't spent much time on my guitar. I have made some progress. I do know how to play a song, I just haven't really perfected it yet. This weekend I will start to become really serious in learning the guitar. I may not be able to teach myself, so I may have to take lessons from someone. I HOPEFULLY will have a song by the end of this, but it may take me a while. I haven't been really serious with learning, but I will hopefully be more involved this week.

Guitar Progress

I finally got a guitar! I'm so excited! It's an acoustic guitar, very pretty. It's wooden, like most guitars. I have already started to learn some notes and I already know how to play C. Right now though, I am very frustrated. I guess I just wanted it to be super easy to play, but it's very challenging. I'm having trouble putting my fingers on the notes and keeping them there so it sounds like it's supposed to, but I'm going to keep working on it.
I will continue to figure out how this is going to work, but by the end I hopefully will learn at least one song. If I do have a song in time, I will try to upload a video of me playing that song, but it may take a while.

Overline for this Project

          20% Time Project Proposal

 

Name: Weslee Daniel

Project Title: Guitar Project

Project Start Date: November 7, 2014

Project Completion Date: May 15, 2015

Mentor’s Name: Mrs. Browning, Lisa Daniel,

Brief Description: In this project, I will be learning on how to play the guitar

 

                                               Overview of Project Proposal

1) Project Objective:  What I plan to do in this project is to learn how to play the guitar. I have been interested in the guitar since I was a little girl, and I would love to figure out how to play it. I started singing when I was about 7 an I thought it would be a great idea to mix my voice with a beautiful sound of a guitar playing. If I am able to play the guitar, I will also better understand the concept of music and how it is displayed.
 My plan is to hopefully get a guitar. I am focusing on getting an acoustic guitar for my birthday or Christmas, but I need to figure out a way to get one. My goal is to teach myself, but I may need some help on the way. I may end up just taking lessons, but hopefully I will get the hang of it myself.

2) Project Rationale: The reason I am doing this project is to boost up my music ability. I have always had a desire to play the guitar, I just never thought of actually starting to play it. I really just want to learn how to play to do it for my mom. She has always wanted me to play any instrument. I learned how to play the piano, but never really liked it. My goal is to do this for my mom, and to hopefully get somewhere some day in a singing career. I know that it is a long shot, but you have to start somewhere, right?

3) Project Steps:

·         Get a guitar.

·         Look up youtube videos to help teach me to play.

·         Get sheets of music and practice little by little, getting harder each time.

·         If I am having trouble, start to get help from a music teacher.

·         Start working on pieces that are a little harder and work on one at a time.

·         Practice, practice, practice.

4) Timeline of Activities:

November 2014

Look at sheets of music and begin to study how the notes look and mean and how to read the music.

December 2014

Get my guitar and start playing what I have learned on it. Look up little pieces to play.

January 2015

Start learning the bigger cords like the flats and sharps and how to play those. Begin to look up harder music to play.

February 2015

Begin looking at harder music and harder things to play. I will pick out one piece that I like and learn the whole piece.

March 2015

I will keep practicing on that one piece that I have picked out.

April 2015

Perform piece in front of family.

May 2015

Present project to class.

5) Available Human and Material Resources:

Hopefully my parents will begin to help me by getting me a guitar and helping me be productive and keep up with what I have to learn.

I hopefully will be able to buy books with music in them so I am able to practice with them.

Youtube will be my biggest reliability for this project. I will look on youtube and hopefully they will help teach me things.

6) Possible Road Blocks: My biggest fear in this project is not getting a guitar. Most likely my mom will get me a guitar for Christmas, which is only 2 weeks away, because she really wants me to pick up an instrument and play. One of my other possible road blocks will most likely be that I am not able to teach myself the material. I’m scared that it is going to be too hard, but I think I’ll be fine.

 

7) Research Questions:

·         Will I get this project done in time?

·         Will this be too challenging for me?

·         Will I have the time to learn how to play?

·         How long will this take for me to learn just a little material?