Step 1

Statement of Interest

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The area of music I’d like to get into in this project is guitar. Over the year I’ve practiced with my bands a lot on various styles of songs which shifted my focus to just singing. For the last project, I want to revisit my guitar skills and improve my skills particularly on fingerpicking. I normally play guitar as the instrumental background to my singing, therefore my fingerpicking skills aren’t that strong in comparison. The song I’m going to practice and perform is “Wicked Game” by James Vincent McMorrow. The reason being is that the song has both fingerpicking and singing, which I can practice both finger picking as well as singing at the same time.

 

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Step 2

Plan of Action

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Self Assessment- where I stand now:

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- Intermediate guitar player                            - Fluent with chords and strumming

- Been playing guitar since seventh grade               - Started singing in eighth grade

- Experiences include performing at events at schools   - Okay with fingerpicking (guitar)

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Plan of Action:

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My end goal is to be able to sing and play the song “Wicked Games” by James Vincent McMorrow. Since the song has constant fingerpicking throughout, I want to be able to play it fluently even while singing. I plan to practice at least once a day due to the time limitation. The only resources I need are an acoustic guitar, the chords and lyrics, and my voice. 

I won't be recording the process of my progress since it's mostly the same pattern played repetitively, it's more of the learning of the singing part that I need to learn more and more each day. The progress will be recorded in the practice log sheet of how long I practiced that day, and what progress I made. 

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Record of Growth: 

(minimum of 10 entries)

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Self Assessment after the project:

- Learned to sing and play a new song "Wicked Game" fluently

- Learned parts of "La Vie En Rose" and got better at reading tabs quickly

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Step 3

Demonstration

Final performance of the song "Wicked Game" by James Vincent McMorrow

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Step 4

Reflection

 

In this project I learned the fingerpicking of the song "Wicked Game" by James Vincent McMorrow, as well as the singing, and recorded my final project in mp3 above. 

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I started this project thinking I'd be learning the song "La Vie En Rose" by Chet Ankins, which is purely guitar picking. Although with the short time period I could not move on to the 20th measure without the first part sounding fluent, therefore I decided to change my study to singing combined with fingerpicking. Changing my goal to fingerpicking and singing at the same time practiced my multitasking skills in music since I have to constantly remind myself of the fingerpicking pattern while singing the lyrics. 

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From this project, I not only learned two new songs but practiced my skills from fingerpicking to advancing my speed in reading guitar tabs. I also learned the singing of the song "Wicked Game", which I've never played before this project. 

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What I would've done different was probably give myself more practice time with the song "La Vie En Rose", although even with more time, I don't think I'd be able to play the whole song fluently since I'm no expert in fingerpicking, and I need to learn it little by little, and take my time so that it sounds good to me.

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By changing to "Wicked Game", success came a lot faster to me since I am more advantaged to the fact that I normally strum and sing at the same time, what was added was the fingerpicking patterns. The frustrations I experienced with "La Vie En Rose" in parts where it was more challenging and difficult to hold the chords. 

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My future musical plans would be to spend more time with the guitar, learning what I want to learn and getting better at fingerpicking songs. I will definitely keep singing and performing songs since it's what I've always been doing and enjoyed. I will also try to continue learning the song "La Vie En Rose" since I've already started, and the start of something counts and can lead to an increasingly satisfying outcome, and I've always loved the song, therefore it'd be pleasure to me that I can play this song. ​