It is now the week before the midterm is due for EDCI 306 and I have made slight progression. I believe I have reached the goals I set up for myself on my growth plan as I have indeed memorized the chords and order for the chords assigned to each song. I also mentioned in my growth plan that I do not have to have the songs completely perfected yet. I gave myself room for error and time for more practice as I mentioned how each song does not have to be played fluently by the midterm. With that being said, I have perfected the Sam Smith song, therefore, exceeding the goals I had set up for myself by the halfway point of this semester. With still a sufficient amount of time left before the final, I believe I will be able to master the last two songs required of me. With one week left until the midterm, I discovered that I may have procrastinated more than I would have liked. In the future, to accomplish the goal I have set up for myself for the final, I will dedicate more time to practicing. As well as time management. By completing the homework needed for my other classes I will be able to set aside time solely for attempting to complete my musical growth plan goals and perfecting each song. This is the only way I will meet the objectives by the final, and the only way I will stay on the right track of beating my procrastinating nature.

It has been four weeks since I have begun learning the ukulele I can say I can successfully execute “Stay With Me” by Sam Smith. After strenuous practice of playing with the tutorial and rotating from playing without background music, I was able to hear the song playing in my head whilst strumming the chords. As for “Island in the Sun” by Weezer, I am making quite a slow progression for the transition of D chord to G chord still. However, I am determined that I will get it, if not by the midterm then by the final. As for “Counting Stars” by One Republic, the chord transition especially from C to G and G to F, has seen to be a challenge. At this point frustration is my biggest obstacle I will need to overcome as when I cant get it for the thirtieth try, I become overwhelmed and frustrated and want to stop. With that being said I don’t because I know the thirtieth time is still better and an improvement from the tenth time and so on. I need to keep my motivation high while continuing to practice each song or else I will succumb to the fear of failing. Memorization of each of the song chords has been the easiest part about playing. The hardest part now is the transition from chord to chord to make each song sound like they are being played with ease. This will only improve with each week, each practice and each time I continue to play the ukulele despite my frustrations with the instrument. I have found some confidence in being able to play the Sam Smith song thus I am hoping this pushes me to continue perfecting the other songs.

It has currently been two weeks since I have picked up the ukulele and attempted to learn some songs from complete scratch. With no previous experience of the ability to read music or play any instrument besides the ‘chopstick’ song on the piano, I knew this was going to be a challenge from the start. By the first week, I managed to agitate my roommates and learn a few basic chords that the simpler songs consist of. This includes C, A, F, E, D, and G as the basis for nearly all the songs I have chosen to play. During my attempt at “island in the sun” by Weezer, I was extremely excited learning to play this, therefore, I went into the first try with high motivation as this has been a personal favourite song of mine since I was young. However, I realized that the seemingly simple song with four chords played for the majority of the entire song, (E, A, D, & G), was not as easy to execute as I thought. The transition from D to G was going to take more time than I had anticipated. After constant practice with little to no progress, I decided to attempt song number two. I chose “Stay With Me” by Sam Smith as it is another favourite song of mine, as well as it came with a step by step tutorial courtesy of Youtube. The chords for this song consisted of A, F, and C. The difficulty with this song came with the strumming pattern. Although it is all down strum it has pauses in between chords where they recommend tapping the ukulele in-between to provide the correct timing. As for “Counting Stars” by One Republic the chords on there own are nothing knew (A, C, G, F), again its the transition of each chord to the next which will only get better with practice. Overall, these past two weeks have taught me that I have some work ahead of me.