Progress

So 20 Time is essentially where a teacher or authoritative figure permits the students to use 20% of instructional time for a recreational activity or one that interests the students extra curricular desires. The essential question that I have asked is, ‘how can playing an instrument affect mental health in stressful situations?’. For my 20 time I have chosen to learn how to play guitar again. I chose to do this not only because I had a genuine interest in learning again, but because I was interested in the effects it would have in my everyday life. This ultimately answers my essential question as I will be blogging about my struggles trying to learn how to play again and will reflect on my progress not only in learning to play songs but to cope with stress as well.

My goals for this project would be to learn how to play at least one song from memory and be able to play others proficiently. My goals would not only be to learn to play the instrument but learn how to cope with stress through playing the instrument. How I will measure this progress or achievement will be relatively simple. To measure my progress in learning to play a song will be how fluently I can play said song. To measure the effects of learning the instrument I will write how I felt after each week and the either alleviating effects it had or if it only added more stress to my life.

So far I have ‘learned’ how to play, “Stand by Me,” by Ben E. King. I am currently working on the fluidity of chord transfers. However, I am able to play the chords and know the strumming pattern. This was a little deviation from my original plan, as I had not planned on learning the song, however, it exposed me to the elements of playing chords at a relatively tangible pase. Moving forward I am going to work towards perfecting Stand by Me and learning how to play Swing Life Away by Rise Against.