Learning the Guitar

I had been thinking about this project since grade 7 since my older sister had some struggles doing this whole Personal Project. Personal Project really scared me at that time seeing that my sister always complains about it as well as is overly dramatic about it. My mom encouraged me to do something that would be fun thus making it feel like I am doing a Personal Project for fun rather than an actual task. Therefore, I decided to take a musical interest for my Personal Project which is learning how to play the guitar. I decided to have a musical interest for the reason that a lot of my childhood was involved with music such as Michael Jackson, Nirvana, Queen, even The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, and many more. However, the inspiration that sparked my musical interest the most was Nirvana. I knew Nirvana for the longest time with my dad singing their songs over and over again. Kurt Cobain,the lead singer as well as the guitarist, inspired me to learn the guitar. His guitar solo always and will mesmerize people just by hearing it once. It is truly amazing and I would love to do that as well. The most iconic guitar riff that they have made has to be Smells Like Teen Spirit as it is very memorable just by hearing its first power chord. The second guitarist that made me want to play the guitar is Brian May. He is a legend as people around the world know who he is. From these inspirations, I took my Personal Project opportunity to learn the guitar hence, my learning goal, learning how to play the guitar.

Product Goal

With the right time management as well as knowing and understanding the musical concepts such as chords, rhythmic, bars, etc, I would most likely succeed in this project. I was confused about what my product would be. Nevertheless, I came to the conclusion of making a YouTube channel that shows me covering songs as well as playing my own composition. The chosen songs are a test of skills that I have learned throughout my learning process. The songs that I will cover have their own traits with challenging techniques to learn. I will cover 5 songs in total and make 2 compositions of my own. Creativity is a must for making my own composition because it puts my knowledge of music to the test. The product would assess my accuracy, quality, stability, as well as functionality thus making the success criteria.

Reflection

From this journey, I have created a product that I have intended to make. I have successfully created a YouTube channel showcasing my playing the guitar. Personally, I think I did pretty well in achieving my learning goal with my average understanding of playing the guitar. The saying “everything is not perfect” also applies to my product as it is not what I have envisioned in my mind. Even though I have reached my goal, the product did not reach my expectations. A lot of videos and audio were taken in the

process of making one single video because I wanted a perfect video without any flinching and jumping of notes. The videos that

still have a sign of flinching and jumping are the closest footage of being perfect. Overall, I did my best to reach my intended vision in

my head. I am pretty satisfied with my product and I am proud to show my friends the new guitar skills that I have acquired in my

Personal Project journey. In terms of the IB learner profile that stands out the most in my personal project journey, it has to be

communication. I communicate with my music teacher almost every day. Not even my music teacher but my friends and family

as well. They helped me accomplish this heavyweight task. Without their encouragement, their feedback, their suggestions,

and support I would not have been able to finish this project. I receive their feedback, I use a variety of media to present my

personal project product, I interact with others, and many more. That is why I think communication skills are the most noticeable

skill in my project than any other skill in the IB learner profile.

Product Evaluation

In my view, some of the quality of my product does not reach my expectations. The video quality is average since I mainly utilized an iPhone camera instead of a real video camera. The video is not HD. Not to mention, some of the audio that I have recorded has an annoying crackling sound. The editing could also be better as I did not put any visual effects to make it more entertaining. My song covers are accurate since I used a metronome to assess them. They are all on beat as you can bop to the songs that I cover. My music teacher assessed my stability by watching every single video that I have uploaded on my YouTube channel. He mentioned that he saw some minor flinching that occurred while I played but it did not ruin the whole song cover. If I were to cover a song again, I would really be observing my stability. My music teacher also encouraged me to practice more on fingering (finger exercises) so that I won't flinch as much. My friends and my family thought the videos were entertaining. Some videos exceeded my expectations as they have more views than intended (more than 20 views). On average, I get 1 comment per video which is really sad, however, when I call my friends, they have a lot of meaningful comments.