I do not want to STRING people along, learning to play an instrument is tough. Learning to play one when you have no prior musical knowledge, are teaching summer summer school, doing grad school, and still trying to have a fulfilling social life is incredibly difficult. Even through that, I am still trying to increase my skill in learning to play “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis Presley on the ukulele.

One of the most important parts of learning ukulele is smooth transitions from one tab to the next. My initial transitions were halting and slow as I had not yet learned the order of the chords as they came, but after some practice, my current transitions have improved quite a bit. I feel this relates back to TPACK as it takes not just knowledge of the chords and tabs, or skill transitioning, but rather a combination of both to create a good sounding rendition of music.  

One struggle that I have been having while learning how to play is keeping my instrument tuned. As previously mentioned, I do not have musical experience and cannot tell when an instrument is getting out of tune or what it's supposed to sound like when it is in tune. Luckily, I have found an app, GuitarTuna, which has multiple sections where one can test their instrument’s attunement, learn different songs and chords, and even play games to help learn the chords.

Here is an update on my progress as I continue my journey. 

References:

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054. 

Thür, C. (2020). Guitartuna: Online guitar tuner for acoustic, electric and Bass. GuitarTuna | Online Guitar Tuner for Acoustic, Electric and Bass. https://yousician.com/guitartuna