Over the past 2 weeks, I have been continuing to make progress with learning the guitar. I am still very engaged in learning the guitar and am excited to keep progressing. Since the last post, I have only learned 1 new chord. This chord is the A Minor. Now I know 4 chords (A Minor, C, D, and G). Although, I have not learned that many new chords since the last post, I have mainly been practicing switching between these chords quickly. I still have a lot more practice to do, but I am slowly making progress.
There was recently a new quarter change at school, which led to a few changes with learning the guitar. Before the quarter change, my mentor Ewan and I met twice a week at lunch, as we had all our classes together. However, now we only have one class together, so we are now meeting once a week at lunch. Ewan has been doing a great job mentoring me. As mentioned above, he has taught me a few chords, which are some of the most important as they are used the most. He also gave me a chord sheet where I can learn more chords when we are not meeting. The last meeting Ewan and I had, we went over switching between chords and making sure I am not muting other strings when I am playing them. Ewan told me a technique to get the finger placements of each chord into my brain. I would put my fingers on the correct placements for the chord and then lift one of the fingers and put it back down again. Then I would play this chord. I would do this again and again with different fingers and with different chords. This reinforces good habit for the finger placement and helps me practice moving my fingers quicker. Overall, Ewan has been a great mentor.
When talking about learning the guitar with my mentor, or with someone else that has less knowledge of the topic, I have been practicing how to be interesting and how to respond. Doing this is different between different people I am talking to. When talking to my mentor, we are obviously both passionate about playing the guitar. We can make connections about this which generates interest. Also, Ewan and I have other interests that are similar, and other topics that we can connect with each other with. Sometimes we talk about school or hockey, as those are both topics that we can build a conversation with each other. Although I think I am able to have interesting conversations with Ewan, and I still need to work on replying with more “what if” statements, or “that is interesting”. Additionally, I am talking a lot with people who have less knowledge of my topic. This is mostly my family, but also my peers. This is a rewarding experience for me because it makes me feel knowledgeable and I get to share my experience.
When Ewan and I are having a conversation during our meetings, we subtly use certain objectives in conversations. These objectives are to reach an agreement, to agree on the points of difference, and to have an interesting time together. I tend to agree with most things that Ewan says, as he does know more. We also agree on the points of difference. For example, when Ewan was teaching me about ways to build good habits with finger placement on chords and switching between them. This was mentioned in the 2nd paragraph. Anyway, Ewan told me that he wished he would have done this when learning the guitar, so our difference was that we learned different ways to build good habits. Finally, Ewan and I do have interesting conversations and have enjoyable meetings. We share many similar passions and interests, which helps the meetings be more engaging.
Overall, I am happy with the progress I have been making, and I will continue to practice the guitar. Ewan has been a great mentor, and we will continue to have interesting conversations and I will continue practicing learning to reply. Thank you for visiting my blog and thank you Ewan for being my mentor.