Piano 2.7

Hello darkness my old friend, I have some very bad news for you all. Over the weekend I may or may not have (I definitely did) fracture a bone in my hand. This brings a lot into question. How am I going to finish Genius Hour? Can I even play anymore? Just when I was just about to finish my song, the last seven weeks of my project came crashing down. It's safe to say I won't be playing the piano anytime soon.

I am very upset. I had struggled playing this song for so long and it was finally coming together. If I hadn't got this sudden burst of an upward trend, I probably wouldn't be so upset about losing Genius Hour. The only thing I can do is put it in my past, move on, and learn from it. 

Piano 2.6

Hello fellow bloggers. I have some great news for everyone! My song is sounding excellent! After about a month of tribulation I am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I was stuck in a rut at about the two page mark, but over the weekend I completed an entire page, and it actually sounded decent! I only have about a page and a half left, but it is pretty repetitive. I am very close to finishing, and to be quite honest, I never thought I would be this far a couple weeks ago.

Everything is looking great with about two weeks to go. If I can get a page done this next week, I am confident I will be able to finish the whole song. See you all next week!

Piano 2.5

I think I may be failing this genius hour. I feel like I haven't played piano in two years. I am not making any progress and it is getting extremely frustrating. I was in our nation's capital for a week, so I was unable to get any practice in. From such a long absence, any progress I was making before the trip regressed right back to square one.

At my current pace I am going, there is no way I can finish even one song. In order to catch back up, I am going to need a solid two weeks of practice. It is officially crunch time for my genius hour. Most of the time I am pretty good at knocking out assignments/projects when time is running down, but this time feels oddly different. I don't feel confident in my abilities to play the song besides the opening part. I only have a page and a half of the song played, and only about two-thirds of that sounds somewhat decent.

I thought this project would be good for me so I could learn sheet music and hopefully be able to play more pieces. In reality, it is just deflating my confidence. The only thing I can do at this point is go above and beyond for the remainder of genius hour. If that fails, I can shorten the song up, but my best bet would be option one.

Piano 2.4

Hello my fellow peers. Thank you for tuning in for another week of piano with Cameron. I made some changes to my schedule this past week. Instead of learning two songs like I originally planned, I am going to focus on "The Sound of Silence."

I have a few reasons for my sudden change. The song itself was five pages long, and I couldn't keep myself going at that pace coming back from a five year hiatus. If I dedicated more than 2 hours a week I possibly could, but it Is hard to find time in my busy schedule. In my opinion, I would rather play one song to near perfection than two songs mediocre with a lot of mistakes.

I plan to stay focused on "The Sound of Silence" up until my tedtalk so I can master this song.. hopefully. I will continue with my routine of playing piano in the multipurpose room and then switching over to the janitorial closet when the elementary music class starts. I am also going to try to put in a little more time at home so I can succeed with this project.

Piano 2.3

Hello my fellow peers, thank you for following me on this long journey. The song I am learning is starting to sound quite nice. To counter my struggles with the left hand b flat chord, I repeated it many times over several minutes. It still does not sound perfect, but it is much better than when I originally encountered it.

I love the way "The Sound of Silence" sounds on a piano, although I should have looked more closely into my book when I picked the song. I did not realize that the piece was five pages long! Most of the songs in my book are around two to three pages long. If  I would have known this while planning my genius hour, I would have either focused on this one song for the weeks, or picked an easier song to do two. If I want to finish this song to near perfection, I am going to have to ditch my original song and practice this song for the duration of this project. 

Piano 2.2

Piano is a lot harder than I remember it being way back in the day. I just can't seem to tickle the ivories like I used to. I wish this song would just be muscle memory already so I wouldn't have to think when I am playing the Sound of Silence.

Last Thursday I had troubles finding a good place to practice my works. I started off in the Multipurpose room and I had a solid ten minutes before I was kicked out for a meeting. At this point, I was feeling hopeless. So I took action and tried to practice in the Custodian's closet, but there were items scattered all across the piano. The Piano itself was boxed in by furniture, so this made the custodian's closet a very sub-par location to practice. 

The song is sounding much better compared to when I first started. One thing that keeps giving me fits is the left hand of the song when it moves to the B-flat area. It is such a goofy rhythm with the left hand, it doesn't sound right. It would almost be better if I played the chords with my left hand and the melody with my right, but I will keep experimenting until I find the best sound.                      

Piano 2.1

The past week of my genius hour I have been working on "The Sound of Silence" written by Simon and Garfunkel. I did not realize how difficult this song could really be just learning from the sheet music. I thought I would be able to get through the first song in three weeks, but there are a lot of pages to this song. I will try to still get it done in the time frame I set for myself. I have only made it through the first page, although the right hand (melody) has been fairly painless. What gives me the most fits is the left hand part. I have never been good at reading notes in the bass clef and my left hand is my non-dominant so it proves a challenging task. 

The song moves up and down octaves into different keys so that also proves difficulty as my eyes are unable to catch up with my hands. I extremely overestimated this project thinking that I could get three songs done if I had the time. If I even want to come close to learning two new songs, I will have to put in extra work. I really want to learn these songs because when they are played to near perfection, they sound so cool!!

2.0 Piano

Hello fellow bloggers, I am back and better than ever. I have not blogged since last year, so I decided to update you on what I have been doing with my new genius hour project - Piano. Starting off my project, I made a planner on what I will be doing for these next three months when I work on developing my new skill. I used to play the piano but I simply did not have enough time to take lessons or do it on my own anymore. I lost my way and could only play a few songs from muscle memory, and they get old fast. For this genius hour, I plan to learn two songs that I can play almost perfectly (possibly three if I have the time) and to learn sheet music. I am going to learn my songs from The Rolling Stones "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" Volumes 1 and 2.Overall they are both solid books in my opinion. The sheet music is not impossible, but it no means is it a cake walk. If I am going to succeed on this project, I will have to put more time into these songs than the one hour a week requirement. As long as I keep my composure and do my best not to get frustrated, I believe I can make Genius Hour 2.0 a success!