Musical Goals

         I’m not a very patient person when it comes to learning music, or accomplishing any “hobby” activity for that matter. If I can’t sit down and learn at least part the song I looked up, I get frustrated. For I while, any song that I would look up on the computer, whether it be guitar chords or a video tutorial, I could play at least a rough version of the song in one sitting. If I could accomplish that, I am satisfied and continue on learning the piece. But, as time went by, I realized that most of the songs I wanted to learn would just be impossible to do in one sitting. So, in order to be sure that I would learn the whole song I’ve had to set goals for myself.

 My first encounter was when I first started watching Downton Abbey, I’m sure most ( if not all) of you have either seen or heard of this TV series. I’m not a huge fan of the series, but I absolutely LOVE the opening theme song! So, as I usually did when I heard a song that I wanted to play, I looked up the piano tutorial for the song on Youtube. I never found a tutorial—I guess it was too new, but I did find a recording of a guy playing it from sheet music. I started looking around to find where I could at least find the sheet music…. I’ve become very good at this. J  After searching for the sheet music I finally found it and found some loop-holes in order to be able to print in out (no I did not to anything illegal, I just couldn’t print off the page because it was in the form of a picture), anyway. So, that night I printed it off I decided that I was going to learn it by the end of summer. After several months of wrting out the letters of the notes, memorization, and practice I was able to learn the whole thing by my deadline which I am very pleased about it!

 

After I completed that theme song, I gained more confidence in my playing abilities and decided to learn another one. At the time I was dreaming about being able to play a song titled, “What Love Is This” by a Christian artist named Kari Jobe. It was a no-brainer that this was the next one I was going to learn. Just like the previous song, I looked it up on the internet, found the sheet music and started the same process of learning. This time I’m determined to have in memorized by the end of the school year, and I would love to be able to play the whole song completely by memory. It’s a huge task, considering the song is much harder than Downton Abbey, but I’ll get it someday!


If It wasn’t for deadlines and setting goals I would get nowhere quickly, but thankfully I found a way that works for me!