Day 31.
In the final days leading up to the midterm, I hit my stride. With what feels like the uphill battle now over, I have turned my attention to a new song – Ho Hey by the Lumineers. A classmate provided a wonderful tutorial video for this song, which I feel provides an in-depth walkthrough of how to play. I now realize, after watching the video that it used the ‘island strum,’ as opposed to the DD UDU pattern that I thought it used. The island strum is DD UU DU. Today I worked on familiarizing my self with the new strumming pattern. Additionally, Ho Hey also requires you to transition from the ‘island strum’ on one chord, to two downstrokes on another, and then a final down strum on the initial chord. For example, I must transition from the ‘island strum’ on C, to the two down strums on F, and then finish with a final down strum on C.
Day 32.
I excelled quite quickly nearing the midterm while learning Riptide and have therefore decided to try and learn Ho Hey quickly while I am still on this lucky streak. When I initially decided to learn this song, I didn’t realize how challenging it is. The song uses a few chord progressions and I am only used to using the same one repeatedly. Today I focused on the chord progression C to F to C. As I only know the one song, this chord progression is completely unfamiliar and I am experiencing some troubles moving from C to F as my hands are used to moving from C to Am. The transitions between C and F are a bit rough, but I can tell they will become smoother over time.
