I have been finding it very difficult to do the strumming patterns for Joy to the World, my second song of choice. The first song I did, “My Little Sunshine”, was a lot easier because there are no strumming patterns. You just strum the note so it is easy to sing along. I am finding it extremely difficult to strum, play the notes, and sing at the same time for Joy to the World. As a strategy, I have been doing the strumming pattern (down, down, down, up, down, up) freely without doing any of the notes. This way I can get used to the strumming pattern. My next step was to continue the strumming pattern with a C note. I continued this. I then thought I would switch between the C and the G over and over again while doing the strumming pattern. I find it easy to switch from G to C, but not the other way around. I then tried to sing the lyrics while doing this “and heaven and nature sing” x3. I found this very difficult, but I will continue to practice to master it and then move on to the first lines of the songs. This will be more difficult because the notes change more quickly.

The video I used to practice “Joy to the World” is here. I loved the instructor that taught me how to play “My Little Sunshine” and so I decided to use his videos again.