In this blog post, I will talk about the notes and my progression throughout the weeks that I practiced “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” So to start I did not know what I was doing. I could not believe how many chords were in this song. I started out by only practicing the first 1o notes and I actually did this for about a week and a half to two weeks. It took me quite a while to get in the flow of switching chords and also doing the strumming pattern at the same time (as you will be able to tell from my final clip, I have still in no way mastered this). Here I will attach an audio recording of me the first day I tried to do the first 10 notes vs. a week later of practicing.

As you can see there was some progress but still lots to be done. After about a week of practicing the first 10 notes I decided to add another 8 notes. I at first practiced the 8 notes alone but then after a day I started to play it all together. My strategy was to continue to play it through and then whenever I messed up I would go back and start from the top. About another week later I decided to add another 9 notes. I used the same strategy as I did previous. Then lastly, about a week after this, I added 26 notes to my piece of paper and decided to use the same strategy of starting all over again whenever I messed up.

I also found it difficult to switch chords quickly during this song because it is so fast paced with the strumming. I found myself easily switching from some notes but not so much for most, especially with notes that had three fingers on the strings (Em, G, and E7).

My final video is nowhere near perfect, I did not reach my goal of singing at the same time. I tried practicing but it was very difficult to multitask. I figured I should cut my losses and just focus on the ukulele. I am overall very proud of myself for not giving up and continuing to practice even though there were lots of times I wanted to pick a new song. I worked my hardest to accomplish what I could in the final video and that is all I could hope for!