But I effected a rather significant change to-day, which got me thinking about other stuff, so I'm writing this.
At the very end of November, I started this project where I record a hymn every week. My knowledge of musical notation had effectively evaporated from the minimal amount that I'd learned from 6th grade band, and what I learned in piano class two years ago didn't really stick, so I thought that this project would help to rekindle it. (I decided on hymns because I'm familiar with the melodies and I have a hymnal, which contains the music.) I believe that, even at the on-set, I made connexions between my project and Rod Argent's teaching himself to sight read and Roger McGuinn's monthly recording of a folk song.
I don't even remember where I read it, but I learned somewhere that Rod Argent sat down for an hour or two a day everyday and practised sight reading pieces until after two or three years he could do it to some degree of skill. (And since it's Rod Argent, you can bet that it's a high degree of skill.)
Back in April, I learned about Roger McGuinn's Folk Den via NPR. This is a project where he records a folk song every month. He's been doing it for something like fifteen years and hasn't missed a month yet, which is pretty impressive. (I'm considering doing the same thing in 2013 if I can learn enough folk songs.)
So I sort of just took those two ideas and combined them - a set schedule, like McGuinn's, by which I would learn musical notation, not as impressive as Argent's sight reading, but still similar. I've been doing that for about three months now, but to-day I transitioned from guitar to mandolin, for a few reasons:
- I've been playing guitar for over four years, so I know the fret board pretty well by now. I've been playing mandolin for only about two and a half years (and only about one and a half years if you measure by any sort of proficiency). I figured that by moving to mandolin, I would not only continue to learn musical notation, but I would also become more familiar with the mandolin fret board.
- Up until now, I'd recorded everything with electric guitar, and now I have to record mandolin acoustically. I get really nervous about recording things acoustically, so I figured that forcing myself into doing that would help to allay my apprehension.
It also doesn't hurt that mandolin players are fairly rare when compared to the glut of guitarists.
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