Saturday, 3 October 2009

Went ACCESS for guitar lesson, actually wanted to meet shawn go together, but he late so he ask me to go AWWA first.

Reached ACCESS on time, saw Amanda, YuanPing preparing for guitar lesson, while the SPARKZ members were still having their weekly practice. Went to tune my guitar also. While doing that, I was fascinated to hear SPARKZ sing the "Jingle Bell" song, in preparation for the Christmas Lightup Performance towards the end of the year.

We then celebrated Khristine's Birthday, gave her a big surprise, planned by Yuan i tink....sang birthday song, then I play the birthday song on guitar after that, dedicated to Khristine de. Nice(:

Amanda, me, YuanPing, Peter and Shawn attended the lesson with all 3 instructors. This week, Arvind taught us a new strumming pattern using the C chord. At first, he would demostrate how it is done, and teach us the fingerings, before we put the new skill into practice, together as a whole group. After practicing together repeatedly, he asked us to demostrate the C chord to him, one by one, so that he can find out who is able to get both the chord fingering and strumming style correct. Amanda and me could get it correct, while for the others, not really there but close.

When we progressed to playing 2 bars of the C chord, however, Arvind advised that I was too fast and didnt follow the timing of the rest. But when he came back to 1 bar of the chord, somehow i fared better..

Yuan Ping had some difficulties pressing the chords and play out the correct tune. With sufficient practice, i believe Yuan Ping can get the hang of the C chord de. For Peter, his fingerings of the chord isnt right, and his strumming method isnt perfect. Peter have to work harder to practice so that he can improve. Practice makes Perfect (:

Then Arvind would also taught us to change from C to Am chord, by shifting our finger a string below. This change of chords is also applied with the same strumming method taught previously. Overall, it went well regarding everyone's involvement for today, and I learnt alot, now is only a matter of putting what we learnt into practice, to prepare for next week's lessons.

After guitar lessons, We(Amanda, Khristine, HuiQi, shawn and me) went to celebrate Khristine's birthday. Trained down to Choa Chu Kang to have lunch at KFC, then after that ate ice cream together, while snapping photos on the way (:

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Arvind, as a new guitar instructor with us, has indeed impressed me with his teaching style and methods. I think we are lucky to have 3 very good guitar instructors guiding us as we seek to learn to play the guitar. The blend and skills between Daniel, Justin and Arvind is indeed an intereting one, and I think that with them, Guitar Ensemble can move forward to another level. I tink that they can get the best out of our potential...