WEEK 2 – Chord Notations

Notes from Oct 4th – 10th

This week was all about getting hands-on and learning how to play actual notes. As mentioned in my plan, my goal is to learn the chords G C D D7 Em Am within G Major.

To begin, I printed out a copy of  the guitar chord sheet from to keep with my guitar. That way I’ll always have it handy.
In terms of actually playing, I simply followed the directives on the chords sheet, placing the corresponding finger to the numbers listed on the strings. When I first started trying this out on Tuesday (Oct 6) , I managed to do one attempt oat each note and by the end of it, my fingers were so sore from pushing down on the strings! By my third practice session it was already becoming less delicate and I could feel my fingers toughening up to it.

As far as the sound of it goes, it was so-so at first; getting my fingers to not touch the strings around it was a bit of a challenge, but again, I can already hear and feel that improving a bit. My husband also gave me a pointer that if I place my fingers closer to the frets, it tends to produce a cleaner sound, which I’ve found helpful.

Although it’s still early, the most difficult part of this stage in learning so far is trying to memorize the notes. I’ve been working at it quite a bit and I feel like I always have to check with the page to see what finger positioning to do for each one.  I’m hoping to see some improvements with that in the coming weeks.

-Megan B.