My First Genius Hour with Marty Music!

    During my week 4 Genius Hour, I spent some time doing research, reading reviews, and watching videos of the Youtube guitar instructors that I included in my last post in order to find an instructor that I felt aligned with my goals and would best fit my learning style. When looking for a guitar instructor on Youtube, one of the main attributes that I was looking for was someone who would keep me invested and motivated throughout the entirety of their video, while progressing through the learning stages of playing guitar in a manner that was easy to follow. After completing this research, I found that “Marty Music” was going to be the best fit for me. For the rest of my Genius Hour, I pulled out my guitar and followed along with Marty through his first two acoustic guitar lessons. After watching the first video and learning the E minor and Asus2 chords, I spent 15 minutes moving through both chords while developing my own strumming patterns to create music. After the 15 minutes of practice, I progressed into Marty’s second video which taught me how to play the A major chord. I then spent 10 minutes working though different strumming patterns with the A major chord and was eventually able to incorporate all three chords into different strumming patterns. In all, this week’s Genius Hour was a huge success, and I am looking forward to watching Marty’s third lesson! 

     To give you more of an insight to how I spent my Genius Hour, I have included the QR codes to two of the videos that I watched from Marty Music this week, along with various notes that I took throughout his lesson and images to show you what chords I was able to learn:

 Marty Music Lesson 1 

 -insists on getting the learner to begin making music right away 

 -provides visual cues such as “scouts honour” where you use your index and middle finger to move through different chords 

 -includes external links to other videos on his Youtube channel to teach you little things like how to tune your guitar -provides tips for how you can overcome the “hump” of learning guitar and how to stay motivated to continue learning

 -breaks down the different components of the guitar like the neck and body, the headstock, the strings which are connected to the bridge, the different frets, along with the locator dots between frets which help you to memorize where different chords are to be played

 -first chord I learned was an E minor, Marty provides examples of where I might’ve heard this chord before by explaining how it is the first chord in popular songs like Wonderwall (Oasis), About a Girl (Nirvana), Wish you Were Here (Pink Floyd) , Don’t Cry and Civil War by Guns n Roses

 -broke down finger positions (where your two fingers should be to play the E minor chord, the importance of not pressing down on the chord directly on the fret but rather right in front of it) in a manner that was easy to understand and moved at a pace where I was able to keep up with the lesson with ease

 -introduced strumming patterns (up, down – up, down, up – down, up, down…etc) 

 -after providing me with a good understanding of how to play the E minor chord, Marty progressed into the Asus2 chord or the “A suspended 2” 

 -progression was easy to follow as I was able to keep the same finger shape to play this chord -how to move from E minor to Asus2 

 

Marty Music Lesson 2 

 -started the lesson off by reintroducing me to the chords I learned in the previous video – felt that this was a great teaching strategy to ensure that I can incorporate what I learned in his previous lesson with what I learned in this lesson 

 -breaks down and relates new chords to one’s I have already learned (how I can transition from Asus2 to A major by just adding another finger to the same position)

 -keeps you motivated by teaching me what songs include the chords that I am learning which is extremely beneficial for my end goal of learning to play two songs as I can use Marty’s videos to choose a song that has the chords that I have learned 

 -keeps you motivated to continue learning by explaining that the learning process may seem strenuous, but every great guitar player has been through this phase and if you can get through it you will be forever grateful -breaks down the differences between a major and a minor chord explaining that a major chord has more of a “happy” sound to it while a “minor” chord has more of a sad sounding version of the chord -intertwining different sounds with different emotions – giving me a bigger appreciation for the music that a guitar can make

 -learned that when playing the A major chord, it is important to use the A chord as the starting point when strumming 

 -after progressing through different strumming patterns with A major, Marty incorporated the E minor and Asus2 chords into different strumming patterns – having me continuously practice what I have previously learned rather than only focusing on only the A major 

 -moving through the three chords in a strumming pattern 

 -Marty is understanding and emphasizes that he does not expect us to be perfect at playing these chords which was very reassuring

 -explains the purpose and difference between the Asus2 and the A major, providing examples of how the Asus2 is used to build off of the A major chord 

 Where I go From Here 

    I will continue to practice transitioning between the Asus2, E minor, and A major chords throughout the next week and will look to discover different strumming patterns in order to make music out of these three chords. Additionally, I will make an effort to listen to the songs that Marty provided me with, while listening for the specific chords that I learned this week in order to develop a better understanding of what each chord sounds like. For my next Genius Hour, I will progress into Marty’s third and fourth acoustic guitar lessons in order to learn the G major and D major chords. I will break my next Genius Hour into a similar structure to this week; watching each of the videos and then practicing that respective chord for 15 minutes, and then practice transitioning between the two chords at the end.