THEORY
On Tuesday, it was our first day of music after we got back from term break. Mr. John gave us our new assessment schedules. If I'm not mistaken, next week is the due date of our research investigation report on how music can influence people. Also after that we have to sing "Tanah Air" for our next assessment. For today, we only discussed the following assessments we're going to have. For this term, I think the assessments are more interesting because we don't have to make a booklet, but an essay instead, which I prefer, of course. The song we're singing for the next assessment is great because I love that song since I was a little kid. We're also making a jingle, which seems like fun, and it's always nice to learn new things, so I'm pretty excited for this term and I hope I'll do great.
On Wednesday, we reviewed on how to transcribe what we hear, but this time we focused more on the chords than on the melody. First, Mr. John tested us with a piano, but then he also tested us with a guitar. I think transcribing the melody is easier than transcribing chords because when you hear a melody it's one note after the next, while in a chord, it's a few notes at once, so it's definitely more difficult for me.
On Thursday, Mr. John gave us a pre-test. I asked what it was for and he said that it was just a revision on what we've learned this past term, also these last few years. Most of the problems were easy, except for one: pentatonic scales. I didn't really understand that, because I learned that since what felt like ages ago, and I'm a person with horrible memory, so I couldn't possibly remember that. After Mr. John told me the notes to the scale, I still didn't quite get the method of what note I should put in because there's no pattern in between the 5 notes.
INSTRUMENT
On Tuesday, Mr. John played a lot of songs for us, including "Goodbye" by Air Supply and "Bunda" by Melly Goeslaw. While Matthew and Darren play "Goodbye", which they played a million times before, I asked Mr. John if he could teach me how to play "Bunda". That song was my favorite song when I was really young and I still love it. I also asked Mr. John how he figured out how to play these songs, and he said to us that we should find the chords first, and then the melody. After we're fluent with both, combine them together to get a nice tone to it. I think this advice was very useful and helpful because it helps me in learning new songs in the future.
On Wednesday, Mr. John was looking for new songs for me to play, but he didn't want to teach me anything from the books he searched in. He did this because in the books, he couldn't find a piece that's classical, mostly pop, and he wants me to play classical songs. So since he couldn't find anything, we decided to play "Bunda" again.
On Thursday, I wanted to review on my playing of "Bunda". Turns out that I did not improve at all. I practiced a little bit, but that's not the only reason. I can't blame my brain, but I do have terrible memory and I can only remember the first verse of the song and not anything else, so that sucks. I really want to try to practice every day and stuff like that but with all of the things going on it's hard for me to spare the time.
