The End ( For Now)

    I know that it has been a few months since I last posted. For that I am sorry. My plan is to make this short and sweet. Guitar has been my passion and I have learned a lot from my friend and teacher Peter Lothringer. Four years have gone by since I began. My hope is to continue when I have time. I am sure that most of you know that I will be starting college this fall. I shall miss having lesson.

    My hope is to restart posting when I do start having lessons again. Hopefully that will be in the summer when school is out. Do not worry though I shall continue to practice when I have time. Guitar is such a beautiful instrument it is a shame to have to put it down. School does come first though. Thank you all for sticking with me through this experience and my hope is that this blog has been a joy to read. I shall write again about the last lesson. Thanks again.

Theory

    Well, I have reached the point of learning music theory. I had learned some theory while taking piano lessons. I think that it is important to learn music theory. When you start learning music theory you realize how much you did not know. At least that is how I felt. My teacher Peter Lothringer teaches a whole college class music theory. It is nice that I am able to learn this theory from him.

     Music theory should be something that we focus on, so that we may become better educated in the realm of music. In choir we are just beginning music theory. I think that this will help us a lot. My hope is that by learning this music theory I will become a better guitar player,choir singer, and better educated music.

Recital

    On Saturday I had my second recital. It went really well. I was on the last page of three short pages. This is the first year I was not nervous about performing until it was time for me to play. I was playing  a piece that I had only a week and a half to practice. My teacher and I did not know whether or not their was going to be a recital or not. The piece that I did play had some full bar chords. I am not use to doing full bar chords. I am hoping that next year we will get a little more time to prepare.

    The recital is a group effort with my guitar teacher and a violin teacher. Most of the people who play are either cello players or violin players. I think that their were about seven guitar players. Their were some pretty impressive cello and violin players. The other guitar players did very well. I very thankful for my teacher Peter Lothringer who has taught me for these past three years. He really has helped me further my love for guitar. Well, I must go get ready for another of my favorite activities (horse riding). Once I am done with that I will go to another place and play some bluegrass with another person.

Catching Up

    Well, It has been a while since I last had an update. For that I must apologize. Things have been just a bit busy. The guitar that I wrote about last time has worked very well. It is just the perfect size for me. I have begun to work on a piece by Erik Satie. The piece is called Gymnopedie NO.1. Perhaps you all have heard of it. This piece is a favorite of mine. It might be called sappy, but it is still pretty. My teacher and I are trying to learn it together. Working by sections really helps. We ran through the whole piece a couple of weeks ago and since then I have learned the first page. The second page is a little tougher. With all of the bar chords and different finger positions it has proven to be a challenge. My hope is that it will only take a few more lessons to be able to play to whole piece through without too many mistakes.
    Before I began to work on the piece by Satie, I worked on a little piece to help me get use to bar chords. By working on bar chords my hands have gotten stronger so that I can do bigger and bigger bar chords. I know that I have said this before, but they are not easy to do. I thought that it would be easy. If you are just begging using bar chords start out with little ones first. Once your hands start to get stronger move on to bigger ones. It will save you a lot of pain.
    Sight reading is a very useful skill to have. I have not done a lot of it, but it has helped me. My mom bought me a book that is one level below what I am now. My teacher is having just pick it up and play a piece at random. I hope to get better at sight reading. I am sorry that I have not written about the past almost four months. My hope is to get back into writing about my lessons every week.

Some News

Well, It has been a little bit since I last posted. During the time that I have not posted I have received a new classical guitar. My friend said that he did not use it anymore. I was happy to take it off his hands. It has a nice finish to it. The color of the guitar is a darker brown. I think it looks spiffy. During my lessons my teacher and I have been trying to prepare some new pieces for me to play. The reason being is that at the barn where I go for horse riding lessons, there is an event that some people wanted me to play for. I was not able to this year, but maybe next year. It has been a good experience for me to play for my horse riding instructor and whoever else is at the barn. I used to be afraid of playing for anybody.  I am now rambling so I will go.

What I Did on Thursday

This past Thursday I went for my guitar lesson. My Dad had to teach a class so I went with him for that. I really did enjoy that. After his class we stopped at Radio Shack. We had a really nice and enjoyable time in the store. After we got out of Radio Shack (without the piece we went into the store for) we went to Runnings farm and fleet to pick up horse food for a friend of ours. While in Runnings my Dad and I stopped for spurs for my horse riding. After paying for all of it we rushed out into a great wind and loaded it into the car. I got to my lesson just in time. My teacher Peter Lothringer listened and even did a little harmonizing with me while I played a little piece that I made up. He said that it is important to try to make up your own songs from time to time. After a little discussion of my piece we moved on to my piece that I am working on, which is Bach's Minuet in G. I have so far been able to accomplish the first half of the piece with some difficulty, but nevertheless I have made it through the first half. I should be able to polish this piece by the end of this month. It is good to practice pieces that are unfamiliar to you measure by measure. I have just begun working on the last few measures of the first half. It seems that the moving down and back up of the last measures is extremely difficult for me.I really do enjoy the advice of my teacher. He really does know what he is talking about.

What I Have Been Up to With My Guitar

Well, it does seem like a while since I have last posted on my blog. Since then I have received another guitar. It is not a classical. The guitar which I received is an acoustic guitar. I really enjoy it but I must say there is nothing like playing a classical guitar. I have now gotten back into my horse riding as well. Sometimes I stay later after my lesson so that I can play my guitar while my teacher is training some horses. Now, on to what I have been doing with my classical guitar. Since my last post I have learned some new techniques and also have begun my new Christopher Parkening book which continues where the first book left off. My teacher has encouraged me to slow down a bit in learning other things besides classical guitar. Since the beginning of May I began to learn Bach's Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring. I am on the second page of the seven-page song. It such a pretty song. It should take me a few years to perfect the song. During that time I plan on working on basic pieces that should only take about a month to polish. To begin that one-piece-a-month journey I have started a Bach  Minuet. I am glad to be back  here posting and hope that I will have more to write on my progress with my classical guitar.