Guitar Ensemble on Zoom – The Pink Panther Theme Song

Guitar Ensemble is one of my continued extracurriculars from last year; an activity which I take part in because of my love for music and the guitar which  I have sometime since the second grade. (LO4)

Only last year, I took up learning 3 pieces, the Minuet in G by John Sebastian Bach, Fly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra and the Hawaii 5-0 theme song by Morton Stevens in fingerstyle to play with the ensemble. This was a challenge to me, personally, since I was used to only playing riffs, basslines and chords but the after school activity required me to step outside of my comfort zone to learn fingerstyle progressions and convert my knowledge of music notation (which I learned from piano lessons when I was younger) onto the frets of a nylon string guitar. (LO1 & 2)

After months of practice we finally made progress as a group; each of of learning our parts individually and then playing them in combination to create a complete medley. Unfortunately for us, just as the performance was coming together for us to perform at the Spring Gala, the school came to a close and the ensemble came to halt.

Thankfully, this year we were more prepared and decided to continue the guitar ensemble sessions on zoom. I had my first meeting this week on Wednesday where a few of our members met to discuss the next piece we will be learning with our teacher, Mr. Marlon. We found out that we would be learning to play the Pink Panther theme song! This was something I was excited for because to me, the song is probably one of the most easily recognizable themes in the world from a show that I loved watching growing up.

It was my turn first to find out what I would be playing; for my first piece I would be assigned to play the chord progression for the song which is both a relief (it is undoubtedly difficult to learn fingerstyle pieces without in person guidance so chords had some sense of familiarity to it) and a challenge since 3 out of the 4 chords I have to learn are new to me. These chords are the b flat 7th, f7th and Am(major 9th).

I took a few minutes during the call to mirror Mr. Marlon’s finger positioning on his guitar and took pictures for me to remember the chord formations for the future. We made it up to the 20th bar and I soon got the hang of things like the strumming pattern, the counting and which strings should be strummed for each respective chord etc.

Naturally, the piece hasn’t come together yet and combined all the individual elements yet, so it doesn’t sound the same but there is familiarity to it. I am beyond excited for what we will be hearing in a couple of lessons when the bass, the chords, the 2 melody guitars and fingerpicking comes together! In the meantime though, I will continue to practice for at least 10 minutes a day.

Taking a look at the notation  >