A Melodic Afternoon

Recently, I have been investing more time in improving my guitar skills after coming home from school. It is a nice pastime to invest time in, as it stimulates my creativity as well as my

dexterity. It is also a great method of “learning by doing” as I am physically exploring the sounds the instrument

makes, and get my ears better adjusted to differentiating between various pitches.

Usually, when wanting to pursue a new song, I find a song I like and that would be interesting to play in front of others. After I have decided the song I want to learn, I find the tabs for the song and attempt to learn it. In recent times, my interest in working with old acoustic songs has increased. I feel that they’re fun to play as they offer more interesting guitar techniques and different things to gain from knowing guitar. While playing, I experience that it requires hard work and dedication to fully master a song. While guitar may seem like a simple instrument on a surface level, there is a lot going on that is not apparent at a surface level.

Guitar playing and the pursuit of an instrument fits under the “Creativity ” aspect of CAS and is under the learning outcome challenge and skills. By committing yourself to a hobby, you are challenging yourself while gaining new skills that interest you. It is rewarding when you overcome challenges, especially while doing something you enjoy. A hobby like music increases the amount of challenges you are exposing yourself to, since there is a lot of theory to learn and difficult techniques. However, when you have overcome these challenges, you gain new skills as a result and trigger rewards systems in your brain. This sense of accomplishment fills you with drive and purpose to keep focusing on the hobby and be more productive. For instance, when I am learning a new song on guitar, it can be frustrating when I cannot get the sound quite right. However, once I finally play it the proper way and break the song into simpler steps, I feel much more accomplished and motivated.