Milestone: By the beginning of Term 4, I aim to be able to play a song on the ukulele.

Practice: The micro-habit I'll do 2-3 times a week has different levels - to start, I will begin by practicing my strumming techniques each week. After this, I will practice strumming the chords used in the song, not necessarily in the song order but practicing memorizing which chords are which and where they are. Eventually, I will practice playing the song weekly and gradually faster and more smoothly.

To make this habit visible, I will place the ukulele in my room, next to my desk, to make it attractive, I can do a reward system with myself where, after practicing, I can play video games and eat some chocolate to make this an associable habit. To make it easy, I will only focus on it for around 10-15 minutes depending on my workload which won't make it feel tedious.

Anticipate obstacles: Things that could get in the way of my goal is my homework or work. If this occurs, I can focus on setting a time aside each night instead of doing it at various times of the day to keep my goal consistent.

Check in plan: Every 3 weeks, I'll reflect on:

By check in 1, I plan to know how to do basic strumming techniques and a few chords.

By check in 2, I plan to know how to play the chords in the song by memory, and start learning how to put it together and play the song.

By check in 3, I plan to begin playing the song by memory.

Transfer: At the end, I will show my growth by: I plan to be able to play a song on the ukelele, smoothly and by memory. I hope this ukelele skill challenges me and requires me to develop my determination and committing to purpose.

My questions are:

1. How would you critique some of the strategies and techniques you have used so far?

2. What feedback is the most useful for this stage of developing your skill?

3. Can you identify causes for any setbacks you have faced?

I have reached my goal in check in 1 to be able to know basic strumming techniques and a few chords, such as the F and G chords. I found the most difficult part of playing the chords is trying to only hold down one fret (the little line markings), because the ukelele is very small and it is easy for my fingertip to hold down the chord on the string adjacent to it. It took me a while to practice only using my fingertips and making my fingertips more flexible. Watching the video has provided me with insight on how to hold a ukelele, and how to strum it. I also learnt that you should tune your ukelele every time you play it.

Some of the strategies and techniques I have used so far have been helpful, such as researching different techniques to help me play the ukelele better. However, when learning the next chords, I will focus on one at a time which will make it easier to remember. I will also change my practice strategies and play for longer periods, as I feel as if my micro-habit could go for longer.

2. What feedback is the most useful for this stage of developing your skill?

The most useful feedback I have found at the stage of developing this skill is feedback on my strumming techniques. I found that it is easy to make a mistake and that one slight incorrect movement can ruin the strumming sound. Feedback to improve the consistency of my strumming is the most useful.

3. Can you identify causes for any setbacks you have faced?

A setback I have faced is finding time to practice. Usually I do my homework after school and I would ideally find time to practice at night. However, because this can be loud and my room is next to my brother's, practicing at night can be hard because of the disturbance it can cause.

1. I think that researching the techniques is a good way to learn the basics so that it is easier when you play. I also think more practice will be good as practical experience is more important than knowledge experience.

2. I think that practicing technique will help improve your playing skills as you are able to focus on familiarizing with the instrument rather than focusing how to play the song.

3. Some setbacks that you may have faced is the time-constraint and flexibility of the practice.

By now, I know how to play the F, G, C and Am chords by heart. I am able to strum in the order of F G C Am, which is the the order of the strumming throughout the whole song. I had to overcome the challenge and use more than just the website I had used to find the chords, because although it showed where the chords were in the song and the pattern, it did not tell me the strumming pattern. I had been strumming the chord on the beat that it was aligned with in the strumming motion D, which was one strum downward. This made the song sound quite incomplete and messy, because I was playing the notes where it said to on the music sheet and therefore leaving gaps in the song, making it sound incomplete and messy. Hence, to combat this, I turned to Youtube to find a live performance of this song. When I saw the person playing the song, I understood that I had been using the wrong strumming pattern. The sheet music and the video had the same chord pattern, and once I identified that it was the same 4 chords in the same order through the same song, I began to focus on transitioning between each chord quickly to create the F G C Am pattern. However, it still takes me some time to change my finger from each chord to the next. Next, I will focus on doing this faster, and then repeating these chords to produce the song.

I can see that you are going very well Charlotte! And you are committing to a lot of purpose and practice. Keep going! <3

You can keep motivated by having small rewards each time you learn a chord or you practice 10 times in a row perfectly.

I finally reached my end goal, to be able to play a song on the ukelele! This took me a while, and a challenge that I faced was an error on my behalf, that I didn't read the music sheet properly. I believed the chord order to be in F-G-C-Am throughout the entire song, but I found out quite late that there were parts where this pattern was repeated but there was an extra Am chord. Towards the end of the song, for the bridge, there was a part where there was F - Am chords 3x and G chords 2x. This confused what I had previously been doing and to overcome this I found the easiest way to memorise or attempt to memorise was to write a brief note overview on a piece of paper. I also messed up a bit in the video through the strumming, where in some parts I would overthink the strumming pattern and mess it up. However, one part of the goal that I did not meet was that I could play the song by memory. I had to write down the chords in a shorter form and put it on the side while I played to remember the order and when to play specific chords. So although I could play the song, it was not by memory and was not as consistent as I wish it was.

1. If I was to do something different next time, what would I do?

Next time, I would spend less time at the beginning learning how to strum and spend that time memorising chords. As I never played before, I did not understand how truly challenging it was, but I would also spend a part of my practice time moving from chord to chord in different orders. This would allow me to memorise the chord better and be able to adapt to any changes in music as I encountered this time. I could also add a reward system in as my accountability buddy Bojin suggested.

2. Explain how your method for practicing changed over the course of this task.

Through this EIF task, I tried many different methods of practicing. I would practice strumming at night, and strumming chords. When this got too loud, after school I prioritised playing the ukulele for a bit after school.

3. What is a key reason you think you did not fully reach your goal?

I think a key reason was that I had put in wrong check in steps. If I had known to speed up the strumming and chord-learning stage I would be able to piece chords together faster. This would have allowed me to have extra time to memorize my song to play it smoother and although I did not focus on ths, have extra time to make the transition between each chords clean and fast.

x2

Am

x4

Am

x2

Am

x2

Am

x8

Am

x2

Am

x6

F-Am x3

G x2

x7

For each of the x2 or x(number) this shows how many times to repeat the F G C Am pattern before moving to another chord or pattern. The Am chord was often repeated hence why in between lines it says Am. In the bridge of the song, F and Am are repeated 3 times and G is repeated twice.