Further practical development by JACK STANLEY

C Maj chords exercise

js299183 — 2024-02-03 12:48:08 UTC

For ease of playing I chose to learn the nashville number system as this is far easier for a client to understand than every chord in each key and as a bonus this could prove beneficial to me in my other career areas. To begin, I wrote out the chords of C Major and got someone to shout out the numbers to me. Initially I was very slow at identifiying them however once I noticed that relying on finding them on the guitar neck was slowing me down I started thinking about it independantly from my instrument and found this to work far better.

Conclusion: Relying on the fretboard to assist with finding the chords slowed me down. I should learn the theory independantly before relating it to my instrument.

Further exploration

js299183 — 2024-03-27 10:21:51 UTC

I have chosen to further explore music therapy as it is the largest area of my pie. This area requires a "high level of musicianship including improvisation skills" (NHS Careers, 2015), and this is what I will be focusing on in my practical exploration.

Chords of C major quiz

js299183 — 2024-03-27 10:29:46 UTC

I needed a way to quiz myself on the chords of C major without the need for another person, this would allow me to practice whenever I want to. Because of this I got chatGPT to write me a HTML code to put into codepen.com creating this quiz that selects a random number from 1-7 and prompts me to enter the chord. It awards 10 points for each correct answer and takes 5 for each incorrect answer and has a time limit of 2 minutes. There is also a play again and home button however these do not work as intended so to reset the quiz you must reload the page. After trouble shooting as much as possible I slowly went through the questions checking them with a chord sheet to ensure the program was running correctly. All was well so I began testing myself and after 30 minutes of playing my highscore was 525.

My next steps in development will be to combine the knowlege of C major chords with my guitar playing. ie: play a given chord progression.

Chords on command: C major

js299183 — 2024-03-27 10:31:05 UTC

This practice showed the progress on my understanding of the Nashville number system in C. The position changes were a little slow during the early parts of the video but become much more fluid throughout. I am confident with my understanding of these chords in these positions now. My next steps are to incorporate different positions as well as being given a progression initially and just having to play it.

Conclusion: I now have a good understanding of the Nashville number system particularly in C. My next steps are to simulate a session with a client where I play chords to allow them to express themselves over them, changing the progression if they want something different.

Providing backing for a client

js299183 — 2024-04-01 12:03:26 UTC

In this video I suggest a chord proggression for my partner to improvise to. Midway through they suggest a different progression which I adapted to very comfortably. This is very reminicent of a music therapy enviroment in which I give the client backing to express themselves. Overall, my practical exploration of this area has helped me to begin building the foundation of music therapy.

Future steps: Continue to improvise chord progressions with a partner alongside developing knowledge of music theory building the foundations of a career as a music therapist.