The End

Well I guess I'm officially done this project. I was only able to make and edit one video, but I wouldn't have had much time to do another one. All around I think the project went well. I was able to learn enough through the past couple months. I wish I was able to do more with my mentor, but he wasn't exactly needed throughout the whole project. I was able to use YouTube videos frequently to figure out chord structures. I found the videos very useful because they were easy to follow. Part of this project was to find biblical through lines in our projects. I'd have to say creation enjoying was a huge part in this project. I was able to use Gods gifts that he has given me to be able to play musical instruments. Beauty creating and God worshipping were also incorporated in my project. Overall I think the project went pretty well. If I could go back to the beginning of the year I probably wouldn't have picked this project again just because I didn't think I put enough effort into it. I was as motivated to work on improving my piano skills as much as I would have hoped. Anyways thanks for listening to my blog and maybe I will be making another one in the future!

Almost The End

Hey guys,
Sorry I haven't posted in a long time, but I've just been really busy. Well a lot of things have happened since the last post. First off, trying to find a good video editing software that's free and that isn't just a video trimming tool is harder than you'd think. First I found one called Lightworks. I is actually all around a really good editing software that is completely free, but there are some major bugs. I tried to put my media on my document but the audio was messed up and didn't sound like actual recording. That was obviously a huge problem so I kept looking for other software. I could honestly not find a single editing software that would work for me. Finally I had sort of given up on the fact that I was going to find a software when I thought maybe I'd look through my computer just in case I had a editing software already on my computer for some reason. When I did that I found Adobe Premier on my computer. I have no idea how it got on my computer because to get that software you need to buy it and I know for sure that I never bought it. So I was pleasantly surprised to find a software that would work for me so I was finally able to edit my video. I actually sort of enjoyed editing my video and figuring out how to use the software. I mean Adobe Premier is a very hard software to use because I found it quite confusing. My video didn't turn out the way that I pictured it would turn out because I wasn't able to line up the audio perfectly, so in some parts of the video the audio sounds weird because it doesn't line up quite right. I was a little short on time so I just decided to upload it anyways, I think if I had more time to edit I would have been able to make a better video in general but it is what it is. So here is the video.



Well next week is the week that we have to present these projects to the class. I really wish that we had more time with these projects because if I had more time I feel like I would have been able to learn so much more than what I did. I mean it's not like I didn't learn anything but I didn't have much time with my mentor because he just wasn't needed as much as I thought he would be. I'm also sort of glad that this project is almost over because this was harder than I thought it would be. I really enjoy music, and have for a long time but I just don't enjoy playing piano as much as I enjoy playing drums. Reading notes and stuff is such a pain. When you play drums you can basically do whatever you want. Anyways, all around this project was as successful as I hoped it would be, but all around it was something that was decently fun.

Switching Things Up

Hey guys,

Well I've decided change things up a little bit. I originally was going to try and play the song " Roads Untraveled" by Linkin Park. I printed out sheet music and everything because I thought that song would be a good "starter" song, but I quickly learned otherwise. When you listen to the song, it doesn't actually sound very hard because I just sounds like couple of chords. There are more than a couple of chords. After trying to play the song for about 2-3 weeks I learned about 3-4 lines on the first page. There are 3 pages. So I decided to talk to my mentor, Zach, about it. He looked over the sheet music and he said that this song was definitely not a beginner song. One song that he did suggest was "How To Save A Life" by The Fray. I've known this song for a long time but when picking a song to play I didn't even think to play it. For the past week or so I've been learning "How To Save A Life". This song is actually really easy and fun to play! I wouldn't be able to get my mentor to come and help me all the time to I decided that I would also try and look up some video tutorials on YouTube. I came across this guy, Joe Raciti. He has a YouTube channel that is just him either play video tutorials or piano covers for various songs. So I've been using this video to help me learn the chords for the song, along with the sheet music my mentor had given to me.

I really enjoy using this video to help me learn the song. I actually like it better than using sheet music because with sheet music you can't see exactly what's going on with your hands, so using a video is so much easier than trying to figure out how to read sheet music. As I beginner I still am finding it a little more difficult to read sheet music easily. That is definitely something that I am going to need to work on. But, I feel that because I changed the song I am learning, this project is going to get going so much better!

Time to start

Hey guys,
Well I guess I've officially started my project. I've started to sit down at my piano and try to figure out some basic songs from some old piano books I still have lying around. I've actually lost a lot more skill than I thought. I've decided as my first song, I'm going to play "Roads Untraveled" by Linkin Park. I chose this song because it's a decently easy song to play on piano so I might as well give it a try! I printed off some sheet music off this website to get myself started. Once I had sat down to try and play it, (thinking it wouldn't be all that hard) I literally had no idea what I was doing. This wasn't exactly what I was hoping to happen, but I guess I'll just have to try and figure something out as to how to read the music.The thing that I'm finding the hardest part is to read the music when it's off of the staff (the 5 lines that the notes are on). I'm probably going to meet with my mentor soon just to get a little more insight as to how I'm going to play the song. I've also done some research on what is the best free video editing software that I'll use to edit my videos. A couple websites said that Lightworks was the best free video editing software, so downloaded it. Just having a glance at it, this software looks very confusing to use. The good thing is that they have a very helpful website where I should be able to get the help that I need. Well hopefully things are going to change these next couple weeks so that I'm able to get my project going!

Shaking off the Dust

Hey, everyone name is Braden and I am a grade 12 student. At school my teacher gave us this project called a passion project. Basically a passion project is a project about something you enjoy doing or something that you think you'd enjoy doing. Throughout this project you have to make progress and have a goal for the end of this semester. At first I had no idea what I was going to do. Last year we had to do another passion project. I decided to do a project on Minecraft. I did the project with a friend of mine. I had a really fun time doing the project last year and was wanting to have the same amount of fun doing it this year. After a while of thinking I thought that I'd try re-learning how to play piano. I used to play piano when I was around 7. I really didn't like taking lessons because my parents basically made me do it. When I was about 13 I decided that I wanted to play the drums. So I took lessons until I was 16. I really enjoy playing drums, and still play them quite often to this day. After playing drums for a couple years I've really started to appreciate music a lot more than I did before I took drum lessons. Anyways, my plan for this project is to re-learn piano, but that's not all. I also want to learn how to edit videos using a video editor. So I mashed these two ideas together. My plan is to get some more knowledge of piano, then to learn a couple of songs. Once I've learned those songs, I'll record myself one of them. Then I'll learn than song on drums also. After I've recorded both me playing piano and drums I'll edit them together. I think this will be a fun project but it will also be difficult. I think the part that will be the most difficult will be finding time to do this. Trying to learn songs on the piano will take me some time and I hope that I'll be able to remember the knowledge that I learned 10 years ago. I hope you stick around and join me on this journey!