I have spent the last couple of weeks working through the chords and new strumming pattern for my growth project. I have found a couple chords in particular to be fairly difficult to remember and execute: Dm7 and E7. These two chords are both new, and tricky to transition smoothly into. I have watched a few YouTube tutorials on how to strum the song the way that Israël Kamakawiwo’ole does while he plays, and although I have used the “island strum” before, I have never tried to adjust to playing it with the first “down” just plucking the G string; I have found that I stumble from time to time to keep up that pattern. When the song transitions from Somewhere Over the Rainbow to What a Wonderful World the strumming pattern and chord progression changes slightly, and that is a part of the song that I have to pay more attention to. Another difficutly I am having is with the beginnings of trying to hum and sing the song. Some parts of the song are within my tessitura and others are quite difficult to sing in tune.
Overall I am thoroughly enjoying this musical growth journey, and love that I get to take time every day to develop my musical abilities and play such a beautiful song.