This week, I was able to focus on extensive research and find the strumming pattern for the song Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison. I started off by practicing the strumming pattern while saying it out loud, before playing it on the guitar. This made sure I was staying on beat and correctly playing the strumming pattern. The strumming pattern for the song Brown Eyed Girl is as follows:

Some of the challenges I faced, while learning the strumming pattern was being able to stay on beat, and the fear of the unknown, which in this instance, was not knowing if I was playing the strumming pattern correctly. To solve this problem, I video-recorded myself playing the strumming pattern, and brought the video to my co-worker: Paris Russell who informed me that I was certainty off beat, however, the pattern was correct. She also offered to help me out with getting the strumming pattern on beat on Wednesday, February 5^th, as she recognized how hard it was to find videos solely focusing on strumming patterns and beat practice. On Wednesday, February 5^th, I went over to Paris Russell’s home, where we sat down and chatted about what I knew and what I did not know about the guitar. Unfortunately, there were several small basic things to go over first, for example; she corrected the way I was holding the guitar and informed me that we should start with an easier song before jumping to brown eyed girl as my basic guitar skills needed a lot of practice. We went through the lion song, as I got the strumming pattern down, I learned chords, and how to read sheet music. Unfortunately, while playing chords, we recognized that my guitar strings were close together, and I was not quite getting the sound I needed to get. Therefore, I tried using a classical guitar, which was easier for me. After chatting and playing with Paris, I have come to the decision to learn the lion song first and then brown eyed girl for my second song as both songs follow similar chords, although brown eyed girl is a bit more complex to learn. This will ensure I am still achieveing my goal before the deadlines.