Creativity (C) (Folk music/ Pop band)

Folk music / Pop band

I first enrolled in this activity at the beginning of the school year 2011-2012 when the extra curricular activities were released for us to chose. The reason for why I picked this activity was because I have always had an interest in music in one way or another, and in this case I wanted more opportunities to be able to improve my ability to play guitar and play well with a band. 

The first time I began showing interest in playing guitar was when I was thirteen years old. At this time I asked my parents to allow me to study music, focusing on the guitar. I spent around three weeks in this school learning this instrument, but I had to stop attending to the classes due to lack of time. Since then I've had to rely mainly on myself in order to learn guitar, having to use chord websites and other means in order to keep on learning by myself. However, playing alone isn't as fun as playing with a band, so a few years later a friend motivated me to try out for a school band. I made the cut and I was able to play for about 3 months with this band, until the school year ended. 

After this, I missed playing with a band, as I felt thrilled when making music with others, hence why I joined the Folk Music band. However, my expectations for this activity were different. I thought, that like last time, this band would also have other band members who were relatively experienced with their instruments. Most of the class was just starting to learn how to play, so it took us some time to get them to learn their instruments before being able to play together. I helped a lot to meet this purpose, as our teacher found it hard to teach the piano, the flute, the guitar and the violin to the other 6 band members in just an hour of class we had weekly. This is why she gave me the task of teaching the kids who also played guitars in the band the basic chords and strumming patterns for the songs we were going to play. This also meant that when we finally began playing as a band, I had to lead the other guitar players so that they wouldn't get lost in the middle of the song and so they could follow the chords and my movements.

Even though I was expecting something that would boost my own abilities more when it comes to playing the guitar, in the end I gained different kinds of experiences that would become useful in other projects I carried on this year. I gained more leadership abilities that became useful to me when I was appointed co-director of Tiny Piano productions. I also had a larger sense of responsibility and commitment to the classes, as I looked forward to helping the other musicians in the group how to play with each other, and overall this gave us a lot more abilities for teamwork and taking in account other people's ideas or issues.

By the beginning November, my teacher in the Folk Music Band asked me if I could help her by playing the guitar for another music group she was in charge of, which was the Pop Band Choir. For this activity I had to stay an extra hour every week after school to practice with the choir the song "Mistletoe" by Justin Bieber. The aim was to play at the British Ambassador's annual Christmas celebration at her home, where a large part of the British community in Ecuador and members of our school are invited to sing Christmas Carols. We were one of the many acts of the night, so we made sure that we practised enough. By the end the presentation was quite successful, despite the early issues we had with the sound and the synchronization.

I don't think that I would join another band next year due to the large amount of work I have to do for the IB Diploma, but I still want to keep on practising the guitar by myself and eventually being able to join another band in the future.