Brett Kaveney English 1101 Rebecca Agosta September 14, 2013 Literacy Snapshot Essay During the writing

of this draft, I found that it was best for me to write my snapshots in story form rather than just stating the facts of the story. Writing it as a story allowed me to be a little more creative with details and also helped me lengthen my writing, while keeping the reader interested. The most challenging part of writing the draft however for me, was how I was going to begin every snapshot. Also trying to figure out how to present my story, as far as what to include in the snapshots and what to leave out. One passage that I want to keep for sure is the passage about when I first bought my guitar. This snapshot was crucial to my essay as it was really the compromise of me having to take lessons in order to get a guitar that really helped boost my literacy in the instrument and in music. Without it, I may not have gotten to the point that I am at now. Another important passage that I want to keep is the one about the album that my friend and I are writing, because it took everything that I had learned prior to now in order to be able to come up with our own music and collaborate it all together. The passage that I may want to revise would have to be the passage about my guitar class, seeing as how it was not the most important snapshot but it was still helpful in aiding my literacy. The class to me was basically a refresher of things I had already learned, and I picked up a few new traits like picking patterns. One question that Id like to present to my group is whether or not all of my information is relevant in my stories.
Commented [R4]: Ill make sure to ask questions if there are things I want to know and make comments if something feels off topic. Commented [R3]: Exactlyand typical we understand and connect to peoples stories more than facts. Commented [R1]: Great MLA Commented [R2]: As you revise, develop a creative title that binds your snapshots together.

I remember back in the fourth grade, a couple of my friends had bought guitars and started to play and take lessons. This was really when I decided that I also wanted to pick up a guitar and learn how to play it and improve my literacy in the instrument and music theory. Back then I always thought about becoming a musician later in life, and I was planning on trying to get into Berklees College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. One day I was on the internet looking around at electric guitars when I decided to ask my parents if they would let me buy one. They specifically told me that if they were to buy me thisthe guitar that I would also have to take lessons and stick with it. So I then told them that I would follow along with this compromise and shortly enough we were starting to look for guitars and found somebody to start teaching me how to play it. My parents drove me to one of the guitar stores near where we lived, and we went inside and I started to look at guitars. Being that I was just starting out with guitar, we bought a basic starter guitar made by Austin, in a sunburst color:; an orange color in the center that fades to a black around the edges of the body of the guitar. Along with buying the guitar, we bought a basic start amplifier made by Crate and purchased a gig bag as well as picks and cables. After we purchased everything we needed, we asked the store if they offered lessons to beginners, and it turned out that they did, which is where I started my understanding of my literacy of playing guitar. Without this compromise I may have never made it to where I am today in being able to play my guitar.
Commented [R7]: I agree with you that this is a strong snapshot. Commented [R6]: I think we can get a good sense that your parents are willing to support your interests, but they also want you to truly learn it and follow up their investment with an investment of your own: education. I like moving to the moment of buying a guitar and beginning to own artifacts of this literacy (guitar, amp, picks, and cables). Commented [R5]: The aspiration started early, and it was triggered (at least the guitar part) by your friends getting guitars. Was there a particular kind of music that you liked? That your friends played?

I was pretty ecstatic to start my first week of lessons after purchasing everything that I needed to learn how to play guitar. I was so enthusiastic about learning to play that I would even sit at home, when I didnt know very much at the time, and just strum the strings on my guitar and play whatever I could until my fingers started to hurt. I cant remember my first teachers name, but thats mainly due to the fact that I didnt really like his teaching style which I will explain later in this paragraph. I remember going back through the door to the area where people gave lessons for instruments, and it wasnt that nice of a place. The rooms were about the same size if not smaller than an individual suite room here on campus, and it was poorly lit and not very welcoming. My first few lessons werent too bad;, he had me reading sheet music, which is what I thought would help me out, but after a while I realized that that is not what I wanted to be doing. I stuck it out for a month or two maybe, hoping that I would learn a little more than just reading sheet music. However, I shortly found out he was the type of musician who just plays pieces of music for symphonies and never really wrote any of his own music. In other words, he didnt understand music theory, and I decided that it was time for me to go find myself a new teacher who could actually teach me to play guitar the right way. A friend of mine had been taking lessons from a teacher who would shortly become my new teacher, and from what he told me he was a really good teacher and really good musician, so I was very eager to find out about this new opportunity for a better teacher and to further expand my skills.
Commented [R11]: I wonder if this last section is needed or if you should drop off with wanting to look for a new teacher, and then bringing this section to your next snapshot. I think it would make it less repetitive as you move into the opener of the next snapshot. Commented [R10]: He was someone who played already composed works rather than understanding various aspects of music that could allow him to be a creator of music. Commented [R9]: Sounds kind of sterile and jail box-y Commented [R8]: Great image to show your enthusiasm for this new literacy.

As soon as I heard about my friends teacher, I immediately asked my parents if I could switch teachers. I had to explain to my parents why I wanted to switch teachers, and I told them that it was basically because I was not going to learn to my fullest potential with the current teacher, and my friends teacher, Miles, actually knew what he was doing. Miles was in multiple bands, including cover bands, and played in all sorts of venues, and even went on a few tours. He was definitely my favorite teacher, even though I only had one other teacher. He was a lot of fun to learn guitar from, and I really improved my skills within the several years of lessons that I took from him. The first time that I went to go take lessons from Miles I had explained to him my previous situation with my old teacher and how I felt as if I was not learning as much as I could be. After hearing about it, he Miles agreed with me that all I wouldve been learning from him my old teacher was most likely how to just play what Im told to play off a piece of sheet music. Within During my first lesson he had told me to play whatever I could so that he could get a basic idea of where I was at with guitar, what I could play, on guitar and how good I was at it. Of course with only maybe a few months of lessons under my belt, I wasnt the best, but he was happy with what I had already known knew and we got started with music theory;: learning things like a basic minor pentatonic scale, as well as other scales and octaves and so forth. Needless to say I was a lot more comfortable learning how to play guitar from Miles versus my old teacher,. Miles teaching style was a lot more fun for me, and I was really interested in being able to come up with my own music as well as being able to play guitar a lot better. If I could, I would still be taking lessons from him today!
Commented [R14]: He shared your values. Id like you to show us how you learned from Miles. We got the description of your old teacher (reading sheet music), and seeing the difference will help bring this change to life. Commented [R12]: So he played the kind of music you respected and had more knowledge about the music writing part of it.

Commented [R13]: How so? What would yall do during the lessons?

During the summer of my 8th grade year, I had registered for classes at my high school and had try outs to be placed into the Guitar II class at Cardinal Gibbons High School. I went in with my guitar, and sat down with the guitar teacher, Mr. Spencer, and he had me read some basic things from a book and play it back to him. Honestly the material wasnt too tough in my opinion, but that could also be because I had a good teacher teaching me to play guitar. I was pretty happy that I made it into the class, although it did bypass my PE class and later that summer I had to write a few papers about health in order to receive credits since I never took PE or Health in high school. This class surely enough became one of my better memories of high school because I became pretty good friends with the other kids in my Guitar II class and was able to play music with friends who also played guitar. It worked out nicely because there was were about 10 kids if not less in that class, most of them being freshman and a few were upper classmen. Every year we had maybe four concerts or so where we would dress up nicely and put on a show playing a variety of old classic songs, an example being Dust In The Wind written by Kansas. I feel that this class also helped my literacy because I played music in front of a large crowd of people at concerts, and we played music off of sheet music, which was a refresher of what I learned before. Another benefit of this class was that I was able to play music with my friends and maybe pick up a few new ideas and sharpen my skills. It was definitely a nice break in the day from classes as well, because this class to me didnt really seem like too much of a class, it was more like free time to do something we all enjoyed and that was playing music.
Commented [R19]: It was a place of relaxation, inspiration, and learning. This is focused more on the other classmates, so I leave this thinking that the classmates and playing guitar in a group made a larger impression that than the teacher of this class, which is nice to show how the literacy grows in different social activities. Commented [R18]: Playing for an audience requires you to prep in a different way and suffer the consequences of not knowing music, etc. Commented [R17]: So the trade was worth it even if you had to do summer work. Commented [R16]: At this point you were proficient enough to sight read and do it comfortably. Commented [R15]: Wow! Thats impressive that your school offered this. We only had concert band and marching band.

In my senior year of high school, I met one of my good friends Allen, who I decided to make an EP with, and I feel this is when my literacy really came into play. Allen had been playing guitar for a very long time and currently goes to Appalachian State enrolled in their music program. I was talking to him about music one day, and we both came up with an idea to make an EP, which is more than a single but not quite a full album, although at the time it was just an idea for fun. Allen has his own recording studio inside his house and is pretty experienced with recording software like Cubase for example, and we later found out after we got donefinished with all the recording of different tracks, equalizations and pitch perfections that it was actually pretty good. This was when we decided that maybe we should plan on turning the EP into an album just to see what else we could come up with. We would spend hours on end working on songs, writing material as far as guitar tracks and lyrics go, and even more time with all the alterations to the recordings. If I remember correctly, it took us maybe eight hours to track, record, and master the very first song. Sadly we were only able to finish one song fully, but we have another song that we are more than eighty five percent done with, we just need to finish up the vocals and master the song when we both have time when weto come back duringfrom college on breaks or during the summer. I feel that this snapshot was pretty important mainly because it took everything that I had learned prior to now in order to be able to come up with our own music and collaborate it all together, although I will admit that I have forgotten some things due to the fact that I havent really had a lot of free time to play guitar.
Commented [R24]: This is talking to me as the teacher rather than ending your paper. Perhaps you can reflect on this rather than writing it as it currently is. Looking back on it all, I can see how everything I learned has led me to be able to come up with my own music and collaborate with friends on songs I think that would be a much more moving ending than suddenly shifting to talking about the snapshot. Overall, well written essay. Its obvious that you were able to see many things that shaped this literacy experience. I particularly like how you moved from teachers to the importance of peers and having a role in the creative process. There are a couple sentences that are wordy. Ive simplified some of them, but I recommend reading the piece aloud and seeing if any sentences feel too long. They are not necessarily incorrect, but they can get hard to work through because of their complexity. Great work here. Commented [R23]: The song? Commented [R21]: Okay good. Maybe delete the who I decided to make an EP with in the first sentence since you get to it later. Commented [R22]: Wow! Commented [R20]: Should this be explained for those who do not know an EP?