I’ve been playing the guitar nearly five years now. The school (Sundays Well Girls’ N.S.) recommended the instruments for us to learn and I have to say I’m really happy to be playing guitar.

I think with every instrument, when you start learning it is going to be very hard and and it was! But after a while you do get used to it and its fun!

We’ve  learnt quite a number of songs. This year we’ve been playing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from Titanic  and ‘Someone Like You’ by Adele. There can be a lot of chords to work out, but our guitar teacher Tom (Mulcahy) makes it easier for us by picking out the chords he knows we can play. 

We play a lot of different styles and depending on what’s needed for the song, for instance if the tuning is quite high, we might use a capo. We learnt some jazz songs last year, which was really fun, and we got to use a capo then and they sounded really cool. I guess you could say its all in the style of the strumming too.

I’d consider I have a good sense of rhythm and after a while of learning and playing, it does get easier. “We’ve also learnt to write songs. So far our class have written two songs and I have also written one myself.

For my own song, we had been learning all about Syria and I decided to base my song around that. I found the chords I wanted to use first and what rhythm I want to strum and then I would look at fitting my lyrics around what I played.

At the moment I’m writing a new song reflecting on 1916  which I am entering for the ’16 All Island Song Competition. If I make the final, I’ll get to perform in the National Concert Hall and the final winner will have their song published by the Disney Music Group.