3 things I never thought I’d be able to do?
1. Strum and sing at the same time
2. Pick out a tune
3. Chunk
I’ve achieved all of them and then some!

Things I never thought I would learn but have (to a decent degree for me):
1. The tremolo
2. How to play one of Evan’s arrangements 🙂
3. Never thought I would be able to change chords quickly

Things that still seem impossible:
1. Being able to take my uke and amp to a friend’s home and jam while we all sing together. Knowing how to detect which music pattern is being played and in which key, etc
2. How to write a song
3. How to improvise

The challenges here on RockClass101 along with taking the one on one and group classes with Ukulele Underground have been invaluable in helping me learn certain songs and techniques. Thanks.

This sounds very familiar….
– not looking at my hands
-memorizing a song (huge)
-playing live or recording , big struggle
-rhythm patterns – never thought I’d get a basic “island” strum
Many more listed by others.

@andrew, probably can make it live.

I really appreciate this topic. Thank you! 🙂

Self-doubt and jealousy can jump up and geetcha (get ya). They get me too often. But I’m seeing that everyone has things they struggle with and things they are great at too. Sometimes it helps to be reminded of that.

3 things I never thought I’d do ‘pon the uke:

1. Play in front of other people.

2. Know any notes on uke. Just know what any of them are at all……..

3. Learn that chord melodies are what I always wanted to play on uke from day one (like the ones on this site), and now I can play them and figure out some of my own (really simple ones).

Thanks again for this topic! Liked reading everyone’s replies! 😊

p.s @gi_gi_

A couple of things that may help from your list (using the same numbering).

1. Music Patterns. If you Google popular chord progressions you’ll see that the majorityh of songs follow a popular progression. For instance one of the most popular progression is I-V-vi-IV (1, 5, 6, 4 for the rest of us). This means that if you are playing in C Major..

C D E F G A B
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The chords will be C, G, Am, F. In the major scale the 6th Chord is always Minor (you don’t have to know why but I just didn’t want you to wonder why it’s Minor (it just is lets say 🙂 )).

Why is this? Well because there are just certain notes that sound better together. If you look at the circle of fiths (Google it) you will see that notes that are closes together sound better together. So if you see the C Chord in the circle of fiths directly next to it is F&G which means they go well together. There is also the A minor chord which as we know every Major Scale has a Relative Minor which so happens for C to b e A minor. So by looking at the circle of 5ths we can see that the chords that go well with C are Am F & G. Which is usually wny this is the most chord progression. Taking this a step further take any song you don’t know (try any pop song to start) and try and work it out only using C, Am F & G. You will likely be able to do it.

Taking this a tiny step further if you want to change the Key (lets say to G).

G A B C D E F
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

You ould just use the number system i.e Use the 1, 5, 6, 4 chord progression.. and it would be

G, D, Em (6 is always minor), C.

Again if you want to change the key again to F.

F G A B C D E
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

It would be:

F, C, Dm (6 is always minor), B.

So now we understand common patterns & how to transpose between keys with a pattern. How to work out which key can be easy(ish).

Disclaimer 🙂 This is not an exact scientist and I’m sure a professional musician won’t agree with all aspects of this BUT this is what I do and I can normally work it out quick enough… On the Ukulele (purely talking about Ukes) the most popular keys are C F & G. Just knowing this you literally have wittled it down to 3 keys to guess from 🙂 Usually (and again not always) the first chord in the progression can be the same as the key. For example if we take our ‘popular’ chord progression above.. we can see the number 1 is the route of the key.

Again, if you look at a number of Coldplay songs they don’t follow this and other music does not but…

.. If you are playing with other Uke players>>

>> Ask what the first chord is (or ask what the progression is and the first chord will give you a good indication).
>> If it’s not try the other two haha…

This way you can guess your way to working it out.

>> There is a way to work it out each time by ear… But I’ll save that for another day .

2. How to write a Song – Easy now you know the above…

> Chose a popular chord progression (either the one above or Google some), Choose a Key you like, add in a bit of creativity.

3. Improvisation – Easy with the above. If you know a chord progression is in C then all you have to do is play a scale over the top which notes match the chords. The Pentatonic scale always works with everything. Learn the A minor pentatonic scale which will work over any C Major chord progression. Play any notes of the A minor pentatonic when someone is playing a C Major Chord progression and it will work.

Good Luck 🙂