City of Stars from La La Land

[ukandrea]

Hi RC101 fellows,
as I saw it on the song choice list I fell in love with “City of Stars” from the movie La La Land, which I think super translates from piano to ukulele. I thought it would win the selection, but it didn’t, so I tried it based on tabs without tutorial:

I love playing it several times a day, it gives a very relaxed feeling. I am not super happy with my recording, but you all know what happens when the camera is on.

I hope you like it and if anybody has tips to avoid the buzzing in the strumming section – highly welcome.

Happy strumming,
Andrea

[surferjay]

That’s such an amazing rendition well done 🙂

Re. Buzzing.. On my Uke you can here when I play the first frets I often get a lot of buzz. My action is way to high so I have to push really hard to get rid of the buzz. Maybe yours is a setup issue?

[sir_anzalot]

Nice work, though I am not a big fan of cutting different attempts together.

From what I can tell regarding your buzzing question, the only issues I was hearing were probably resulting from your fretting fingers not pressing down the strings enough at times, mostly at barre chords which is a common obstacle to overcome. You can smooth this out with more practice but don’t overdo it if you don’t want to strain your fingers 🙂

I doubt it is a setup issue as @surferjay suspected, considering you’re playing quite the nice Anuenue here. It could very well be, but Instruments in these price ranges tend to be setup quite well from the get go.

Keep it up!

[surferjay]

@sir_anzalot … No idea, I’m no expert and don’t own a Uke worth more than $300 🙂 I hope to buy a nice one this summer if I get to travel 🙂

The Anue Anue ukes sound beautiful especially finger picked but they are mass manufactured in China as opposed to something like a Kanelia created by known luthiers, hand crafted for years in Hawaii.

I’m probably wrong but I would try playing the chord(s) with perfect fingering (not during a song but one at a time … if it does not buzz the problem can be fixed with more practise if it does perhaps take it to an expert (not me) 😍

[dividedsky]

@ukandrea Wow, this was so much fun to watch. What a delightful arrangement you’ve created! Well done!

Jane

[ukandrea]

Thank you for your guidance. I don’t think it is the Anuenue, at least for playing melodies she has a fantastic sound.
I guess because I heard the buzzing I tried to play softer and instead of being softer just with the right hand I also did not press enough with the left hand.

I currently have no time to test out much and practice further but I think I need to focus on
– having nails cuts really short
– press harder (not too sure about that part, as I have in mind I watched a video from Matt a time ago saying press smarter not harder)
– put fingers very close to the frets
– move further away from the microphone when recording (it is only little buzzing in real, but was more disturbing in the recording)

Andrea

[Author]

Posts