Greetings from the US Mid-Atlantic

[tonyturley]

Hello, I’m a fairly new uke player from West Virginia in the US. I’m 60 and have been playing guitar a bit over 20 years, but started playing uke last summer after I built a Stew Mac tenor kit. As a long time hobbyist woodworker, I’ve sort of caught the building bug, and I’m working on building a scratch built tenor uke now.

I play guitar in church almost every week, but in some ways I have never progressed much beyond advanced beginner. I couldn’t improvise to save my life, although I do fingerpick some, and will sometimes move my chords up the neck to get out of 1st position. I have no problem memorizing the chord progression of songs, or memorizing chord melodies. I’ve just never been very consistent at learning scales on the fretboard, although strangely, if you gave me a piece of paper and asked me to write out any common scale, I could do so instantly. Go figure.

I’ve been inspired lately by watching luthier Jay Lichty demonstrate his instruments. He wrote the music for his Advanced Ukulele Building videos, and not only is he a master craftsman, but a fine uke player, as well. I’m trying to learn to play better, but it’s a struggle sometimes.

Tony

[Andrew]

Welcome, Tony! Really cool that you build. That’s something I’ve wanted to try, but just for fun. I really enjoy the process of creating something.

From what you wrote, it sounds like putting a practicing plan together would benefit you greatly. Start here. But, from what I gather, you are most interested in:

1) Learning to jam. You can write the theory (scales), but you need to work on translating it into your playing. Knowing theory without being able to apply it, unfortunately doesn’t help much in the real world (jamming, improv). This course will help you connect the dots.

2) I’m sure you’ve studied CAGED. But a refresh & focusing on applying it will help. This lesson (at the end of it) shows you how to do that.

3) Concept lessons are good to check out too. They are all related to jam scenarios.

Start with these and let me know if you have questions/need help on the lessons 🙂

[tonyturley]

Thanks Andrew. A practice plan is definitely what I’ve been after. I’ve spent 20 years memorizing chord progressions and chord melodies, so there are a lot of songs I can play without looking at a piece of paper, but I’ve never had a strategic plan, and pretty much just learned ad hoc as the moment dictated.

I looked at the intro to the course you mentioned in #1 above. I think that’s going to be my first stop. As you said, I have a theoretical understanding of music theory, but have difficulty applying it beyond the basics.

Tony

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