Help Us Plan Our Lesson Curriculum for 2020!

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  • #34374
    Andrew
    Keymaster

    Happy Holidays everyone! 2019 was an incredible year for RC101 and it’s all because of YOUR support! I wanted to say thank you to all of you who have been following our lessons through the years and to those who have just joined our community. Here’s to a great 2020!

    The video above recaps some BIG accomplishments of 2019. If you are short on time, I will list the highlights below.

    My team and I will be taking the next two weeks off, so new lessons will start back up on January 3rd with the launch of our BRAND NEW COURSE: Natural & Artificial Harmonics. This course will teach you 3 ways to create harmonics, culminating into a capstone performance piece on, “Amazing Grace”. Which as you guessed, is played entirely using harmonics! It’s really cool 🙂

    —-

    2019 Lessons Recap

    A) 56 Lessons Were Released This Year!

    I have added every lesson we released this year in THIS YOUTUBE PLAYLIST.

    Specifically:

    42 Songs

    1 Concept Lesson

    2 Courses: Reading Course & Strumming Course

    10 Monthly Live Lessons

    1 Uke Buyer’s Guide Video/Article

    B) Our Teacher Roster Grew!

    AJ & Christopher joined the team, bringing their unique teaching perspectives and excellent musical talent to the table!

    C) 1,400+ Members Have Participated in Our Monthly Challenges!

    You guys rock! To see so many of you participate month after month AND to watch you grow as players and musicians, is what inspires us to create the best lessons we can!

    Check out ALL of our previous monthly challenges HERE.

    —-

    What’s Coming in 2020?

    A) Continue to Grow Our Teacher Roster – One of the best things about my experience at music college was the ability to learn from multiple teachers, because each instructor brought a unique playing and teaching style to the table.

    In copying this approach, I’m able to bring you guys lessons on techniques and playing styles that are not my forte. For example, I’m working with Christoper in writing a course on clawhammer technique, which is a staple of bluegrass music.

    B) Structured Technique Courses – In January we’re launching our new course, “Technique Toolbox”. Technique Toolbox contains a collection of mini-courses, with each focusing on teaching you one technique for ukulele!

    Each course will be placed in one of two categories:

    1) Traditional Techniques – These are the fundamental techniques that create the backbone of ukulele playing. In this category, we’ll cover simple techniques such as: hammer-ons and pull-offs; to more advanced techniques, such as: triplet picking.

    2) Stylistic Techniques – As the name implies, these are specialty techniques which add pizzazz to a performance! For example, we’ll look at multiple ways to produce harmonics (a bell-like tone) on the fretboard.

    The first two courses will cover: Harmonics & Clawhammer Technique. But I need YOUR suggestions! Let me know what technique(s) you want us to write a course around.

    C) Your Feedback – I’d love to hear from you! Let me know what you would like to see in 2020, but please keep it constructive and discussion-based (no song requests, please add those HERE).

    Thank you for an awesome 2019! YOUR support is the reason we have an AMAZING community!

    #34375
    deadbuggy
    Participant

    Hi Andrew! Thanks again for a fantastic year of courses and lessons.

    I’m interested in learning more about classic/traditional Hawaiian melodies ala the stuff John King used to do. Related to that is the campanella technique. And George Formby style stuff — that would be a stretch for me but I’m up for the challenge!

    #34376
    robinboyd
    Participant

    Making the various mini courses that will comprise the Technique Toolbox master course available separately as well is a good idea. I tend to get overwhelmed when there is too much information, but I think I could manage them as bite-sized chunks.

    I’m also looking forward to the harmonics course. I am getting reasonably good at the techniques already, but I admit that I don’t really know why they work, so I am interested in that.

    Otherwise, keep up the good work. I love having options to accompany yourself while singing with Christopher and Katie now. I also really appreciate AJ’s arrangements (as you can see from my recent challenge entries). Adding more instructors with different perspectives can only be a good thing.

    #34378
    kanae926
    Participant

    Andrew, Congrats on a successful and awesome 2019! This site has been the sole reason I have progressed as much as I have since joining in 2018. I love the growth I’ve seen in my musicality as well as the site curriculum and teacher diversity!

    That being said, how do you feel about running periodic votes on upcoming monthly challenges (either theme or a couple of the song choices)? I think it will encourage more participation if we can get popular choices into the mix once in a while in what people want to focus on for the month.

    I wholeheartedly agree with Robin on getting overwhelmed with some of the courses. I’ve started a few but only managed to finish the beginner course. That, and I have a short attention span. 😝 But the mini-courses sound manageable.

    Thank you for bringing back the live lessons! I really like that Matt is so relatable and easy to understand. My favorite part is being able to interact in real-time if we have questions or comments. Please don’t ever stop these!

    Thank you for all you do! I’m excited for the awesome-sauce you’re bringing in 2020. 😊

    #34387
    laurasil
    Participant

    I’d love a lesson on arranging songs, original or not. Maybe seeing someone else do it from the beginning would help a lot to understand how to apply the theory we learn on the course (pick a key, pick a progression, etc…).

    Also, I’d love some more of those strumming lessons!

    Edit: Ohhh and also a duet lesson! With another uke or piano as accompaniment, maybe?

    Btw thank you for all you guys did for us this year, this is the best community ever. I never would have thought I’d learn this much about the uke and music in general

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by laurasil.
    • This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by laurasil.
    #34404
    robinboyd
    Participant

    @laurasil – Duets are a really good idea. I’d love to play some more stuff with Tiffany on another uke.

    #34405
    jinajupiter
    Participant

    Hey Andrew, I would like to learn some rumba flamenca techniques, like Taimane is using all the time. Or some Venozuelan strums. Like played on the Venozuelan tiple. A very simular instruments, just some strings have different octaves.
    Further now that I have a Les Paul uke some techniques for bending and using the pick, but I am not sure if this is the platform for this.

    Thanks for all I learned in 2019, I started learning Ukulele in April this year.
    Because My father passed away that month and I inherited one. It helped me to get through this tough time. I already play key instruments so this string instrument was a new adventure. Within two days I got bored with just the basic first position chords and found Rockclass101. I spent quite some time with the uke and…… now 8 months later I play banjolele in the circus! Happy new strumming year to you all. :).

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by jinajupiter.
    #34407
    rickeymike
    Participant

    Congrats, Andrew, on another great year that you have given to us. Truly a remarkable site that you have developed. I am now approaching 2 1/2 years with RockClass101. It started as a hobby and little by little it is turning into a passion.

    I’d like to see a lesson on arranging by taking a song with only the melody notes (voice notes?) presented in your tab download that we would print out and follow along with the lesson one bar at a time. Instructor would then explain each bar’s notes and where and why we could change some notes into a chord melody and how we would choose what chord or chords we could choose from.

    I’m trying to explain something while not having musical knowledge, so I hope you understand what I wrote. ha.

    #34413
    becky7777
    Participant

    Congratulations on a great rockclass101 2019!

    – A smallish request for clawhammer. It’s kind of mainly geared for high g (I think?), if you want the cool banjo sound at least.

    Since i’m kind of got my head wrapped around learning on Low G, can you guys throw in some instructions on how to use it along the lines of jerry reed’s or buster b’s cover of Jiffy Jam (example of non-banjo-esque clawhammer sound, not a song request.) that uses the technique in a way that isn’t dependant on the G being tuned high, so I can use it in a way that sounds awesome on low G too if possible? 🙏

    – Main fluff request- Messages would be pretty great to get back.. 😇 or you’re going to force me to sing a parody of ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’ at you eventually lol! 😉 (Just don’t ban me when your speaker’s tweeters blow out, and your soundcard catches fire from my horrible singing!) That should be a sufficiently terrifying threat! LOL! 😂

    – I do have a couple technique requests, but they don’t qualify for a proper ‘coarse’ probably. They would maybe fit in a short lesson up in the top bin of the ‘toolbox’ I think? (Yes, that classical vigorous string plucking thing I asked about is still one of them. I’m way too stupid apparently to figure out what i’m doing wrong. THAT sure wouldn’t qualify as a coarse for example. I think the normal rockclass intro on a vid would be longer than the actual 1 min technique explanation. LOL!)

    ———————————————
    Anyway, Thank you guys again, so much, for the site and what you guys do, Andrew. (and Stephen.) Thank you as well to all the instructors who help teach lessons. (And Evan for just plain being amazing.)

    Give a thank you, and a happy holidays shout-out too, to all the instructors, your drummer guy, (sorry don’t know his name) and Vanessa.
    ———————————————

    #34417
    miztaken
    Participant

    Hi Andrew,
    I would love some Bluegrass too, my banjolele is pining away downstairs and I would love to learn to use it.
    And I’m with Rickey… a course on how to make our own arrangements of songs would be awesome. There are so many of my personal favourites that I would love to arrange and play for myself. We could also share our arrangements with our RC101 mates if they are good enough.
    Thanks, from Misty.

    #34418
    jinajupiter
    Participant

    P.s. I miss that we members can send each others personal messages.
    It would be nice to have that option restored.

    #34422
    rickeymike
    Participant

    Jina, I’m wondering if Andrew could create a closed group on Facebook for RockClass101 members. That way all that subscribe to the group will be able to send private messages as well as messages to all members. We could all chat without cluttering the forums.

    #34432
    travelchick
    Participant

    I am a new subscriber. I’m also enjoying these lessons and look forward to watching my skills grow. One thing I’m not good at is practice. I would actually like to see some daily practice lessons to follow from beginner on.

    #34433
    apblondie
    Member

    Andrew! Thank you for directing me to this awesome community! I love your site and am learning sooooo much. I can’t wait to learn the different techniques. I sometimes have to playback a YouTube video over and over again to see exactly how they are making the sound that they are. I would LOVE to learn more percussive. It is so cool to add a backbeat. To get more songs with added percussion would be awesome. Or to just learn how to add it myself would also be great.

    Thank you for teaching so thoroughly and so well. I can tell you put a lot of thought and time into each lesson. I feel like there is always new and exciting material to conquer!

    #34435
    lyndallk
    Participant

    Thanks to the whole teaching team, Andrew, and all the regular members I’m counting as friends (even if I’ve only met Robin and Tiffany in real life 😄) I’ve played a bunch of your arrangements at uke club and introduced RC101 to a few friends. I have to say in a weird, and oddly and surprisingly greedy way, the prizes have helped me be consistent in monthly challenges, even though I don’t mind if I win or not (except for this month 😂)

    I love so many ideas that people have suggested. I’d also love love love a course on improvisation. (I haven’t really done the courses but I look at them sometimes. I’d definitely do an impro one). I know you be done some on different strumming techniques but would love more advanced strumming options eg in time signatures, love the idea of arranging too that others have mentioned.

    Andrew, next December can you arrange Ocho Kandalikas for chunukah for finger picking and singing. Or other Chanukah songs I can suggest. (That’s a very specific request!)

    Thanks again folks

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