- This topic has 59 replies, 40 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 2 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Happy Holidays everyone! While 2020 has been difficult for all of us, YOUR support has been a beacon of light for myself and our team. I wanted to say thank you to all of you who have followed our lessons through the years and to those who have just joined our community. Here’s to a great 2021!
My team and I will be taking the next few weeks off, so new lessons will start back up on January 1st with one of the most beautiful songs ever written: Gymnopédie No. 1.
—-
2020 Lessons Recap
A) Over 60 Lessons Were Released This Year!
I have added every lesson we released this year in THIS YOUTUBE PLAYLIST.
Specifically:
3 Courses: Harmonics Course, Clawhammer Course, & Triplet Strum Magic Course
B) Our Teacher Roster Grew!
Steve Warren joined the team, bringing his unique teaching perspectives and excellent musical talent to the table!
C) 2,100+ 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 2021?
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. I’m interested in adding another teacher that could teach more complex fingerpicking/strumming with vocal accompaniment – would that interest you? I’d love to see another female teacher join us 🙂
B) Next Level Strumming Course – Matt and I will begin planning an advanced strumming techniques course in January. It will probably follow a similar outline as the strumming course that Christopher taught, where you learned 4 strumming techniques and applied it to a performance song. But of course, these will be all new techniques used in a completely different style of playing.
To hear a little snippet of Matt’s insane right hand technique CLICK HERE.
C) Your Feedback – I’d love to hear from you! Let me know what you would like to see in 2021, but please keep it constructive and discussion-based (no song requests, please add those HERE).
Thank you SO MUCH for your support! YOUR support is the reason we have an AMAZING community!
Thank you for a great year, @Andrew and the whole team. I love everything you folks do here. What an amazing roster of lessons you put out this year.
One of my favorite things is when you post a new song/course/technique and it’s something I never knew existed, and I love it. A big example this year was the clawhammer course. I never would have known to ask for it, but I love it and it added a brand new thing to my limited little repertoire. That was a highlight for me this year. I look forward to whatever unexpected new things you have to throw at us this year.
I’m hoping you’ll continue with low G songs. Low G has become my go-to uke. I’m also hoping you’ll continue with originals. Those are some of my favorites. Please name them though. 🙂 Right now I’m working on Étude 5? or is it 14? No, I think it’s 17 — no, no, it’s 7, lol.
I can’t think of anything else right now. You folks have such a great balance between different techniques, different teachers, different teaching styles, different genres (although some indie rock/pop would be awesome, just sayin’). The big challenge is keeping up!
Happy Holidays, RockClass101 Family. You’ve provided the light in a pretty difficult year. Enjoy your much deserved break. I’m super looking forward to Gymnopédie in January.
TY so kindly, Lisa! I def took your advice in naming songs! AJ and I are working on the next concept lesson and I thought you’d get a kick out of the opening text for this soon to be released lesson 🙂
🙂 Awesome name and description. Now I have another thing to look forward to. Thanks for naming things! It’ll be easier on my little brain.
Hi @Andrew and the Rock Class 101 Team! Congratulations on another great year.
One thought I had, inspired by a friend who hasn’t quite figured out how to sing and strum/pick at the same time, is a lesson or course that provides a step-by-step approach on how to achieve that.
“I’m interested in adding another teacher that could teach more complex fingerpicking/strumming with vocal accompaniment – would that interest you? I’d love to see another female teacher join us 🙂”
— I think this is a great idea! For the teacher, are you looking for someone with a lot of experience and a musical background, or would I be a suitable candidate for this? I’d be interested to hear about your requirements and application process.Really looking forward to Gymnopédie No. 1!
Happy Holidays!
Wishing you all the best,
~NathalieGreat course idea, Nathalie! I’ll keep it in mind and will reach out to you directly about the teaching question 🙂
“I’m interested in adding another teacher that could teach more complex fingerpicking/strumming with vocal accompaniment – would that interest you? I’d love to see another female teacher join us 🙂”
Yeah, that’s what I’d suggest. Keep up the good work 🙂
Oh, for different strumming and picking techniques, I’d love to learn how to do what this guy is doing, after the intro. It’s very cool.
YES! You´re doing Gymnopédie No. 1! I was hoping that would happen.
My first year on rc101 was well worth the money and helped me improve by lightyears – at least compared to what I´ve been doing through youtube until then. Especially Matts arrangements have been a blessing. They just seem to flow so naturally (perhaps that is because they are mostly from songs I know). That helped me a lot to become much more comfortable and confident. Looking forward to your strumming course.
I also appreciate your logical “level” setup with the courses and songs, making it so much easier to find something to work on.
This site is packed with information and it feels like I just started discovering it.Only downside: I got “Hi, this is Andrew with Rock Class 101.com” stuck in my head for the longest time 😉
As for feedback I like the idea of “more complex fingerpicking/strumming with vocal accompaniment”. With focus on the vocal accompaniment.
The only other thing would be a clearer forum. Sir_anzelot asked for something similar, a better search function. It takes a lot of time to search for something in particular (e.g. there are a lot of different topics about strings – it would be cool to have them all in the same place for better comparison).
It would also be great to be able to see more than just the five last forum replies – perhaps they could be sorted after topics – to make sure not to miss anything.
I understand that you are limited to what your provider is offering. But since the forum is such a vital part of this page I think it is worth mentioning it.Looking forward to another year of “Hi, this is Andrew with Rock Class 101.com”! 🙂
I’d second:
– Female teacher(s)! Always going to welcome more teachers full stop, but particularly who reflect the diversity of the community here and beyond.
– Forum upgrade – would like to be able to thumbs up people’s monthly challenges in particular – I think getting direct positive feedback that doesn’t have to lead to extended discussions would be neat.I’m not so wild on the vocal accompaniment part right now – but appreciate for those people who aren’t painfully bad singers, this would be a draw. And perhaps post-covid restrictions it would be useful for me to draw singing friends along.
Breaking down complex (sounding) ukulele techniques is something I’m keen on, but like @smokealot says, I’ve yet to really dig into the existing content – been here since July and mainly been learning monthly challenge songs. Oh yeah, speaking of the above comment on the intro-earworm, you missed the “Hi *guys*” bit 😀
Loving the class and surprised I’ve stuck to learning consistently for the last five months. Those challenges really work. Hope all the team here have a decent break from work over xmas and looking forward to what you’ve got for us in the new year. Over and out!
Thanks for the question Andrew! So good to be asked. Firstly, what you offer already is fantastic – with weekly lessons and monthly challenges and all the rest.
I’d love to see a class (or a series) on improvising for a solos within a song – some how tos and how to practice and build improvising muscle. In the same vein – I like the idea of how to think about different finger picking techniques to use during a song! I have done a lot of your classes, but I still fall into the same picking patters for each time signature that I’ve always used especially when singing. How to increase your automatic repertoire of picking (and strumming)!
I have to echo others and support you in getting another female teacher (love all you guys, of course). Both having more female teachers is helpful for us as students, does actually give something else to the school, and we have to keep reaching to employ female musicians. Brilliant
Thanks again for a fabulous year when we’ve been at home….
This may echo @lyndallk above, but I’m interested in how the triplet finger picking technique we learned in Oct. can be applied to other songs. I know the versatility of the form was one of the things you mentioned a couple times, Andrew, so I’m just curious how I might keep using and practicing it.
I second the motion for more low G 🙏🏼
Other than that, I really love the abundance at this site, so anything you cook up for the new year would be just more fabulousness to me!
I can’t sing worth a damn, so haven’t really checked out the lessons with singing. Wouldn’t mind encouragement to take more of a look, though. And YES to more women instructors–more diversity generally whenever possible is always welcome.
I hope someday to jump in and play spontaneously with friends of different abilities in different settings. One or more lessons here in Rock Class already address that, I know, so am hoping to check them out soon.
Thanks so much for the awesome site. I love all you guys.
Cindy NicholsP.S. I guess I could mention that I do really enjoy @nthibode’s playing and wouldn’t mind at all if she helped you out with some of the teaching 😊
P.P.S. Oh yeah, I’ve been wondering what music–genres, styles, modes, individual songs–you believe are especially suited to ukulele and why. It seems pretty obvious that the uke can handle nearly all kinds of music in some capacity, although sometimes, even with the dazzling virtuosos I hear on YouTube, it seems like the artist is stretching the instrument for the sake of stretching and the uke isn’t really shining so much as being tested. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course; but is there something truly special the uke does that no other instrument can do quite so well? Other than maybe the divine classic sound of Hawaii? Maybe a sort of cocktail of specific abilities? Apologies if this is already addressed somewhere!
I Andrew, I think it would be great if you could win Vasko from UkuleleCheats.com for your teacher’s team. I just discovered him some weeks ago as I searched for “All I want for Christmas is You” on Ukulele. He has a great song choice and I love his arrangements, they have a perfect mix between melody and strumming.
Additionally I would find it very helpful if the string changing tutorial would be enhanced by showing how strings are changed on Ukes that have the ending/knots in the inner body of the Ukulele, which all my 3 Ukes do.
Best,
AndreaHey, it’s me again. I thought about suggesting Nathalie as teacher and am just seeing now, that she asked you exactly that questions. I would be totally in for learning from Nathalie, she is my peer role model on RC101.
Andrea
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.