House of the Rising Sun

[tastyshrimp]

I’m having some issues with the strumming portion of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ – The other strings tend to drown out the A string melody. Does anyone have any suggestions on techniques or ways to practice emphasizing that A string while strumming with the index finger? I’m able to play at a little over half normal speed while playing, maybe I need to work on just getting up to speed and then I can work on getting that A string to ring out?

[Andrew]

Sorry for the delay! Have you tried accenting, i.e. hitting the strum hit which contains the melody note harder. That should make the melody note pop and stand out more.

[tastyshrimp]

After practicing more and getting up to speed it’s sounding better. I’m getting a handle on the dynamics more. Figuring out which notes are part of the melody is also super helpful. Is there any musical notation that’s used to call out melody (without having multiple staves)?

[Andrew]

I would call it on the beat(s) that it occurs, per bar.

[mattukulele]

Hi tastyshrimp!

Another way to get more comfortable with this is to start angling your strumming just a bit inward toward the ukulele so that you catch the A string more prominently. I’ll give a demo of this at the next live lesson, but it’s a really effective way to make your melody notes more pronounced while strumming.

[Author]

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