My Originals

[lisadmh]

The_bumble_bard asked me to record my originals, so here they are. Now, you will enjoy both the composition errors and the playing errors all together. Lol. I have no technical knowledge. I just mess around until something comes out. I look up chords online and write it out on Guitar Pro for help with timing. Most are based on very simple chord progressions.

A Grain of Sand. Simple, but it quite pleases me.

Salt, sand, and… Even simpler, but written on a Cuban beach with no internet access to help.

Now and Then. This is an older one dedicated to my cat, who is friends with the other cat now and then.

Parking Lot. This is my newest one, also written on a Cuban beach without support. There are timing problems with it but I don’t care because I like it. It was built using the chords from People are Strange on this site.

A Beautiful Life. This one was my first ever and it is technically terrible, but I don’t care. It has a place in my heart. I wrote it for and with my sweet kitty cat who was dying. She had a beautiful life.

Inspired tonight. This was a monthly challenge, to write something based on something else. It’s based on Wonderful Tonight from this site.

Thanks for the challenge of recording them, Bumble! That was fun.

[The_Bumble_Bard]

@lisadmh, these are all so good!! Thank you for taking the time to record and share all of these. Each one is fantastic in its own way.

Hopefully this reaction doesn’t get too ramble-y, but it probably will. 😂 These are just my thoughts as a fellow learner:

I really appreciate that two of them are dedicated to your cats. I feel like there is an uncanny overlap between cat people and ukulele players. 😂😅

All of your songs are amazing and it’s so impressive that you created these on your own, but my three favorite ones are “A Grain Of Sand,” “A Beautiful Life,” and “Parking Lot.” The first two I really love the style of each, the dynamics and techniques you included, and the chord progressions you chose. Very beautiful. The last one has beautiful chord choices, but also to me it has kind of a Renaissance-y feel to it for some reason. 😂 It has a really interesting structure and it seems like you took the time to incorporate a variety of techniques especially in that one.

I find it interesting that it seems like you drew inspiration from different sources for each one. I’m very intrigued by how different people create songs. I’ve bothered Matt and Andrew a lot about that because I really find it fascinating to know how different people approach creating music.

If you don’t mind me asking, how do you decide what chords to use when you’re writing songs, and how do you look them up? For me, I have extreme difficulty with that because a lot of chords I only know by the shape, sound, and that they “go with” certain keys, like they are used in the key of C Major for instance.

I even have more thoughts than this, but I might have burdened you enough. 😂 Thank you so much for sharing these, they are really amazing! Maybe you could even keep sharing new songs you come up with here in this thread as you create them? Anyway, thank you and sorry! 😅

[lisadmh]

Thank you Bumble. I am honored that you like my little tunes. I can’t imagine that someone else likes the little things I make up! That’s really cool to me. Thank you for taking the time to go through them and respond

I’ll tell you how I work, as one novice to another, with full disclosure that I have no composition training and @Andrew is probably crawling out of his skin if he reads this. No matter, this is about fun for hobbyists. 🙂

I come up with the chords in a couple ways. The easiest is to go here:
https://ukulelego.com/ukulele-chord-progressions/#dm-gm-a-f-bb-e7-a

Cycle through and find something that pleased you and go with it. Then, what would Andrew say? Go up the neck. So, go to the ezfolk dot com Website (i’ll post it after so it doesn’t go through to moderation because of two URLs) and find the same chords higher up on the neck in places you can get your fingers around. That’s how I started and wrote a few songs with nothing but messing around with those 2 sites.

Andrew also posted a challenge to write a song based on another song. That is my second method and it’s how I wrote Inspired Tonight and Parking Lot. Pick a song you know and like. Look at the chords and notes. Mix them up. Try different techniques and fingerpicking patterns on them. If it starts high, start low. Use the same chords but do different things with them. This is outrageously fun. Just mess around with the chords and notes and patterns til something magically comes out that’s cool. It gets me more intricate pieces than the first method.

I’ve also tried to figure out how to pick chords with the circle of fifths, but that’s a bit of a stretch for me. It works when it works, and the site to find the chords at different places on the neck works work this too.

Part of it all is magic though. Some days, you create something and you don’t know how. Other days you don’t. But when you do, there’s nothing like it. I get so ridiculously excited when it works. 🙂

Don’t be afraid. Try it. Then try it again. Eventually something will come out and it will be yours.

[janaq1]

@lisadmh, I like all your originals. But my favorite ones are “Salt, sand, and…” and “A Beautiful Life” – especially this song touches me a lot, I can feel that it is from the heart. It also affects me personally. During this year two of my three “kittens” died – they were almost 18 years old and it comforts me that they had a beautiful life. I hope their sister will stay with us for a while longer.

On a slightly more cheerful note:
It was impossible not to notice that a large number of ukulele players have a cat/s (or a cat has a ukulele player). Sure, there are dogs and other pets too. But it seems to me that cats predominate. And what came first – the ukulele or the pet?
It might be worth “serious” research. 😀

Regarding the chord progression, I find this video very interesting and useful:

[The_Bumble_Bard]

@lisadmh, I replied yesterday, but the forum ate my post. I made the mistake of posting two links. 😅 I’m sure Andrew will fix it when he gets a chance. 😅

@janaq1, facts! It’s weird how many uke people are also cat people. A bit uncanny in fact. But I’m not upset about it. 😂😳😻

[lisadmh]

Thanks janaq1! It’s so cool that people even listen. Yeah, lots of cat lovers in these parts. They’re great inspiration for songs. 🙂 I love that I have that song for my sweet Kali.

Nice video. Interesting indeed.

[The_Bumble_Bard]

@lisadmh, your method sounds like so much fun! I’ll have to give that a whirl. 😁 It’s like a magical game of chance to create a song. 😅

That site, ezfolk, is run by this kindly fellow from the south of the US and he also runs a YouTube channel and that’s part of how I learned clawhammer ukulele! So, it’s crazy that you reference that. 😅

This is the first clawhammer song I learned: https://youtu.be/hV3MTcVUvb8

I never saw that chord chart though on the site; that’s a real game changer because I’ve had such trouble finding a chart that showed the chords higher up on the neck, because I literally know none of those, except for maybe two. 😂 Matt also showed me another way in a lesson how to find chords that has helped me a lot, too.

This must be the chord chart you mean: https://www.ezfolk.com/uke/chords/A_major/a_major.html

Not gonna lie, I am very sad that I missed all the challenges here that involved more creative elements like that. I absolutely love doing that, too, remixing songs and reinventing songs, like you did with Inspired Tonight (also great work with that one!) but thankfully Andrew has kindly let me do that pretty often anyway, add little (or big) twists to the challenge songs, as long as I still included the original song as well.

Anyway, thank you so much for sharing how you approach creating your songs! Those are really cool and fun ways to do that. Your excitement in describing how much fun you have doing it is contagious and now I want to try. 😅 It’s so true what you say about how creating a song can happen like magic. I don’t even fully know how I’ve created the things I have, even though they’re simple still. All the songs I arranged, and the original songs I’ve started, are mostly by ear. I feel like your ideas can help me a lot and you’ve inspired me to try to finish one I’ve been working on! Thank you so much! Looking forward to seeing more of your creations in the future! 😁

[robinboyd]

@tbb – also try this for chords up the neck https://ukebuddy.com/ukulele-chords

[The_Bumble_Bard]

@robinboyd, oh that’s pretty flippin’ neat! That’s a useful tool to have. Not gonna lie, I was confused by it at first, but that definitely is awesome for seeing what all the different variations of a chord are. I am starting to learn what some further up chords are, but at a crushingly slow pace. That’s okay though. 😂 Anyway, thank you, friend! 😊

[robinboyd]

Rather than trying to memorise a whole bunch, I look at that website every time I want to learn a song and have a play with how different variations sound. If I like the sound of a particular variation, I learn it for that song. Eventually, knowledge starts to stick, but I’m not smart enough to learn lots of things at once.

[The_Bumble_Bard]

@robinboyd, haha, I’m the same way with memorizing things like that. That’s so true; when you learn a chord in a certain context, it’s so much easier to remember, if you have a specific association with it. I’m still pretty bad at knowing the exact names of chords and I only know a few individual notes on the fretboard, but it’s a start to know, “oh, this is an E7 chord.” I just learned a higher up version of that chord for a song I’m working on, found from the link Lisa suggested. 😂

I’m definitely going to use that, too, though, thank you. 😊

This is the one @lisadmh suggested earlier: https://www.ezfolk.com/uke/chords/A_major/a_major.html

I posted that in my last reply but that’s also nice. 😊

[lisadmh]

Oh, that’s a cool resource Robin. I still like the ezfolk limo for the quick visual, but this seems to provide even more options.

My fingers remember chords quite well, but sadly my brain does not. I don’t know what’s called what where on the neck, but I can find lots of chords that sound good.

[surferjay]

Very cool 😎

What Uke is that it Sounds lovely 😍

[lisadmh]

I play an Outdoor Ukulele. It’s very solid, perfect for the beach, and sounds great.
UKULELES

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