Our NEW Strumming Course is Out!

[Andrew]

Hey guys! I’m excited to release our new course today which teaches you 4 AMAZING strumming techniques for High G ukulele! You can jump into the course HERE or watch the video below to learn more 🙂

P.S. If you want to learn more strumming techniques, check out Matt’s course over on his website. RC101 premium members get a 25% off discount. You can find the coupon code in the last sentence of our course wrap up.

[gi_gi_]

@Andrew Thank you so much for this course put together by Matt. It is amazing. I never knew what the ghost strum was called but thought I would never be able to learn it this soon in my journey. Thanks for this. Matt is a phenomenal Teacher. I can’t believe I’m already improving and actually making progress with these strumming techniques….

One question: for the G7 chord (-,2,1,5) for the exercises and the Hemisphere song….It is anatomically impossible for me to make this chord 🙂 My hands are way too small and not capable of this shape. My pinky finger barely reaches to the other side of fret 4 line. What do you suggest? The regular G7 chord sounds such much brighter and doesn’t seem to fit.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by gi_gi_.

[Andrew]

Glad you are enjoying the course, Gi Gi and thank you for the kind words! I will pass them along to Matt 🙂

So that chord progression relies on the melody note of the E string moving by half, whole, or step and a half while retaining the D (5th fret) on the A string. That’s what gives it a cool sound and why it sounds weird to you when you sub out the voicing of G7 for the standard one.

So I’d suggest two options. Work through the exercises in this lesson. They’ll help increase the reach of your left hand pinky. But note, it will take time to increase. Usually about 3 months of everyday practice.

Alternatively, a soprano size ukulele will decrease the fret size allowing stretch chords to be easier to fret.

[robinboyd]

Hi @gi_gi_

I made a little video to add to what Andrew was saying. Please let me know if I’m on the right track because I’m just guessing.

[gi_gi_]

@robinnoyd Thanks. That does help. I have small hands but placing my thumb further back and bringing my elbow in helped greatly. I can at least make the sound. It’s still a stretch but I can do it. Thanks.

@Andrew thanks

[robinboyd]

Great! Hopefully that will make Andrew’s exercises a bit easier

[evapaju]

Hello @Andrew!

I love the Next Level Strumming Course! It is interesting and gives me good opportunity to improve my playing, also very well executed by Matt.
I have a question about ghost strum technique. My right hand natural relaxed position while strumming is fingers curled to palm, but I noticed that Matt holds them in open position. Is there any difference in speed or other important aspects of this technique?

Thank You!

[sarahmusic]

i love this course so much!

i practice each exercise a few minutes every day and have already improved a ton in strumming speed and precision, so thank you!
matt is a great teacher and the performance piece is gorgeous.

i do have a small UI / UX suggestion though for the website which would improve the workflow during practice:

since I often go back and forth between exercises within one course, I wish there was a link (or button) that takes me back to the course overview when I’m on a module/exercise page.

example:
say i’m doing exercise 1 of module 4 .
at the bottom of this page, I can navigate to “previous unit” or “next unit” but there is currently no easy way for me to go the course overview page if I want to see my progress or go back to another modules/exercise.

at the moment, I have to click on “Courses” in the main navigation, scroll waaay down that page (also I have to remember which course I was looking for– which is confusing / inconvenient if there are multiple strumming courses or if I’m taking multiple courses at the same time) and find the link to the course overview page, in this case: “Next Level Strumming Techniques”.

so it would be great if there was a link that takes me to the course overview – i hope this makes sense.

other than that I love rockclass101 so far (I joined two weeks ago) 🙂

thank you

[Andrew]

@evapaju – Let me ask Matt and get back to you on this.

@sarahmusic – I agree, it would be very helpful! I just submitted the idea as a feature request to the course developer 🙂

[Andrew]

@evapaju – Matt says: Doesn’t matter if it’s open hand or close hand technique, just try to be able to do both and select what is more natural for the situation.

[evapaju]

@Andrew – thank you a lot :)! I noticed yesterday while practicing that with sweep strum my right hand stays open for ghost notes too and it is pretty comfortable. For only ghost strumming it seems more natural to hold fingers curled in. Exactly like you said! So it seems my hand knows what to do even if I don´t 🙂

• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by evapaju.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by evapaju.

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