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Hellloooo again!
I wanted to also try “Bury Me Beneath The Willow” this month just for fun, but it proved way more intimidating than I expected. I’m not even sure why, but I hit an anxiety wall trying to learn and memorize this one, even though I really love how it sounds.
I wanted to play it and play it with the melody throughout, so I took small pieces of the arrangement and did a simplified version.
I’ve started to realize that it’s way easier for me sometimes to modify a song or play it by ear than learning the notes verbatim. Not sure if that makes sense or not.
This is a “real take,” kind of what I do when trying to get a good take. 😅 “The good part” starts at 37 seconds if you don’t want to watch me struggle, big time. 😂 This one was after ten-ish takes with the banjolele.
I still haven’t given up trying to learn the actual version, but it may take a long time to work through that.
Thanks for listening / reading! 😅
Bury Me Beneath the Willow:
This was a bit of an obsession for me these past few weeks and I gave up on getting a clean recording. Of course the worse parts are the “solo” and the ending, when my recording button nerves are the worst. Considering the length of the song and with the idea of being an accompanist, one of my goals was to just ignore mistakes, regroup, and keep going. I highly recommend the clawhammer course for those who haven’t yet tried this. It is a lot of fun even with a traditional ukulele.I’ve been enjoying everyone’s submissions so far. I especially want to try Cielito Lindo, but then I can’t get that (politically incorrect) Ay-yi-yi-yi Frito Bandito song out of my head.
Take care,
KarenOk, so when I went through the options for this month’s challenge a few weeks ago, the idea of learning a brand new technique sounded appealing, so I decided to try Bury me beneath the willow, and started with the clawhammer course as recommended. And what can I say, I was instantly hooked and addicted, so much so that I just had to get a banjolele for the full experience. And I thought I was immune to the UAS, but there you go. So here’s my take on Bury me beneath the willow. Learning the clawhammer style and then applying it by learning this song was incredibly fun and rewarding, I’d say it was the most fun I’ve had with a RC101 challenge so far, even though it doesn’t show on the video (I have no idea why I always look like a dork when I record myself, trust me I’m happier than it looks). Next I’ll go through my repertory to check out what else sounds good on this new toy of mine.
Now I’m definitely out of room for ukes, so please no prize drawing participation for me this month. Thanks.Here is my attempt at Fields of Gold. I found that the sound is better recording with my phone than with the computer. Thanks in advance for any critique.
Way to go, Karen! Sounds great. I was working on that song and I found the hardest part was getting the timing to match the recording but you did an excellent job!
This is my August entry of Fields Of Gold.
This is definitely one of the most favorite songs I have learned. Thank youHello Andrew, RC 101 team and all members,
so here is my entry for this month.
Hope you have some advice on how to improve my playing.
Have a great time everybody.Greetings from Germany
RiciThanks @annemarie. I agree, the clawhammer style is addictive, so anyone who hasn’t taken the course yet, give it a shot, you might get hooked just as I did. Yes, it is a little tricky initially, but just be patient, it will eventually click, and then you can sit there and get lost doing the bum ditty for hours, it’s an almost meditative experience.
@misterbones, that’s so true about clawhammer uke! It is addicting, and indeed once you get the technique down, you’ll find yourself just hammering random chords or whatever because it’s just so satisfying. I do that, too. 😅 It’s like your fingers are just bouncing on four little trampolines. 😅 Your performance was really good and @karenj your performance was so lovely!
@katazumiri – Your timing is great! I just meant that the fingerstyle part was at a different tempo than the duet. I would suggest to slow the latter or speed the former up so the tempo stays consistent. If they were played independent of each other, then they are perfect as is.
@dorabr – Fantastic take, Dora! Excellent feel, finesse, and pacing! I really enjoyed listening to your performance 🙂
@The_Bumble_Bard – Great start! Keep at it, Rachael! 🙂
@karenj – Bravo, Karen! Technique and timing was excellent! You got the shirt and the playin’ skills to back it up 🙂
@misterbones – That was awesome, Michael! I sent your performance to Christopher and he said: “Man, this is incredible for a month! He’s grooving right along and that right hand looks very fluid. The only minor thing that might make it a bit better is to bring back the brush strokes a little bit so they’re more of a brush than a strum; think of a snare drum with brushes in the background but really great playing through and through.”
@rgillof – That was a beautiful performance, Richard. The only thing I noticed was that the verses had an elegant and effortless flow compared to the bridge. And the reason why is because you’ve got that section memorized and can focus 100% on playing as opposed to reading and playing in the bridge. So my only advice is to memorize the bridge.Excellent take overall. Great feel in your playing too!
@lynnzo – You played it so beautifully, Lynn! Well done 🙂
@richo_uke – Lovely performance, Rici! You played it with great feel. My suggestion would be to memorize it and then experiment with pacing and rubato. If you listen to Matt’s performance, you’ll hear his interpretation is drawn out with a longing, heartache feel/vibe.Thanks @Andrew. I understand your idea with the division into two independent pieces 🙂
I have a different question. When I combined the two parts into one, I thought about Etude 32. There we also played the theme at different tempos.
I thought that since we are changing the key from C to F, and I am changing the structure (separating the melody and chords into different instruments), then changing the tempo seemed like an appropriate idea to me. But it looks like something went wrong in this case…
Was the fingerstyle part too long, so that it could no longer be called “the first run of the theme” or was the change in tempo between parts too abrupt? Or something else?
What do I need to pay attention to if I want to change the tempo within a piece like in Etude 32?@katazumiri – That was done for stylistic effect and was one of the focal points of the etude. In the context of “Cielito Lindo”, the tempo change sounded abrupt to me. Music is subjective, if you like it, then by all means it’s fine. Personally, I would keep the tempo steady or start to gradually speed up near the end of the fingerstyle piece to the start of the duet. I think that would make the transition sound more seamless. Again, these are just my opinions. There’s no right or wrong in this situation.
Here is my attempt at Cielito Lindo. Its a bit choppy in places but this was the best recording I could get in a limited time – the relief of getting to towards the final section led to my brain deciding to check out.
I noted that my strums seem a lot louder/dominate on the recording (phone) even though I tried to lightly strum…Hi there!
I chose My Heart Will Go On, another beautiful all thumb picking arrangement! It took me a few takes, because sometimes my brain just freezes randomly. This was the first good take, but the dogs outside were barking into the recording in the beginning :/
I enjoyed learning this piece, thank you RC101 for hosting these challenges! 🙂
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