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@misterbones. I honestly had never heard of ‘raga’ before. Very interesting on the uke! Such a mighty little instrument we play!
I know I am late for this post, but I wanted to get the goal set in digital ink regardless lol
This month I have been working out of my comfort zone in order to finally sing and play at the same time. Something I have tried and always failed at. Just feel like it’s an impossibility to be frank lol. But regardless, that is my goal. As I mentioned in my last post it hasn’t been the best year, and in fact, the last 4 have been pretty rough. My best friend of the last 10 years was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer about 4 years back and this past year has been particularly rough for her. That said, she is religious and believes in prayers, and so if any of you out there could spare a prayer for Regina, I know she would be grateful.
That being said, she has always been my biggest supporter when learning and practicing the ukulele, and she has always wanted me to learn to sing and play, while never pressuring me.
Sorry for the long post! I will be learning “Just Breathe” by Pearl Jam1)Execution: I want to learn how to play a song while singing along from beginning to the end.
2)Application: I will in the future attempt to sing while playing other songs as well. I think working on this skill would be a power asset in my ukulele arsenal, if it weren’t for my lack luster singing voice lol. My goal is to be able to sing this song to Regina. 🙂
3) I will memorize the song lyrics and the ukulele fingering separately and slowly attempt to integrate the two muscle memories together.Evaluation
So far, so good. Having a structured practice session made me practice a little longer each day for the last two weeks, which is great!
I feel that I can now play some parts more smoothly. Well, sometimes at least… there are days where I think I have made some progress, but they are usually followed by days where everything feels difficult again. I’ll post a sound clip later this month.Hi,
My update: I’ve memorized the piece and it’s mostly at speed though I still occasionally get buzzy strings from bad fingering or forgot what comes next. I’m planning on working on getting the music smoother and more musical and also on starting to play with recording onto the macbook next.
Linda
Nice choices/work everybody! Having fun reading and listening.
@abster that was wonderful! You are very talented
@The_Bumble_Bard thank you so much for picking my piece and your generous compliments 😊! Your intro sounds lovely so far. Great feel and I am thrilled to see it being performed.
@jbmills07 Amazing sounding and looking instrument. Congrats and I look forward to hearing it when done with your singing. It’s moving that you will be singing this to your best friend Regina. I am certain she will love it. A special prayer for her. Our warm thoughts are with her ❤️@andrew @leb397 @the_bumble_bard thank you for encouraging comments as always.
I love hearing from you.
I still have trying to perfect the piece as it’s quite challenging and an in Awe of the genius that Evan is..@marianne thank you so much 🙏🙏😊
I love your playing as well!Hello everyone.
Here is my progress on avatar’s love.
I decided to play it in it’s original key.
I played it slowly with the lofi track.
Now imagine that you are flying on top of Appa with your friends.😊
@willw18 that is beautiful.
@the_bumble_bard I think you really have a great start to @marianne s piece. You have the knack for tremolo. When I watched Stephen play the song I was in love and then he said Marianne wrote it. How cool is that. Happy for you Marianne. And Rachel, can’t wait to hear more. And welcome to real life is the burden we carry 😁🎼🎼🎼 need a song for this.
@jbmills07 that is a beauty. I promise not to be “mad” you won again I’m just REALLY-jealous 😆🤔👏 fair n square as they say. Always deserving to a person needing support. So sorry about your friend. It’s so important to be there for her. Friend support is so valuable. It’s different than family. Can’t wait to hear final edition. Tell I’m thinking healing thoughts as I practice today.UPDATE I have final memorized all of Parrot head blues EP017. Still few rough spots. Thought I was going to wear out the loop just to hear the timing in some measures. I’ll be posting soon. 🤞
LouisaUpdate 3:
I’m on the final song of the Definitive Beginner’s Guide. I can play most of “The Path of the Wind” fluently, but I mess up every time I’m trying to record it xD I’m going to give myself another week to refine these two pieces (plus “Happy birthday” for another birthday in January) and then move on to playing other things.@misterbones, that’s sounding really cool! Amazing how such a different style/effect is achieved kind of just by utilizing the slides with different timing? I’m sure it also has to do with the musical scale involved? Sorry I don’t know a lot about that particular style, but it does sound lovely. 😊 Do you think the style still comes across without the other instruments accompanying it, just with the uke?
@jbmills07, that’s so lovely that you’re doing that for your friend! Sending thoughts and prayers for her. Very sorry to hear that’s happening. Also, your new uke sounds very lovely indeed. 😊 I believe in you with the singing, I’m sure you can do it! It’ll just take some practice, of course. Your uke playing sounds lovely as always, now to add on the vocals! 😉😊😅
@marianne, thank you so much! That means extra that you’re the one saying it sounds lovely. 😅😊 Very beautiful piece and such an honor to be included in that way, I’m sure! Well deserved. 😊🥰 I may just focus on the intro this month because I really want to improve the tremolo, but I’m definitely going to learn the rest. Once I’ve got it, I’ll share it here. 😊
@ukefinlandgirl, that’s sounding very lovely indeed! Well played. 😊
@leb397, thank you so much, my friend! 🥰The one thing I hoped to do with the tremolo is increase the speed, while maintaining the clarity and keeping the flow very smooth and even. It’s tricky though because what I played in that last clip is close to top speed for me still. Thank you so much for the encouragement though. Can’t wait to hear what you share! 😊 And I know! So exciting for Marianne, and of course Steven is the perfect choice to teach that one. Very lovely, all around! 😊🥰 Hahaha oh it is, life, she be a-life-ing at times. 😅🥺Also, loved reading along and hearing about everyone else’s progress, too! 😊
@The_Bumble_Bard The scales seem to be mostly pentatonic, there are strictly no half step intervals, all notes of the scale are two or three steps apart. So it’s really very close to our bread-and-butter pentatonic scales. What makes it soud so different is probably first the order of the notes, second the ornamentations, and third the fact that there is no chord progression behind the melody, it’s just the melody accompanied by a drone. I actually do attend concerts with Indian classical music regularly, and typically when they play a raga, they will start with just the solo instrument (plus tanpura drone in the background) playing by itself, introducing the scale in a slow free-floating very rubato-like tempo without any particular rhythm for quite a while, before the tabla kicks in later and the tempo picks up and it gets very rhythmic. So yes, it does not only come across without accompaniment, it’s actually how it’s designed to be played, first solo and then with tabla. That however is true for the real masters on the traditional instruments. Playing the ukulele part of these quite simple ragalele arrangements as written without accompaniment probably doesn’t sound too interesting. At the least, they would have to be played very rubato to make them sound like anything at all. But I focussed on practicing the correct timing along with the ornamentation techniques. Playing them as written, in very strict rhythm, but without the tabla in the background, would probably sound a little strange.
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