Participate in the July 2025 Member Challenge – WIN a Custom Arrangement!

[marianne]

Hi RC101 friends,

I’m really enjoying everyone’s submissions—so inspiring!

I’d like to introduce you all to Carlos Fabio (short for Carbon Fiber 😉), my new, travel-friendly companion for the summer while I’m back home. I do miss Barry, no doubt!

As if adjusting to a new instrument wasn’t challenging enough, I somehow decided to take on Moonlight Sonata for this month’s challenge—clearly hypnotized by how breathtaking Evan’s arrangement and performance are. Absolutely stunning!

Midway through the month, I seriously considered giving up. It felt overwhelming—definitely beyond my skill level. But then I revisited Andrew’s lesson, and it gave me the push I needed. Thank you @Andrew for breaking things down so clearly and helping make those “impossible” chords and stretches feel manageable.

Evan, I hope I did your beautiful arrangement some justice. I’m excited to keep learning beyond the excerpt!

[leslieb]

I am a premium member.

How fun to pick a song to work on! I chose Hone A aka Wai. This is a lovely Hawaiian Waltz.

I am still working on frets 10-12. My fingers know where to go but sure take a long time to get there. I did want to get my video in on time though.

[Andrew]

@leb397 – That was awesome Louisa! Feel was spot on and great job on all of the techniques! The only thing I’d suggest working on is note/chord clarity and boosting tempo. Keep up the great work!

@marianne – I have a funny story on this arrangement, Marianne. Every arrangement I had given Evan prior to this, he had completed in a week. And by completed, I mean: arranging it, notating it, and recording the performance. So I’m sitting here thinking, HOW DOES HE DO IT THAT FAST!! 😂

So I decide to challenge him by giving him Moonlight. Now I did send him a guitar transcription of it that we played in music college, so he didn’t start from scratch. But you wanna guess how long it took him to finish it?

2 weeks LOL

Your performance was outstanding! This song kicked my butt! Karma for me for trying to challenge the (at the time he was still a) “kid”. Serves me right 😅

@leslieb – Very beautifully played Leslie! From here, I would work on one a section at a time with a focus on keeping it steady. And then when that section is spot on, move onto the next, and piece the song together that way. I have to say, it doesn’t sound like it will take that much more work, cause you are already playing it brilliantly!

[brettboy]

Severance 😁 (turns out Andrew and I are both proud Severance nerds 😅)

[grannieannie]

I’ve been meaning to ask: are there any members who have entered all 100 challenges?

@gi_gi_ Thanks. I’m drawn to the finger picking and rhythms of the Flamenco arrangements, and when I heard someone playing La Gitanita a few months ago, I had to put it on my Someday List.

@marianne No one would know you found that piece challenging — as always, you played it easily and with elegance. That’s another piece I’m adding to my list.

@leb397 Nice, and did you find it less stressful to just go with a few takes instead of dozens of tries?

@leslieb I like how you smile throughout your submissions. I find myself scowling with concentration — never a good look!

[marianne]

@Andrew 😁 and thank you!
2 weeks to do all that…?! there is no waaay! How on earth? 😅 he is truly incredible and how richer we all are that you put him to the test 😆

@grannieannie thank you too! I tried my best to record a version without the buzzes etc but impossible at this point in time. As Andrew said, a kick in the butt for sure! I pushed it and my left wrist is swollen 😆 I will keep practicing it

[leb397]

@Andrew, thank you. Note clarity is my biggest fault when playing. I totally agree! I’ll continue to practice since it’s fun to play on my banjo ukulele 😊

@grannieannie absolutely, not stressing over perfection with the entries helps. I knew it wasn’t my best but I also knew that the next take, I’d probably goof on a different part. The harmonics at the end, I was sad I didn’t nail because I did so often but that meant I’d have to play 2.28 minutes to do it again 😆

@marianne lovely and such emotion. Love the back story. Tell us the brand of “Carlos Fabio”. I’m guessing that’s a baritone. Sounds so good.

@leslieb very nice. Great Hawaiian vibe. Our Uke group is performing at a luau this weekend with lots of Hawaiian songs. White sandy beach, island style, Maui girl… just a few. Hardest part is singing the native words.

Great challenge @Andrew. I love that everyone picked different entries. We have such a diverse group. Again, all so supportive.

[rw1950merritt]

Again, maybe a little too challenging. But I had fun playing it. I had many tracks recorded but this seems to be the best of them.

My new definition of rubato is how long it takes to make the difficult chord changes.

[Andrew]

@rw1950merritt – I thought you played it really well! The one measure that needs attention is measure 5. You’re playing all the notes as eighths, but several of them are sixteenths. One option is to simplify the bar by treating the whole thing as eighth notes: play the double stop, then the next four notes, and finish with the last three (which carry the melody). That version would sound just as good, IMO, and is a bit easier to play than what Steven arranged.

[marianne]

Thank you so much @leb397 ☺️
Carlos Fabio is a Enya Nova U Pro (tenor)

[janaq1]

Hi everyone,
for this challenge I chose a beautiful arrangement of Aloha ´Oe.

[karenj]

Here’s my July Challenge submission of Cripple Creek. I love Bluegrass and was excited to learn another clawhammer tune with my banjolele. Despite my efforts, the 100% speed went far off the rails for section D and thus I settled on the 75% backing track. I wish you could hear the backing track better, but I guess I need to work on my sound-mixing skills a bit more. Alas, this is the best of my million takes.

Thanks again to RC 101. I love all of the variety this month and am looking forward to viewing everyone’s submissions.

Take care,
Karen

[jedart]

I must be Crazy to try this arrangement. I’m running out of time, so here is my entry, warts and all.

[riley_ukulele]

I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER

Hey everyone,

This month I decided to learn Scarborough Fair. Watching Evan’s performance of this song was the reason I first picked up the ukulele 6 years ago, and it was also the first song I started to learn on the ukulele. However, I hadn’t leant the complete arrangement, so it was great to finish learning it this month.

Thanks 😃

[The_Bumble_Bard]

Hello, dear ukulele friends! 😊

I haven’t gotten to listen through many of the entries this month due to “even more insanity” unfolding in my life (my car died, but I was blessed to find a new one very quickly) and my brain has not being so good, but I saw a bunch of the titles of the songs from all the talented people here and know without even listening that they are amazing – I’ll finally get to listen through some tomorrow, I think. 😊

Now, I’ll share my feeble and strange entries that I scraped together last second – as usual. 😂

Oh one last thing before I jump in. I DID work on House of the Rising Sun and liked the first part and was starting to like the strumming, but then the chaos of life took over and I lost my momentum with it. I may still share that one later, though. 🙂

Onto the entries! Way too much lead in (as usual).

The first one I am not very happy with, tbh. I just really don’t like how it sounds (and I think you can even tell in the video). When you’re not in a great headspace in your brain, it can be even harder to play well. I feel like I can play this one slightly better than this, but this is what we’re going with because we’re in the eleventh hour of this challenge now. 😂

So, I recorded that and wasn’t feeling very good at all about it, but I also have been practicing singing lately (with my sister a lot of the time, but also on my own in the car). It’s something I always wanted to get better at and be able to do and I’ve been practicing every day for some time – though there’s still a lot I don’t know about singing. I thought I would be extra bold and share this little “bonus” cover of this song that I’ve been trying to practice, share it here in the “safe space” of Rock Class 101. After I recorded this, I started to feel better, even though I was so terrified someone would hear me. It helped me to use the puppets. I feel like I definitely have improved my singing for sure, though it’s still far from perfect. It’s really a matter of confidence and that’s the hardest part to maintain for me. I hope you find it entertaining at least. 😂

Thank you all so much! I didn’t want to miss this challenge, it was a great one! 🙂

[Author]

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