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thanks!!! @karenj 🙂
Good to see you @jbmills07
@everyone will we find out who won the July challenge? ☺️
@Andrew Thank you so much for the suggestions! I feel like I hold the body of the uke against me, but my posture can use some adjusting. I will also work on those exercises you shared. Thanks again!
Thank you very much @gi_gi_ and @The_Bumble_Bard! 😊 both your performances are lovely!
@leihali – Here is my feedback for you 🙂
@terryfallon3 – Beautifully played, Terry! I think you nailed the intro and the first time thru the form. Feel was spot on and so was the vibe! When it picks up speed during the last time thru the form, this is where I’d recommend switching your picking approach.I’d switch from thumb + index (what you did in the first 2 parts) to either a 3 or 4 finger approach. That’ll give you more dexterity to tackle the fast passages 🙂
@gi_gi_ – Wow! Really well played, Gigi! There’s only 2 things I’m hearing that I’d focus on. The first is increasing sustain during the crazy finger-frenzy parts, like bars 5 and 6. There’s a lot of challenging finger placement happening here and keeping the sustain of each note ringing as we go from one to the next is hard.I’d also focus on keeping tempo steady throughout as you practice. But eventually, you’ll want to play it to taste.
@tessiert – Beautifully played, Trace! From here, I’d work on memorizing it and then practicing with the tab player, playing along with Matt. Try 4 bars at a time, that’ll give you solid bite-sized phrases.
@bibilele – That was very well played, Bianca! Great job 👏
@dianna – Such a fun song! You played it well too! Great feel throughout! As you keep practicing, try playing along with me in the tab player. Try one section at a time with a focus on keeping it steady and matching the rhythms as close as you can.
@abster – That was awesome! Great job on the Clawhammer technique, looks and sounds awesome!
@jbmills07 – Here’s my feedback for you 🙂
@ruthie-roo – You played it beautifully, Ruthie! Great feel and tone and TY for the kind words 🙂
@nat-uke – Lovely performance, Natalie! I really enjoyed it!
@xerxes – Try this: change the playback speed of your performance to “1.75”. What do you hear? I hear great fingerpicking tone and you nailed the rhythms! What this proves is the main thing you want to work on is increasing tempo. All the things you wrote about this sounding bad or that, is just overthinking. I do it, you do it, I’m pretty sure we all do it! You played it great Milo!
@jody_hendrickson – Your performance pleases the board. You may join @brettboy for the celebratory melon bar experience.
@rgillof – Fingerpicking and strumming sounded great! I’m hearing some of the rhythms are a little off, so that’s probably where I’d focus most of your practice on. Try playing with Matt in the tab player and counting the rhythms out loud.
@jobarjo454 – Amazing! Excellent rhythm playing and feel! Unfortunately, you just missed our submittal deadline. I tried to give everyone a friendly reminder the day of. So I won’t be able to include you in the draw – BUT, wow, your playing is 🔥. So I feel like you already won 🙂We had 41 members participate this month! I’m continually blown away by how talented y’all are! Watching everyone’s performance was a pleasure!
So without further ado, the winner of our July Challenge is…
Our August challenge is LIVE and the theme is: Free For All! Hope to see everyone in the new challenge: https://rockclass101.com/august-2025-challenge
@Deadbuggy. How exciting! Congrats….
Congrats, @Deadbuggy!
And thank you, @Andrew, for your comments. There are so many things I’m not aware of, and I love to hear and learn how I could improve my skills. I’ll work on the finger use. I think my this month’s challenge can definitely use that.👍@leihali – My pleasure!
And the 100th-Challenge-Win goeees toooooo:
@deadbuggy!
🥳My congrats! I’m excited which (hopefully iconic) song you’ll choose and how Matt’s Arrangement will sound like!
@gi_gi_ Thank you so much! 😊 Haha, I wouldn’t consider myself a pro, but maybe imagining yourself on stage makes you one! Your performance was great, too. Well done with the new mic — it sounds nice! 😊
@otzepeng Thank you! Using that song as a warm up is a really good idea! I think I should include it in my warm up too, it has a nice variety of techniques indeed. 😊 I enjoyed your playing of Black Hole Sun, nicely done. 😊
@deadbuggy Congrats! Looking forward to the song you’ll choose. 😊Will do – thanks @Andrew!
@deadbuggy – congrats! Can’t wait to see what you choose and how it turns out.
CONGRATS, @deadbuggy!! It will be really fun to see what you pick and what Matt does with it! Can’t wait! I’m so jealous! 😂
Also really enjoyed reading / watching through all of @Andrew ‘s feedback! That’s still one of my favorite parts of these challenges and I learn a lot from reading it. It’s obvious that so much thought, care, and heart goes into it, and it’s so insightful and helpful to read! Thank you for that, Andrew! 😊
@leb397, thank you so much, my friend, that really means a lot!! I feel like I have definitely improved my singing over the last “however long” that I started trying to work on it, but I don’t always feel like I have complete control over what’s happening. It also took me so long to get a feel for how I wanted my voice to sound, as I realized I naturally would fall into impersonating whatever singer I was singing with (in fact I still unconsciously do that and I’m still working on “how my voice sounds,” lol). I think singing also has so much to do with confidence and it’s hard to maintain that, of course. Thank you, I’m always fighting against the current of my natural shyness, though it may not seem like it. 😂 Hehe, thank you, using the puppets actually helps *a lot* because (in this case) then I’m not worried about what my face is doing or how I look, and can just focus on how it sounds. 😂 Thank you again so much!! 😍@Andrew…. Thank-you for the feedback….it really is a fun song….and I love the history of it….I just read that Elizabeth Cotton wrote it when she was just a teenager….also that she was a self-taught, left-handed, upside down guitar player….creating her own style of playing.
I think I realize that it takes time for me to memorize a piece and begin to make it mine….once I do that then I go back and rework the nuances, including rhythms and maintaining tempo throughout…. So as a result….I often run out of time🤪…..Then, I begin another piece for the following month and totally forget the last one I spent so much time memorizing….
I’m happy to see that August we can decide what we want to work on…..so I will stick with this piece and work on rhythm and consistent tempo throughout.
@Deadbuggy……congratulations….looking forward to hearing your selection!And also, enjoy your month off @Andrew……you deserve it! Have some fun!
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