Participate in the March 2025 Member Challenge – Rewind & Replay!

[mark1256]

There are so many songs that I have loved learning and don’t even slightly remember anymore. One song that I remember putting much effort into was Crossing Hemispheres. However, I was never able to stretch my fingers enough to play it on my tenor so I finally used a concert ukulele. This time I will use a tenor and I will work on playing it smoothly with better tone.

[maryjanew]

I’m excited to have another chance to revisit a song that I tried before. Last year in March, we were doing Irish songs and I was learning “Red is the Rose”. I worked on it and was making a nice start but couldn’t get an entry done in time to post. (I attached a screenshot of my post about NOT posting!) I found some practice videos of me working on it. This is the perfect month to pick it back up and hopefully get farther along on mastering “Red is the Rose”!

Oh yeah, almost forgot, I will work on memorizing 4 measures at a time and once memorized, play with more feel and dynamics. I also want to learn the singing version of the song.
Happy Ukeing-
MJ

• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by maryjanew.

[yukalele]

In May 23 I played Andrew’s proper version of Blackbird and found it difficult in places.

Over Christmas and January this year I worked on trying to adapt the version I used to play on guitar back in the, er, past…

The guitar seems like a monster now I play Uke and my hand seems tiny!

Anyway, here are my two versions.

Andrew’s May 2023

[yukalele]

And here’s my adaptation

My adaption

[1481632_m]

For this month’s challenge I will be revisiting “Mad World” from June of 2024. This time around I will work on memorizing the piece and while learning it playing it all the way through. Last time I only practiced in parts so when I went to record I wasn’t able to play it smoothly all together. I will also focus on learning the song by playing it very very slowly. Using this technique has been much more efficient with learning. I want to try using the chord roll technique that I started learning in the challenge from last month in this song.

Best,
Megan

[otzepeng]

Heyho Rockclass,

it’s one year ago that i tryed to play Stevens wonderful arrangement. Many issues left to improve: steady tempo, steady Hammer-ons and Pull-offs, playing verse 2 correct …. best requirements for the actual challenge. I also want to “roll” the chords because i worked for some time at technique and here*s the chance to try it out.

Here’s my original post from 27.2.2024

[leslieb]

I am a premium member.

This will be a lot of fun! I will be working on the piece Chopsticks as that was my first forum submission way back in October 2021. I have learned so much since then. Let’s see if it shows.

Here is the link to my first entry.

[leslieb]

Ah, forgot to describe my goals.

1. Smooth transitions
2. Playing to tempo

[clempek]

Hey,
For this month I chose to rework Hallelujah. It’s a song that I love with a magnificent interpretation by Andrew. I’ve wanted to get back to it for a long time. The points to work on are the rhythm and the transitions. After that I’m not sure I can do better because I’ve played less/I have less time for the uku at the moment ^^’

[potter]

As usual, a great challenge! I plan to revisit Dream a Little Dream. My goals are to work on chord transitions and increase my speed as I tend to play at snail’s pace. 🙂

[gi_gi_]

So nice to see everyone’s old videos. So much time has passed. It’s great. Don’t know what I will pick. Probably Crazy or Adelita.

[grannieannie]

Thanks, Andrew, for another fun challenge – and fun to see some of the regulars in their early playing days!

I submitted my first entry exactly a year ago, Fingerpicking Etude No. 13, playing my first ukulele that I strung with low G. Since then I won a second uke (whose sound I prefer) that I’ve strung with low G – I had since changed my first one to high G. So even though the piece is written for high G, I’m going to play it on my low G and adapt it as necessary.

I want to play the piece more smoothly, concentrating on vibrato and legato, maybe trying a bit of rubato, and speed it up some.

[shmu88]

One of the first post I did was “Wonder Part 2” and aside from the terrible video angle and timing, I think it shows some of my weaknesses, like playing to “hard”/mechanically, and missing some notes or not hearing them clearly and evenly especially on faster tempo. So I’ll try to work on those things this month!

Thanks for the challenge Andrew 🙂

[dianna]

There are so many pieces I would like to revisit, including the ones I just practiced this year. I think I could simply do this challenge for the rest of the year and I’d be happy! For the longest time I have wanted to revisit “Adelita.” I pulled it out and was pleasantly surprised to have it back in my memory very quickly (which is exactly what @Andrew and others have said would happen). This means I can focus my attention on sustain and flow and the emotional nuances using rubato and dynamics. I was also surprised at how short the piece actually is. It didn’t feel that way the first go—round! There are still spots that are rather tricky which I will try to improve. Also, it is March and last year this time I was practicing the “Irish Washerwoman”…..turns out that is also a short piece (again it didn’t seem that way last year)….Interestingly, it was also sustain that I have to work on in that piece. So, I will focus on “Adelita.” That will be my piece for this challenge, but if there is time, I will take a stab at the “Irish Washerwoman,” in attempt to also improve sustain. Have a great month practicing Uke friends!

[dianna]

I am posting “Irish Washerwoman” also….in case I am able to work on that.

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