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@sarahd – blunt force trauma about 14 years ago is what prevents my little finger from straightening. This is what mine looks like!
@sarahd I have the exact same issue. when I have to stretch with little finger and it straightens, it locks in. I am fairly new to uke so have always assumed that it was a strength issue and that maybe it will resolve with time and more play time. I have never asked, so I will be very interested to see what comments address your question.
@andrew Thank you for the helpful feedback. I am going to challenge myself to pick up the speed!
Thanks, @Angelo! I could have gotten the piece up to 90% speed, but was just too nervous to do it safely when recording myself. The uke is a Fluke concert with low-G tuning. I’m really fond of it.
Linda
Here’s the rest of page 11 and everyone on page 12:
@karenj – Playing sounds great Karen and congrats on memorising it!
@terryfallon3 – This is coming along nicely. It’s a deceptively tricky piece at times and you’ve dealt with some of the difficult sections well. Just keep practicing to try and make some of those transitions a little smoother.
@andyrose – Great job! Lovely, clean performance and really nice steady tempo throughout. Great work 😊
@cstiber – Congratulations on your first recording! I think you did a great job playing to the backing track and its clear how much work you’ve put into practicing this piece. Well done!
Page 12:
@mkstewart67 – Fantastic performance! This is a deceptively difficult piece to play well but you have mastered it! The notes all sustain really well, thanks to your excellent technique. I like the tempo you’ve gone for too. Top job!
@timolnz – Great work Tim. Nice clean performance and good consistent tempo. Those harmonics were popping too! Well done 😊
@beauke – Congratulations on your first solo to a backing track! I think you did a wonderful job and I really got sense of how much you enjoyed playing this one 😊
@seoulkim – Good job, and well done for challenging yourself! You could try to relax your right hand as it looks quite tense. Use the tab player and play along from the horn section to the end to help get locked into the groove but play it at 50% speed to begin with, practicing just 4 bars at a time (Oh, and Andrew says thanks for the kind words 😊)
@sarrafina – Great job Sarrafina, and what a professional looking video! I think you played this piece really nicely and your fingerpicking technique looks great. One tip to really hone your performance would be to try and keep the tempo just a little more consistent as some measures you play a little fast compared to the others. Excellent work overall though.
@maryjanew – Well done for memorising it this piece and I can see you’ve worked hard on it. You’ve done the right thing to play a little slower as you continue to practice and perfect this piece. I think it’s sounding really good (and yes, fingers can be very naughty when that record button is pressed can’t they 😉)
@riley_ukulele – I like what I’m hearing but both sound files seem to be of the B melody section. It was very cleanly played though and I thought the wind noise added some nice atmosphere to the piece 😉. Great work!
Unfortunately, we won’t be able to give you an entry for this month since the entire piece was not performed, but you still have one more chance to win in December.
@artcrocker – This is coming along nicely but I’d probably recommend practicing it at a slower tempo for now to try and clean up some of those notes. Some of the sections are deceptively tricky for such a simple sounding piece. Once you can play it cleanly at a slow tempo you can gradually start to build up speed. It’s sounding good though – keep going!
@bethany_guardiani – You should be pleased with the performance – it was excellent! You’re right about it being a deceptively difficult piece to execute well but you have done just that. I can see how much you enjoyed playing it too. Great work!
@robinl – Really excellent performance. Lovely and clean and I really liked your use of rubato. You totally nailed it!
Here’s everyone on page 13:
@lintuu – I think this was a wonderful performance, especially considering you’ve only been playing for a few months. Your harmonics and vibrato sounded great and the notes all sustain really well thanks to your excellent technique. Great work!
@flenji – Your recording was a little quiet but your performance of this piece was excellent! Your use of rubato, vibrato and dynamics were all top notch resulting in an emotive performance with a really lovely feel to it. I really enjoyed it 😊
@dennisdickens – I think that sounded really good. Nice steady tempo and nice clean notes. Just keep practicing some of those transitions to remove those little pauses that creep in occasionally. Other than that, you did a great job!
@yukalele – Nicely done! That sounded great and I liked those little pauses in the B melody section. You really made the performance your own, which can be a difficult thing to do. Great work.
@richard_siegert – Beautifully played. Your vibrato sounded great and I like the slower tempo you went for. It gave so much feeling to your performance. Just lovely!
@patricia81 – That sounded really nice Patricia. The notes all sustain really well and your overall performance was exceptionally clean. You played it so well that I think you could push yourself to increase the tempo ever so slightly and even consider adding some of the advanced performance techniques like vibrato and dynamics. Well done!
@stinyuke – Absolutely beautiful performance! You completely smashed it! 😊
@laurajax – I wouldn’t say you were very clumsy with it. Some of those transitions are deceptively tricky for such a simple sounding piece and I think it’s coming along very nicely. You’re doing everything right. Just a bit more practice and you’ll have it nailed. Keep going!
@philbateau – Ah, the curse of the record button. I know it well. 😉 I think your performance sounded really good. You did really well with those tricky transitions in the B melody, Great work!
@rufio0 – That sounded really nice. I’d recommend trying to thoroughly memorise this piece to try and eliminate some of those pauses between sections. That will just help the whole piece flow a little more smoothly.
@rockster – Good job and well done for pushing yourself out of your comfort zone! A good tip to help really get the timing nailed on is to try counting rhythms out loud as you play and maybe try using a slightly slower play-along track like 75% speed. You could also check out our intro to counting rhythms lesson: https://rockclass101.com/understanding-rhythmic-notation-ukulele/
@santai – I really like that you have embraced the performance techniques here. I’m definitely feeling your ‘feel’ 😊. I think if you worked on increasing the overall tempo just ever so slightly (whilst keeping that lovely rubato feel you have) it would sound even better!
Wow, Andrew, that is one great tip! It addresses two of my biggest problems: my weak & inaccurate pinky – which caused me a lot of grief in the Tarraga Etude – and looking at the fretboard constantly while playing. At first it’s frustrating to try to play without looking, because most of us are so accustomed to relying on sight as our strongest sense. But I’m learning that it’s possible to play faster and more accurately without looking, as the brain directly senses and controls the fingers, without the delay of processing what the eyes see. Thank you!
@robinboyd Ouch! Yet you play beautifully so there’s still hope for the rest of us with pinky problems!
@ldarrow Yes I can see it happen to you at the 55 second and 1:17 mark of this month’s video, but you play on nicely. Nice to know it’s not just me. Here’s a wee snippet of how bad mine gets, every time I stretch my pinky it gets stuck straight until I get a chance to wriggle it. Then there’s a particularly nasty collapse at 31 seconds that completely throws me from there on!
@Andrew Thanks for the link. I seem to be fine as long as I can keep my pinky bent so that exercise is do-able. Do you think more strength will eventually stop the knuckle collapsing like in the video above? Fingers crossed (except for the one we’re talking about which is currently banished to the naughty corner!) 🙂I got that email notification and was confused for a second 🙂
For what it’s worth, my pinky is double jointed too and collapses and locks all the time, even more so when I play violin (I guess its the angle) When I was a kid I just learned to push down with it anyway and it got strong like that. It collapses still and looks weird but it stays where I put it and doesnt effect my playing 🤷🏻♀️
@sarahd my pinky finger sometimes locks as well when I am stretching it to reach a note. You can see it happen a few times in my Etude in E Minor video. My first knuckle just wants to be straight when I apply pressure with my pinky. I just try really hard to keep my finger curved, but it doesn’t always work out even if I do 😜.
Here’s Everyone On Page 14
smudge – Sustain sounds great! Performance was great overall! Keep working on the other song 🙂
dividedsky – Hey dividedsky, great job! Performance sounds lovely!
rustypal – Well played. I liked the smoothness on the ending! Thanks for your submission.
Addillein – Hey Addlilein, very nice playing. Only suggestion I have is to check out this video Andrew made for another member earlier this month. It has a tip on cleaning up the E7 barre chord section.
ukealori – It’s great your memorizing pieces now! I thought you did really well overall!
One area I’d work on is left hand form. Andrew made a video the other day helping a member out and it would be good for you to watch too. Also, check out this article/video for more help on this subject.
kirpuff – Kirpuff this was actually really great. Glad you’re apart of our premium membership looks like you been using it! Thank you for this submission.
themmcoys – No problem playing slow if that’s where you’re at with a song. It’s better to play slow until it’s under your fingers then to speed up without having proper technique. It sounds like you’ve got it down at this speed and now is a great time to incrementally try speeding it up. Good job practicing! Thanks for the submission.
sylus9 – Hey sylus9, I thought your performance was lovely. Well done!
john316 – This sounded good and you played it to speed well. There was a small portion around the 1 minute mark that had a rocky area, so target your practice on that transition. Well done overall!
jfbrown616 – Amazing job for a first time entry! Check out our harmonics course for help with getting that technique down.
sarahd – Playing sounds awesome and I see Andrew’s been helping you with your question 🙂
uku241 – Hey Brian. Glad to have you and the family apart of the community! And the submission sounded great. Good luck on your entry.
puppylovesuke – Great job on the first song! But, the challenge required folks to play the entire arrangement (all 4 songs). Unfortunately, we won’t be able to give you an entry for this month, but you still have one more chance to win in December.
Also, your entry came in past our deadline. Watch out for that in December. Andrew tried to give everyone a friendly reminder about it on the 30th.
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