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nerdjenni – Well done! Each technique and exercise sounds great! So let’s talk about the claw. The reason it’s not sounding as it should, is because your hand is not spread open, whereas your fingers should have a gap which is an equal distance apart (fingers: 1-4, thumb is optional to use). Go back and re-watch the lesson, notice how when he strums through the exercises, he spreads his hand open for the claw stroke, and then his fingers come back together for the regular strum.
nthibode – Way to go, Nathalie! The only thing that stood out to me was the little bit of hesitation in the chord changes at the beginning of the triplets section. But that’s being really nitpicky, brilliant performance! Keep up the great work 🙂
jonathan_gabel – Well done! Every technique looks and sounds great! The only thing that stood out to me was the claw stroke. Try to spread your hand out a little bit more (in the fingering), so as when you come down with the stroke, we hear more distinction in the hits.
The Sound of Silence will be coming out this Friday! 🙂
Thanks for everyone’s patience and for voting! We’ll do another vote off based on your requests soon!
gaberdude – Bravo, Gabe! Great feel and great job on getting the techniques down. I’d continue working on theme 3 and 4 to get it a little smoother and watch out for bending inward at the first joint, in 2 spots: pinky at 41 seconds and ring at 45 seconds. But really, that was so good! Nice work this month 🙂
surfnrz – Hey Ray, so your rhythm and timing sounds good, but it sounds like you’ve got some of the hits in different spots. So this technique plays out of an 8th note pattern, and what you want to do is memorize on which beat you:
1) tap with the thumb
2) tap with the index
3) strum up
4) strum downCheck out this video I made last week for another member, which broke down when each hit occurs. But for the best clarity, re-watch the lesson, as I broke it down in great detail.
laurasil – Perfect performance, bravo! And great job using it in a different tune 🙂
@jinajupiter – I think he wanted you to use the pinky as it creates more showmanship when doing the technique. But you could use the same fingering as the eighth note triplet.When you post your performance, i’ll keep an ear out to hear if the melody pops. But it’s hard for me to give advice unless I can see / hear what you are doing.
lisadmh – You’ve got it down, great job and neat changes! The only thing I can spot is that your right hand looks a little tense/tight, try to perform the technique with as much elasticity in your hand as possible.
planetfink – To me, it looks like you’re ambidextrous! Pattern is great, you’ve got it down. The only thing I can suggest to work on is to slow it down and focus on the down strum hits that are made with the thumb.
If you listen back to your performance, most of the time you hit just string 4; or if you hit multiple strings, they are not evenly hit… i.e. 1 rings louder than the other. So practice slow and see if you can get an even hit across string 4 and 3 (at least).
jlbross – Well done, Jennifer! So you’ve got the pattern down and it sounds great overall, but there are two things that I think you can work on to get it a little bit tighter.
1) if you look at the advice I left above for Kathy (planetfink), you’ll see a comment about getting consistent hits. Listen to your performances from 18-22 seconds and 22-25 seconds. The latter has smoother, even hits. Try to make the entire piece have that same consistency.
2) Watch the timing in Beat 2. Try to tap along when you get into that section to help keep you in-time.
@andracass – You’ve got it now! Technique looks great 🙂
Mine too stretches farther than the right! Next month is always halloween themed, but with a twist this time around. Unfortunately, I had to cut this one from the list 🙁
@andracass – Way to go! That was definitely the best performance I’ve seen from you this year. Awesome job! I think theme 1, 2, and 4 are great; so I’d approach these with continual practice. But technique & rhythms look good here!
For theme 3, go back and re-watch the mechanics breakdown lesson on this technique. Chris talks about using the index finger to perform the entire technique and to keep your hand in a constant eighth note, up/down swinging motion. Getting the mechanics down should help you tackle this section better.
@brenna – that would be awesome!
brettboy – Love the vocal and the comment humor, hilarious! The tempo change from the 1st to 2nd theme was really cool, but I think for practicing, I would keep it steady throughout all themes. By doing this, you’ll be better able to focus on cleaning up the tricky areas. And as always, this comes down to targeting those areas and applying the three practicing steps.
jedart – Here is a video with my feedback 🙂
stianukulele – I shared this with Chris, he and I both loved it! Keep up the great work 🙂
brenna – First off, that uke sounds so good! Second, bravo! Technique looks great, I think the only thing that I would suggest is to practice it at a slower tempo, so that you can focus on cleaning up some of the tricky sections and getting the transitions a little smoother. Excellent work overall!
Looks like she taught it as island strum, but performed it with a slightly different strum pattern:
Bar 11: 1 (&) 2 (&) (3) & 4 &
Bar 12: (1) & 2 & (3) & 4 (&)
For things like this, I’d recommend gaining an understanding of the rhythmic notation. If you’re able to read the rhythms above the tab, you’ll know exactly what to play. The best way to learn how to do this is by learning to read music.
After that, you can apply this rule of thumb: strum up on the up beat and down on the down beat.
Hey Becky, check out the theory course. It kicks off with a lesson on the Major scale. There’s a diagram of that scale in 5 positions throughout the neck in this lesson.
Banjolele lessons will happen. Stay tuned!
@rickeymike – Matt’s working on an arr. of that tune 🙂 Great movie, still holds up!