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Here is the remainder of folks on Page 6.
karenj – Oh, that is a really cool uke! And it sounds quite lovely. 🙂 I thought you did really well and what’s exciting, is that quite a few of you guys have pinpointed exactly where you should focus your practice. For those that are reading this comment, it is on smoothing it out – i.e. Tempo flow. The best way to work on this is to follow the steps in the practice guide we laid out. Break it into chunks and focus on playing with a steady flow. This is the BEST way to improve – Tackling the entire piece all together is not an efficient way to achieve it.
nggnmm – you really stepped up to the plate this month, Qian. And that’s why I had to feature you in one of the weekly emails in December. It’s so inspiring to see that hard work really does payoff. Keep up the great work!
benita – first impression, excellent feel. I love how you interpreted the music with such a lively and playful manner; Absolutely brilliant. In regards to your comment, I think with just a smidget more practice, you’ll have it where you want – but you’re very close. Watch out for things like bending at the first joint, for example your ring finger at 26 seconds. This happened quite often on chords and individual notes. A good rule of thumb is to keep the joint curved – allowing fretting on the fingertip to be done with ease. One last tip, for the ritardando at the end, try to gradually slow down; it will help it sound more natural.
ebideb – very well done and thank you for the compliment! You have a beautiful tone to your playing. One thing, it looks like you were reading, try to memorize the piece. It’s good practice and it allows you to focus solely on how you are performing it. Right hand form looks great. For your left hand, it looks like you stayed in form 2 for most of it; but sometimes, it looks like you were hugging the neck. It’s hard to tell from the angle, but if you did that – try to keep in form 2. It’s the best for this song, except for the Am chord which should be played with form 1.
Anne, I know they sell a microphone kit for the iPhone. I don’t know what the brand is, but I’m sure a quick Google search can find a few. That would probably be the cheapest way.
Here is everyone on page 4.
ukukelley1 – I feel you on what you wrote, we all are our worst critic. But you know what, the more you keep trying to get another take and another one, the less passion and feel comes through in the music. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Now if you’re having trouble getting a good take BECAUSE you didn’t practice enough, that’s another story.
But, clearly you did practice and it was an absolutely beautiful take! Excellent tone and feel. The only suggestion I have is to re-visit the areas that you paused a little. But truly great job!
cncamacho – nice playing and it sounds great on low G. Do go back and double check as I heard a couple of chords that sounded incorrect.
lyndallk – you know I’m a big fan of your playing. 🙂 I really dug the tempo boost the second time through, great idea! My only suggestion is to work on cleaning up some of the tricky barre chords. Check out the advice I left for Hafeez in my previous post for tips on this.
ukeninja – first off, that Kanile’a sounds so good! The warmth of the tone is just, wow! Secondly, this is some of your best playing I’ve heard. 🙂 Great job on the timing.
What I would focus on most is the transition section from the A Melody to the B. That was the hardest part for me and it literally took me hours of practice. I’d also continue working on the B melody, but the main focus should be the transition. Keep up the great work, Eric!
Here is everyone on page 3.
hafeez3115 – great job! So you mentioned working towards cleaning it up a bit, which is great as you’ve recognized what your practice should be focused on. Specifically, I would target barre chords. There are generally two reasons that a barre chord does not ring out properly:
1) finger strength – not enough is applied.
2) form – incorrectly applied.We dive into both of these areas (in complete detail) in our Beginners Course lesson on Barre Chords. Review that lesson and see if you can apply these tips to help clean up the chords.
planetfink – I loved your performance! Your passion comes through on the instrument and your voice 🙂 One helpful tip, for the D barre chord, try to keep your index finger straight when barring. It will provide leverage, making the melody notes you play out of the chord easier to do. Check out that lesson I linked above for, Hafeez, if you want to check out our tips for barre chords. Keep up the great work!
leahwoosley – well done, Leah! My 1 tip for you is to focus more on sustain. In my previous feedback post, I made a video for another member detailing a big tip for working on this.
edward – great playing, Edward! Your playing produces a lovely tone. So what I would focus on in your practicing, is timing. Take 4 bars at a time and play along with the metronome or the tab viewer. Master that, then take the next four bars and piece it together. Apply this concept throughout the entire song. It’s a great way to target and develop timing.
timolnz – I agree, it was trickier than it appeared, but I thought you did a good job. One thing that I would suggest, is to think about the way that you performed it – which was the topic of this lesson. In my opinion, this is a song that has a soft attack, paired to a relaxed feel. So when I listened to your performance, I’m hearing a strong attack with a brisk tempo. Interpretation of the music is always up to the performer, but these are my thoughts and a reflection of how I would approach it.
Here is everyone on page 2:
jakeypoo – beautiful performance! Great timing and laid-back feel. The only critique I have is that sometimes a few notes went sharp in some of the chords (for ex. 40 seconds in). It’s hard to see from the angle, but it’s pretty safe to say that it’s due to pulling strings down when fretting chords. Try to keep the strings parallel at all times to avoid this.
rickkhan – well done, rick! Your feel sounds great on this tune. As you’ve already pointed out, timing is the main area that you want to focus on. Take a four bar phrase and play along with a metronome or the tab player, but don’t move on until you have it perfect. Then tackle the next phrase, then piece them together. Also, try to move your thumb down, more-so towards slightly above the middle of the neck.
deadbuggy – very creative and I love the swing feel 🙂 Maybe this year I’ll take a swing at arranging, “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve”. I’ve always loved that tune!
mheiden – well done with the sustain! I have one suggestion for you on strum attack:
laurasil – fantastic performance! I have no critiques, you knocked that one out of the park 🙂
ukuleleluke – here is a short video with some feedback for you.
@miztaken we play Thur @ 1pm and Fri @ 11am. We’re planning to shoot a vlog, so yes there will be snippets of the performances!
We’re happy to try the linked names for December 🙂
Rickey, the course was much more work than anticipated, plus I’m preparing for our performance at NAMM. So Feedback was put on the back burner last month.
@sprintingyogini oh that was one of the first ones I wrote for the site. I remember writing it, was a lot of fun!
lisadmh – Feedback for Lisa.
The above is the best idea I have. What do you guys think?
Good idea, Rickey! Lately, we’ve been publishing folks that are all contained on one page. This way, you can open up a new tab, with just that pages performances on it.
There isn’t much functionality that can be done for this forum, besides re-pasting the performance with the feedback. But, that may become a bit cumbersome.
Thanks for the feedback everyone! I want to touch on a couple things. Stephen and I have actually talked about doing “Dueling Banjos”. We definitely want to do it, we just haven’t gotten to it yet, but it definitely will happen. Seeing as there’s an interest, I’ll make it more of a priority.
Speaking of requests, I forgot to add this in the main post, but I’d like to start letting you guys vote on which songs we arrange. The request list is beyond huge, and in the past I’ve picked songs that have been requested multiple times. But it’s ballooned past this, so voting on a song seems like a lot of fun and a logical way to make more folks happy.
I’m not sure on the frequency of the voting, but I’ll see if we can get something started for this around Spring. Most likely, it will be themed (for ex: movie themes) and you guys vote on 4 choices.
Back to banjos, that’s an instrument that requires specific technique. Stephen has more rhythm technique that is translatable to that instrument, so I’ll see that the next one he does for us can feature some of this. 🙂
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Baritone – this is something I will not be tackling this year. There just was not enough demand when I surveyed folks in Dec ’17 (link above). I do want to add lessons for it at some point, but we will be at least a year or two out from that.
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Roy Smeck – I was working on bringing in someone that plays this style. Things didn’t work out, but I’ll see what I can do. I love this playing style, but I’d love to bring in someone that can do it (and teach it) authentically.
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Another course idea: Teach the subtleties of playing, things like: how or when notes/chords are meant to be articulated (for example, with staccato [detached, short notes] or accents [notes played boldly]), or if dynamics (degrees of volume) are to be used. In other words, teaching how to put “feeling” and expression into your playing.
I think this would make for a really interesting course 🙂
WE DID IT! WE RAISED $1,841.47 for The Ukulele Kids Club! Thanks to everyone who participated (over 85 members!) and donated in our December Challenge.
Together, WE GAVE the gift of music to children in need.
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We’re going to start leaving feedback for everyone today. With so many posts, we’ll be leaving feedback for just your first performance, if you posted more than once.
I wish everyone a Happy New Year and hope to see you in our January challenge: https://rockclass101.com/january-2019-challenge