Forum Replies Created
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Hi Lisa, I wrote a single string mute since I usually come up with my strum attack and use the nail of my thumb to hit only the first string muted. Although it is totally fine to come up and strum more than one string muted.
Here is a video to help you with the second question:
That’s awesome Kay! Really looking forward to watching your performances 🙂
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Wow Jake! That was excellent, I can hear some big improvement in your playing! You must be practicing a lot, keep it up! Now I do have a suggestion for this song. The clarity of the notes and your timing is great, so what I would work on is continually increasing the tempo. Gradually do this, or in other words incrementally increase the tempo by 5 or 10 bpm. This will challenge you and help you to develop speed.
Wow! We had 45 site members participate in our 8th challenge for the month of October! I am blown away and extremely humbled. Great job to everyone who participated!
So without further delay, the winner for this month’s challenge is: *drum-roll*
Congrats! I’ll be sending you an email soon 🙂 Also below, I have left feedback for everyone who submitted on the last day.
Our new challenge for November is live! Click here to check it out: https://rockclass101.com/november-2017-challenge
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Margo, excellent playing! What ukulele is that? It looks cool, reminds me of the guitar in the first Bill and Ted movie.
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Brenda, awesome! Timing on the 16th notes sounds great, what I would work on is getting the transitions down. For example, when the chord hits come in after the 16th note picking. You want to work on smoothly transitioning from that section, to the chords, and back. Overall, you’re on the right track, keep up the good work 🙂
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klapaucjusz, great job! I can tell you put a lot of work into it 🙂 I do have a suggestion for you. What I would work on is evening out the overall feel. I think if you played with a little bit of a lighter touch, you would produce a softer and sweeter tone. This would also help to differentiate the sound better when you want to accent parts (dynamics). Give that a shot and let me know what you think.
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Kay, that was great! If you can do that well in 3 hours, imagine where you would be in 6 or 9. One thing I noticed: your seating position really curves your left hand wrist inward, which creates bad form. Just a heads up if you ever sit like that for practicing, although I’ve never seen that in any of your other videos.
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yoavlan, that was excellent! Keep rocking 🙂
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Lucinda, congrats on the new uke! It looks and sounds awesome 🙂 your performance was great. You have a wonderful feel and tone in your playing. You are right on about tightening up some of the transitions, but it really shouldn’t be too much work with how well you’re doing. After that, I would suggest to push yourself a little bit to see if you can increase the tempo a bit. Really great job, I enjoyed watching your performance!
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Cindy, excellent performance! Great timing and feel in your playing 🙂 hope you are still enjoying the Kala!
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Alain, fantastic playing as always! I do have one suggestion for you, the only section I would touch up is the rhythm for the strumming part. Other than that, you rocked it my friend 🙂
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Lisa, wow you’ve got some speed! Great job on The Addams Family 🙂 and the other song was wonderful too! I’d only suggest a couple of things to work on for the latter tune: Double check the rhythm in bar 17 and try not to pull down the chords (specifically the third string) in the last section of the song. You’re really doing a great job, keep it up!
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Will, great playing! The timing on the first Melody is spot-on! So if I were you, I would work on the second Melody and tightening up the timing of that section. A great way to approach practicing is by looping one bar at a time, instead of playing through all four bars. I’d recommend to use the on-screen tab viewer to practice looping bars. Check out this post, for some more tips.
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dinosanos, loved it! I really dig the hammer-on technique you used, sounds great! Keep up the good work!
Great question! I’d actually recommend to practice both, but feel free to use the way that is most comfortable and efficient for you. If you haven’t yet, check out our Fingerpicking Course as it is written to help you understand which fingerpicking approach is best to use dependent on the content of the material you are playing.
peropata, amazing job for your first song! Bravo 🙂 My only suggestion for you, is to play along with the metronome to smooth out the timing, as you sped up quite a bit in the vocal section. I gave Deb a few tips on this in this post, they will be helpful for you too.
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Sheryl, wonderfully played! It’s hard for me to tell from the video, but the single note picking looks like you were plucking with a lot of force. Would you say that you do? If so, try to lighten up the pick attack and see if it helps you play that phrase quicker and easier. Let me know. The second singing verse, you aced that, it was awesome! Keep up the good work!
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amelia, great job! What I would work on if I were you is getting the form down, specifically speaking about the singing section. You jumped back and forth between different parts. The best way to memorize a piece is to practice one bar at a time, then to tackle the second bar, then to practice bar one to two. The singing section is only four bars in length, so you can approach practicing the second half the same way and then practice all four bars together. Keep rocking 🙂
Helpful tip: Don’t forget to tune up before you play.
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Cory! Your daughter Phoebe is adorable. Loved the duet 🙂 and hey, welcome back! I thought your performance was wonderful, timing is spot-on, but I expect that from you 🙂 I think the only thing I would work on if I was you is cleaning up some of your playing. So if it’s a chord that’s not completely ringing out or a single note, go back and Target those areas. Slow it down, loop it, and focus on the clarity of each note. Once you get a hang of it, start to gradually speed it back up to tempo.
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cyberloh, great job! One suggestion: the licks between the snaps are eighth note triplets, but you played them as swung eighth notes. So I’d go back and work on playing the correct rhythm for those parts. Great job overall!
This video will help you understand that rhythmic section:
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Dave, congrats on performing the entire piece! Yes, it is a lot of work but it’s very rewarding and you should feel proud, because you did a great job! As you’ve noticed working on this song, one of the hardest things is to piece it all together. So what I would work on if I was you, is the transitions. For example, when the chord hits come in after the 16th note picking. You want to work on smoothly transitioning from that section, to the chords, and back. Overall I thought you did wonderful, keep rocking!
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Rickey, that was awesome! So excited to hear someone sing the song, keep rocking! And hey, you made tremendous improvement on the G chord, great job!
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tinkeh, great right hand picking technique! Or should I say left, you’re not alone anymore Cory, we’ve got another Lefty 🙂 I don’t think you messed up a lot at all, but I do have a few tips for you. The strum at 16 seconds in threw your timing off. When we’re quickly jumping between strumming and fingerpicking, we want to exercise the least amount of hand movement. So if you watch your performance, you’ll noticed that your picking hand lifts up, gets out of picking position, strums, then revert back to picking position. This takes a lot of time and makes it hard to stay in time. If you watch how I play that section, notice how I have very little movement and keep in picking position (video below). So focus on that for now and let me know how it goes 🙂
Hi Lisa, I’m glad you enjoy this song 🙂 to answer your question, I’d recommend to ignore string 4 and pluck strings 1-3 only. As far as moving my left hand up the neck, it’s for a dynamic accent. I wouldn’t worry too much about copying this.
Hi illumi, this is actually a question I get asked every week: “where do I start and what do I work on?”. To answer those questions, I have created Learning Paths: A step-by-step guide that teaches you how to create a structured plan that takes you from the beginner to advanced level. Having a plan is vital to your success in learning ukulele and Learning Paths is all about teaching you how to create that plan.
Take a look at it and let me know if you have any questions 🙂
Vida, to clarify its only a few of the bass notes that are being cut short and not lasting the entire length of the bar(s). The melody sounds fine. I’m not familiar with those strings, but if Mike says they are easier to fret with then I would give them a shot.
That was awesome Ambre! I can definitely tell you put a lot of work into this, great job 🙂 My only suggestion for you is to go back and work on the last melody. I would approach practicing it by slowing it down and honing in on the timing to get it to flow a bit steadier. Also, the rhythm of the outro is: 1 2& 3.
I really enjoyed your performance, that was fun to watch!
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Excellent playing ser_ser! Great use of dynamics on that last buildup section. Keep up the good work!
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Deb, wow! If there is an award for most improved, then you definitely won! I’d highly encourage everyone to go back in this post and watch all of Deb’s performances. It’s a testament to how hard work and practice pays off.
To answer your question, our nerves can get the best of us when we put a camera in front of us, or playing in front of people. The best advise I can offer you is: The more you do it, the easier it gets. Also, being prepared can exponentially ease nerves. If you’re ready to perform the piece, then there’s nothing to worry about. The bottom line when performing is that people want to be entertained and have a good time. Trust me, they’re not sitting there saying I hope she messes up, lol.
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Vida, awesome job on The Addams Family theme! Great feel and timing 🙂 It sounds really cool on that uke too.
It’s great to hear the halloween theme come together. I think you did well on it! Couple suggestions: First, I would focus on holding down the chords so that they sustain over the melody. Now I remember us talking about the action of your ukulele, and that you find it difficult keep pressure down on some chords. Did you ever get it looked at?
The other thing I would work on is the rhythm for the strumming section. I would use the on-screen tab viewer to work on this. Put it in “synthetic” mode and turn the metronome on. Slow it down to whatever speed you need and loop one bar at a time. Try to get the rhythm stuck in your head too. If you can sing it, you can play 🙂
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kduran, excellent job for being new to ukulele! I enjoyed your performance 🙂 Give Mike @ Uke Republic a call or email. He’d be able to suggest a great ukulele based off what you are looking for and/or interested in. Tell him I sent ya!
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Happy to help Linh 🙂 try to be conscious of your thumb positioning these next few weeks and see what difference it has on your playing. I think it’s going to make things easier for you.
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Lisa, it doesn’t sound out of tune to me. Actually, if you’re happy with it then it should be fine. But, it may be worth your time to play one with lower action so you can compare how it plays to yours.
I’m glad you enjoy the arrangements Niccolo! I’d be happy to add that song to my request list. I’m a huge fan of his as well, which is why I had to do Sultans of Swing 🙂 maybe next year, I’ll do another one, there are so many great songs from him and his band!
Way to go Lisa! That was really really good 🙂 If memory serves me right, you recently bought that uke correct? Where did you buy it from? It looks like the action (string height) is pretty high, is that something you noticed?
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Samuel, I dig the variations you threw in there, very cool! My only suggestion for you, is to watch the timing at the beginning as you boosted the tempo quite a bit for the first melody, but then the rest of the song kept at a solid pace.
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Great job annemarie! I love this theme song, so 80’s, a decade I can’t seem to leave, lol. I have a couple tips for you. First, the intro strum, try to push it a little bit faster. It will help to build the dynamic feel of a powerful intro. Second, some of the chord changes are tricky in this tune. So I would focus on looping those sections and working on the transitions. Practice going from one phrase to the next. This article has some great tips on how to focus on the tricky sections.
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Linh, that was awesome! Don’t be too hard on yourself, because you’re already playing very well! I have a question for you. Are you double-jointed? It looks like your thumb on the back of the neck is curved in. It’s always best to try to keep your thumb straight, as seen in this picture below. Let me know about your thumb, perhaps I’m just seeing things in the video 🙂
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fedindark, you’ve got a great foundation for this song! Tell me about how you’ve been practicing? Are you following the three steps? If I were you, I would work on mastering one melody before working on the next. Then, I would work on playing the first to the second melody perfectly. You can keep up this practicing approach throughout the rest of the tune.
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giulianah, I loved it! You’ve got a lot of talent! Your timing and your feel sounds great. You said you practiced a lot, and it shows. I wish I was that good at 11 🙂 keep rocking!
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charlene, wonderfully played! And you nailed that outro! My only suggestion for you, is to play along with the metronome a little bit to smooth out the timing. I gave Deb a few tips on this in this post.
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Josh, great job! I’m a big fan of listening to your performance, reviewing it, and going back and practicing the areas that need to be touched up. That’s a great approach for practicing. I think the only area that you need to touch up on it is the outro. Other than that, I would recommend to cut the nails of your left hand fingers. It will make fretting notes much easier and you’ll be able to get on the fingertips better. Keep up the good work!