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Sure do! Understanding rhythmic notation is vital to playing in time. So, I would start with that lesson. Furthermore, you can set all of our on-screen tab viewers to “synthetic” mode. In this mode, you can activate the metronome and play along with the tab player, which in-turn acts as a guide. To do this, refer to the second video on this page and jump 6 minutes into it.
Start with an easy rhythmic song, such as: Our First Song. Count the rhythm out loud as you play the song.
Keep me in the loop with how you are doing 🙂
Big thanks to everyone who asked Taimane a question! We’ll be releasing the Q&A video and revealing the signed ukulele + CD winner this Friday, November 17th. Stay tuned!
Wow classicuke, that was fantastic! You have a great feel to your playing! Notes are clean and timing is great, keep up the good work!
They are much better if you are sitting down to play. The straight ones are really uncomfortable unless you are only standing up to play.
Hi Cyberloh, Roland makes great amps. I own a Roland and used it for vocals/playing backing tracks at gigs. But, I have a recommendation for you. I also own the Fishman Loudbox mini. This is a fantastic acoustic and vocal amp. It’s kind of like the gold standard: It’s affordable and highly popular. I’d recommend this for you.
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 🙂