[Andrew]

Boom! I started it: https://rockclass101.com/forums/topic/the-accountability-thread/

I’m in it with you Dave 🙂

[Andrew]

Glad it was helpful ser_ser 🙂

[Andrew]

You’ve got a great handle on knowing what to do/work on. But let’s dive deeper. We can divide improving into three steps:

1) Execution – this includes everything that you listed above.

2) Application – this is where I think you need work on. This involves applying the theory and technique you are working on to your playing.

3) Evaluation – analyzing if the above steps are improving your playing and musicianship.

—-

Let’s look at some of the things that you listed:

#1 –

A) Very specific practice routines that focus on areas of weakness (picking techniques, transitions between difficult chord shapes etc)

B) Taking a song based approach and working on the sections that I struggle with.

Let’s say you are working on hammer-ons and pull-offs. If we outline a practice schedule tied to the above 3 steps, it would look something like this:

1) Execution – running exercises, licks, phrases that involve the technique.

2) Application – putting that technique to work. Find a piece of music that is heavy in the use of that technique. Our arrangement of Amazing Grace is a good example.

3) Evaluation – record yourself performing both the song and your practice exercises. Listen closely to determine if you are executing the technique properly. Make adjustments as needed.

—-

#2 –

A) Trying to work on playing by ear.

B) Playing by ear is something I’d really like to develop more. I’ve tried ear training to recognize intervals (I’m ok in isolation with these) and can usually work out riffs and licks but struggle with chords (quite a lot).

1) Execution – you are off to a great start with recognizing intervals. One of the best tools online can be found here: http://www.musictheory.net/exercises/ear-interval

Furthermore, you will want to venture off into scale and chord ear training (bottom of page): http://www.musictheory.net/exercises

I’ll give you the recommendation they gave us in college: 500 a day.

2) Application – the ears are the most important aspects of a musician. But, you also need to be able to correlate what you hear onto the fretboard. In other words, you need to not only be able to hear a minor 3rd, but also be able to play a Minor 3rd. You probably see where I’m going, venturing off onto scales: You want to be able to play them in multiple positions throughout the neck and be able to call out their formulas. Then you want to apply the intervals and/or scales to your playing.

This was the idea behind our newest course: An Introduction to Music Theory & Jamming. For example, the course has a few lessons on major and minor pentatonic. It teaches you the scales, explains the differences between the two, shows you where to play them throughout the neck, and recommends why you should use one over the other. Then it gives you a song to learn that has two solos (one major and one minor) so that you can apply the scales to a real life playing situation.

3) Evaluation – let’s look at chords for evaluation. If we look at one genre in specific: The Blues. Then we know that it only contains three chords all of which are dominant. If you have a good handle on recognizing a dominant chord you can start to apply it. Turn on any straightforward blues song and jump to a random point in the song. Call out which chord it’s on (either 1, 4, 5).

This is a great exercise for recognizing chord progressions by ear. If you can nail it with the Blues, you can move on to harder progressions.

—-

One more point we can hit on, you said:

#3 – When strumming through a progression I’d like my strumming have more embellishments that make it sound much more interesting.

Start with something simple. For example, I get a lot of questions about my accented melody note strum technique. It’s a rather simple technique to learn, but can really help to highlight a chords Melody note. Check out this lesson: https://youtu.be/-RMlp31R5PE?t=6m18s (starting at 6:18). Here I talk about this specific strum attack. And as you can see below, one of our members used it in her performance of Aura Lee. It’s such a subtle technique, but it goes a long way in adding a unique Dynamic to the performance.

—-

If you are down 🙂 let’s have some fun and give you some accountability. Take one thing that you want to work on and post a video of where you’re at today in your playing. Apply the three steps listed above to it and let’s monitor your progress. I’d be happy to help anyway I can as you work through it.

[Andrew]

Tessa, that was fantastic! I wouldn’t call you a beginner anymore 🙂

Lisa, can you post a video? I’ll be better able to help if I can see/hear what is happening.

[Andrew]

This is a great question Dave. Hitting a plateau is something that we all have felt at one or more points in our playing careers. But, I can tell you there is a way to rise above it.

So before we get into that, I have a few questions for you.

1) You said you have tried all the usual advice. What does that entail?

2) What are your goals? What do you want to be able to do? (Dig deep – let me know specifics)

3) What is your practice routine like? What do you do?

[Andrew]

Oh, in that case it would take quite a bit of rewriting to drop those sections down an octave. Which would also loose the nice “movement” sound that is produced as we jump from higher to lower and lower to higher in this arrangement.

[Andrew]

Sweet! Thanks for sharing Caitlin 🙂

[Andrew]

Hey guys, here are all the answers and feedback for ser_ser 🙂 I thought I’d release it earlier so everyone has more time to work on these songs with their question(s) answered. Let me know if you have more questions and I will be happy to answer them.

[Andrew]

That was fantastic ser_ser! Congrats on being the first one to submit a video too 🙂 I’ve got some tips for you on your vibrato. I’ll be answering all the questions in this post in a video soon and will add a section with some tips on vibrato for you in that video. Great job though, I enjoyed watching your performance!

[Andrew]

Welcome! Glad you are enjoying the lessons 🙂 I just recorded a new classical piece which will be out soon 🙂

[Andrew]

So awesome Kay! Keep up the good work 🙂

[Andrew]

Lisa, question 17 gets its own video 🙂 I’ll be working on that soon!

Save those questions Kay. I’ll make a new forum post for LR #2 in the future 🙂

[Andrew]

Hi Carrie, I’m not really sure. Sounds more like an issue with the uke. They can change strings and if the problem persists, then we def know it’s the uke.

Also guys, lets keep questions/comments related to the 25 questions from the video. We’ll def do another LR video in the future! Please post questions/comments with question # as a reference. For example:

My question is in regards to #22, etc.

[Andrew]

ellieukulele, premium membership is not required for the challenge, but premium membership will make it much easier to learn.

In a previous challenge, one of our basic members was able to learn a premium member song by watching the performance video and other member’s submissions: https://rockclass101.com/forums/topic/participate-in-the-may-2017-member-challenge-classical-ukulele-challenge/page/7/#post-11776

You will need to play our complete arrangement to qualify for the giveaway.

—-

Hi jam0h101, you can enter the challenge with a partial arrangement. I review every performance and offer helpful tips to all who enter. But, in order to qualify for the giveaway, you must perform the entire piece.

[Andrew]

Hi John, I’m not sure what you mean by that. Triplet’s were mentioned in reference to the strumming technique: triplet strum and the rhythmic value of a triplet. It has no relation to Uke Republic.

[Author]

Posts