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puppylovesuke – Excellent job and thank you so much for the kind words! You played it brilliantly with great feel and timing.
Only one thing to point out. Double check the notation in Theme 2. Sounds like a few of the bass notes in the walk-up bars are incorrect.
As for your question, Andrea’s advice is spot on. You’ll want to get a non-steel (a.k.a non-wound) string to avoid that sound.
zongozongo – Absolutely beautiful take, Nicolas. You nailed the relaxed feel which makes the melody shine. Well done! It was an honor to share it in our email newsletter last week 🙂
june2020 – Great job this month, June! So question, did you play along with the tab player in synthetic mode? Or with Matt? Because Matt’s performance uses rubato here and there. Which really lets the piece breathe as opposed to keeping a steady tempo and staying on the beat.
My suggestion for you is to slow the tempo down, but add a bit of rubato for a tasteful effect. For ex, try holding some of the dotted quarter or half note hits longer to build tension.
shmu88 – Excellent performance! I’m going to share this in our newsletter this week 🙂
brettboy – Excellent playing as always, Brett! And thank you so much for the kind words. I really appreciate it 🙂
LOL @ the duet at the end haha
ajk101 – Beautifully played, Allen! You nailed the pace, feel and vibe. Keep up the excellent work 🙂
katazumiri – Well played and super cool to hear it as a duet 🙂
clempek – I thought it sounded great! As for your comment about giving the thumb section a more melodious sound. Try experimenting with softer, lighter attacks. Check out this video where I talk about this in more detail. While the video uses fingerpicking as its example, the same concept can be applied for thumb strums.
Hi Marie, yes there is. I forgot to make it viewable. Please try the page now. You should be able to watch it and thank you for letting me know 🙂
@deadbuggy – I agree with @evapaju, beautifully played! My only critique is that the dynamic effect of soft playing is cool but it was a bit hard to hear some of the passages in the tail end of the B melody.
@asarkarx – I moved your post to our request list. This is the best place to add requests as we go through this list and choose songs from it for our vote offs (such as this recent one) 🙂
We had 43 members participate this month! Stephen and I were blown away by everyone’s performances! Great job everyone! 🙂
This month’s prize is 2 hour long Skype lessons, one taught by Stephen and the other by me. So without further ado, the winners are:
Our March Challenge is LIVE: https://rockclass101.com/march-2022-challenge. We’ve got a FUN Theme for this month and YOU get to pick the PRIZE! Hope to see everyone in the challenge!
@joe150 – Sounds great, Joe! I would suggest to keep practicing with the tab player. 50% speed is okay to do. Work on 4 bars at a time and boost tempo gradually. You’re making great progress, keep up the good work!
Here’s the rest of the feedback we haven’t gone to yet 🙂
seoulkim – Here’s my feedback for you and the video I referenced.
mac1984 – Great job on the timing, feel and rhythms! Well done 🙂
mademoiselleannette – Here’s my feedback for you 🙂
lhamilton – Lovely playing, Linda!
puppylovesuke – That was a beautiful performance, David! I’d even say it’s the best performance I’ve heard from you to date. Well done!!
@joe150 – Says your video is private. Can you change it to public?mkstewart67 – Beautifully played, I enjoyed watching your performance 🙂
Well this is the first time that we had a tie between 3 songs (Crazy, Pure Imagination, and City of Stars)! BUT @misterbones just broke the tie! Crazy is our winner.
Thanks everyone for voting!!
Here’s everyone who did “Crossing Hemispheres” on page 3.
mark1256 – Bravo, Mark! This is the best performance I’ve seen from you to date. All four techniques were excellently performed. And your feel and tempo where fantastic too. Well done, I was really impressed 👏 👏
lisamcc – Your speed is impressive! But I think if you slow down a little bit you can work on some of the intricacies. For example, the main melody was more of an interpretation than a note for note playback. Also, try to keep the same tempo throughout or if you’re going to speed up, maintain that faster tempo throughout the rest of the piece.
brettboy – I like the hesitation effect that you added the first time through the progression vamp. Such a cool idea! As always, great feel and great performance Brett!
gi_gi_ – Way to go, Gi Gi! Excellent take overall. So to my ear, it sounds like you’re playing at your max speed. I’d slow it down a touch because I think you’ll be able to play with a little bit more fluidity. Also, the last two techniques were played at a slower tempo. Try to keep the tempo steady throughout all four techniques.
smokealot – Excellent take overall, Ulli! Only thing I want to hear is a bit more of that sweep strum attack. The key for that technique is finger independence in your strum attack (i.e. flicking the pinky followed by ring, middle, index).
evapaju – Bravo Eva! It shows that you’ve gone through the course 🙂
The main melody and each technique sounds wonderful. The only technique that I would work more on is the sweep strum. If you watch Matt’s right hand during the Crossing Hemispheres performance, and you slow it down to 50% speed, you’ll see that he maintains an independent attack in each digit (finger). When I watch your performance, your attack is more of an accented strum because you aren’t deploying each finger independent of each other.
So I’d revisit that lesson. I remember Matt talking about starting super slow to develop finger independence in each “flick” attack.
lhamilton – Well done, Linda! My only suggestion is to try to hit the G string a little bit lighter. We want that note to add depth and color to the harmony and melody by being layered in the background.
wongbrown – Well done, Sheila! I’d offer the same advice I left above for @evapaju. Other than that, continue working on it to keep the tempo steady throughout all four techniques.
Here’s everyone who did “Crossing Hemispheres” on page 4 (so far).
concan – Excellent take! I’d offer the same advice I left above for @smokealot. Other than that, continue working on bringing the last two techniques on par with the tempo of the previous two plus main melody.
biancak – Wonderfully played, Bianca! Each technique and the main melody sounds great! Only thing I’d say is to practice along with a metronome. I want to hear the tempo kept a little more even throughout the entire piece. Practice at a slower tempo than what you did here, because this sounds like your max speed.
andrewvh – Great job, Andrew! So the first time through the main melody you played at a slower tempo than the second time. But you maintained that faster tempo throughout the rest of the piece, which was super impressive! Anyways, the point I want to make is to try to start and end at the same tempo. One tip that always works for me is to tap my foot for a couple measures before I began playing so that I can feel the beat that I want to play at.
Other than that, each technique sounded great! The only one I’d work on is the sweep strum. Check out the advice I left about for @evapaju.
But again, great job this month! Keep up the good work 🙂
Here’s everyone on page 2 I haven’t gotten to you yet.
maryjanew – Excellent job on the timing, MJ! For the ending lick, the first single note falls on the & of 1. Try playing along with the tab player in “synthetic mode” to help get that rhythm tight. It’s tricky because the lick is fast at that tempo that you’re playing at.
ccwuke – Playing sounded great, Chris! Only thing I’d say is to play along with a metronome to help strengthen your timing. This is a really tough tune because it has a lot of syncopation.
misterbones – I thought that was a really unique take on both Matt’s tune and the ghost note strum. Matt’s got more of a constant strumming motion to his right hand technique, but the way that you played the chords with a flick of the index and the thumb stationary on the G gave the latter a more prominent role in the overall sound. I liked it a lot, it’s like you took it and made it your own 🙂
ukandrea – Andrea, placing the uke in between the legs like a classical guitarist seems to be a difficult position to hold and play in. I’ll include a short video below which detail 3 steps on how I hold the instrument.
As far as your playing, listen to the section that you did starting at 1 minute. Notice your right hand has more motion when strumming. If you compare that to the opening of the song, you’ll see that you’re much more stationary. The former it gives it a more natural and fuller sound. So I’d copy that approach for the first part of the song.
Overall it was great! Keep up the excellent work 🙂
@misterbones is correct! It’s easier to see the harmony when looked at as a lead sheet, like in the “Ode To Joy” lesson from our reading course.
So Toni was asking about bar 5 and 6 from the excerpt of OTJ from this lesson.
Which correlates to bar 1 and 2. Traditionally, this 2nd bar’s harmony is over a C chord. So I went ahead and updated/simplified our chord melody version of “Ode To Joy” to reflect this. I’d call it C6 for 2XX3 in bar 2.
As to your second question, Toni. Chord shapes can look like shapes we recognize, but their function can be different depending on the key and progression of the piece. I’d recommend jumping into the introductory theory lessons here as it’s a great starting place for studying harmony.