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@morrieuke1, that sounded really good! Really cool, kind of mystical sound to that! Lovely! 😊
@maryjanew, that’s sounding so lovely so far! I think it’s really interesting to see how other people practice. I actually find that rather fascinating. 😅 Also I loooooove that song so much, that arr by Steven is so gorgeous, one of my fav RC101 arr’s. I also really love Matt’s arrangement of that song. Really lovely work so far! 😊Okay, since I have a moment to breathe after a crazy couple of weeks, I thought I’d post an update on the original tune I’m trying to create.
I had two melodies that both had a major and minor version, but I ended up using the minor part of one melody and the major part of the other melody. Then at the end I play the minor melody again with the clawhammer technique – I was trying to do what James Hill called “melodic clawhammer,” if I understand what he was trying to do, because I just watched a video of him playing with it, not teaching it. I just observed what he did. But it’s something I’m very interested in doing with clawhammer, using the technique to play more kind of classical-sounding songs, less clawhammery songs, using the clawhammer pattern. I do like how it sounds but I think I’m still not creating a refined enough sound with the thumb, it’s still very bum-ditty-y sounding. So the rest of the month when I can practice I will focus on that and smoothing out my mistakes. Sadly there are a bunch in the major section especially.
I took this video at the “winter adventure” house that I retreated to when my house lost power days ago. It’s back on now, thank goodness. 😂
One last thing, I can say that the song is pretty much completed at this point, I just hafta smooth it out. So hopefully if I can’t film again this video will count as an entry. If not, we’ll see I guess. Thank you for reading and listening! 😊
@wannabgood, haha, no worries about that! 😂 I really appreciate you mentioning it. Even though I’ve lived in Wisconsin a long time, I’ve been lucky to not be without power for multiple days like that. It was sort of a major incident with the number of people without power – over the course of a few days, around 100,000 people lost power in the dangerously low temps, after the foot of snow from the blizzard. Sadly we were some of the last to get power back, but it’s getting back to normal now. Praying it will stay there. 😂😅
… Except the shower, ha. Also, my car. “Jesus take the wheel.” 😅 Yes, thank you, hopefully that won’t be too long before that issue is sorted out! Indeed it might just be a waiting game with the dang pipes. 😅
@wannabgood, sorry, I actually explained that really poorly. 😂 The issue was that the house was without electricity for around three days in sub-freezing temps, so we shut off the water. Since last night the electricity was back on, but because parts of the house were still so cold we had to wait to turn the water back on, so indeed the pipes wouldn’t freeze and burst. But since I wrote that we actually were able to turn the water back on, so that’s really good. Some of the pipes still aren’t draining though. Like the tub isn’t draining. It may just be frozen, then thawed, shower crud so we’ll see if we can fix that. 😂🤢
You just don’t realize how easy it is to take things like light, heat, water, cell phones, stoves, all those conveniences for granted until you don’t have them.
@muzikmama, I can’t even begin to relay the insanity of the past two weeks for me. 2024 needs to slow down, big time. Maybe I jinxed it by saying “2024 is starting out pretty great.” 😅😂😥😭
Needless to say, much to my sadness, I didn’t get to try my pen tablet much before we lost power from a blizzard this last Friday/Saturday. Just got it back last night. Had to abandon my house and go to a place with heat and power and running water because the temps were well in the negative (F). I actually still don’t have running water. Hopefully that will come back today. 😅🥺😭
So that was the main issue the past few days, but there’s so, so much more that happened besides that that I shan’t get into… 😅
Anyway……….. I just need a little break, so I wanted to reply here and in the challenge thread.
So cool that you’re working on your own arrangement?! I found your description in the challenge thread quite funny for some reason, just how you described what you’re going to do, “I have no idea what I’m doing.” 😂 But it’s awesome that you’re just going for it! Can’t wait to hear it!
As far as poetry, that’s also very therapeutic and fun to do, too. I’d really like to read the poem you submitted. I’m very into poetry, reading and studying it, and on occasion trying to write it, but there are only a few I’ve written that I like.
And I’m definitely NOT going to my high school reunion. 😅😂 They may not even be able to make any arrangements for it again (as with the 5, 10, and 15). High school was not the best experience for me, anyway, and all the people I want to know from high school I already interact with, so that’s a nope. 😂
Blending stumps, paper stumps, can be good but they have their drawbacks. They can burnish the paper, which means they wear the paper down so it’s so smooth and shiny that you can’t add more pencil to it. Never tried it with pastels though you’ll have to let me know how that goes!
Sorry for writing this novel, apparently I needed to get some of that out of my system. During my adventure to someone’s house, I did manage to do a little drawing with my sister there. I’ll attach that. It isn’t uke related, but I might draw her holding a uke later so just imagine that. 😅
@Andrew, thank you so much! It always means so much when you give your stamp of approval to things and if you like it. 😊😅
I thought of a way to incorporate clawhammer into this song that I’m so excited about because it’s something I’ve wanted to try to do for a while. It may not be perfect because it’s the first instance of trying this but I’m still pretty excited about it. I just want to be part of the clawhammer crew this month. 😂
The idea came up when I stumbled across a video by James Hill playing clawhammer uke in almost the exact way I was contemplating trying to use the technique. It won’t be as epic as his but it’s still cool to try and it just happens to fit perfectly with that little ditty I tried to create.
So excited to see what everyone does this month!! 😊
Okay, so this is the last update I will share until the end of the month, but I was pretty pleased with my progress so far, even though it isn’t perfect. 🙂
I think I have two main sort of “themes” or melodies for this original song. The first melody (that starts out the song) is only in minor and the second melody has a major and minor part, then it returns to the minor melody that began the song. The minor parts did stick with G minor, C minor, and D7 – The major is G major, C major, and D major. (Although, maybe there’s some overlap because some of the minor/major chords were the same when I added the melody? I will really try to tab this out as part of this challenge, in part to illustrate what I mean, lol.) It all is pretty simple, but I am relatively happy with what I managed to do within that “framework” and also within about a week. I somewhat merged the melodies together, though there still needs to be a lot of smoothing out in many places. There are a lot of pauses.
Also, I didn’t want to be on camera, which led to a tangent of me basically making a slideshow of my pictures that I’ve taken over the years (that I downloaded from Facebook cover photos, lol) to fill in the blank space — but it was useful because I want to create a similar video format for other projects, so it was good practice for that, trying to get the timing right with the musical changes, and I also tried to choose the pictures to suit the mood of the song kinda.
Anyway, there you have it! Thank you to Andrew for this challenge and for listening! 🙂 Again, I wouldn’t say it’s done, hopefully I can smooth some things out. 🙂
@muzikmama, thank you so much for your kind words about my high school drawings! Not gonna lie, looking through those was so nostalgic and strange, a bit emotional, because this year is actually my 20 year high school reunion! That’s kind of “aging me,” big time, but oh well. 😂 I am old, so what? 😂😅 I’d like to think I still have a youthful spirit and energy about me (sometimes in a bad way). 😅 But anyway, I was reminiscing so much looking through those drawings, I also found a journal from an art class I took in high school and looked through that, and it’s really inspiring me to get back into drawing, too–Even though I never fully stopped despite life’s obstacles. I think drawing with the mousepad on a laptop is ironically easiest for me because that’s what I’m most used to using. With the pen tablet, I can see it’s a bit of a learning curve. I may have to adjust the settings because certain aspects of it are weird, like the pen moves before you’ve even touched the tablet. I’ll be back with some uke drawings hopefully today because I actually have time to play with that today. 😊
Haha what were you going to submit for the challenge? Maybe you could do something not too crazy for it, but I hope you do join. Your drawing is really amazing, you have a natural skill for capturing people and getting a feel for an image, really impressive! Was that oil pastels? If so, even more impressive because those can be hard to use, especially to get detail. Haha the beauty is you can do both ukulele and drawing, I love both things equally, maybe leaning more towards uke right now honestly because of RC101 and the amazing people here, how creatively it’s inspiring me and how much fun it is, and also for me it’s incredibly therapeutic, playing uke. It helps with my anxiety and other issues. All the creative things I do have helped with that.
I think most everyday pencils you see are graphite but they are cheaply made, not as high quality as a nice set of graphite pencils. Some pencils have more fillers in them that can hinder drawing quality or scratch the paper or things like that. I’m so excited for you! 😂 I love buying art supplies and trying new things with that. Please keep sharing what you’re working on here, I love to see it! Moar uke drawings! 😁💕
2023 was a pretty amazing year overall, but 2024 is already looking pretty great. And we’re less than a week in. 😅
For me, this year will be about facing fears and making changes that are long overdue – from everyday things, to major life things, to ukulele things. Strummin’ is one of those things.
All I need to do is find where the capuchin monkeys live, find their secret island kingdom, infiltrate it, then teach them how to strum, just like Matt did. Easy peasy. Also, take the strumming courses on Rock Class 101 and Matt’s Patreon. 😅😂
@katazumiri, heck yes! I’d love to hear those tunes. That sounds interesting. Just playing it a bit, D sounds really nice instead of D7. I was even thinking I could do a “b section” that is the “major version” of those chords to mix it up anyway. What you’re working on this month also sounded intriguing! So look forward to hearing what everyone does! 😊
@Andrew, thank you! Hopefully I can keep improving it, adding to it, and make it more interesting. 😊
That song with the tapping is crazy! I want to learn that at some point, so cool. 😯
I wanted to share what I have so far of the “orig” I’m trying to create. I could barely even wait a few days to share… I amped up about this challenge, man. 😅🥺
(Sorry for how quiet it is and the weird… sounds… at the beginning. 😅)
This is sort of the “base” of the song that I’ll use to create different variations and such. There is also another potential melody I have. I’m really trying to only use the chords G minor, C minor, and D7 but it’s so hard to not stray from that.
I have tried several different things with those chords and with the melody, but this is just a small sample of a kinda done-ish maybe part. There is no guarantee that this won’t contain clawhammering. There’s a risk of it. But I have some ideas of different ways to use the clawhammer technique that hopefully will blend with what I have.
I’ll share more after working on it for more than a few days ………………. 😅😔
So exciting to see what everyone is going to work on! Especially a couple clawhammers and @gi_gi_ ‘s song, but everyone’s choices are so interesting so far. I’m just as excited to see those things unfold as working on my own thing. I’ve already started working on it, but it is………….. okay, so far. 😅😂🥺
I forgot to say, but I think I would say I’m still overall between beginner and intermediate, according to the RC101 measurement. With some things, I am way more proficient; others, still a beginner. With writing original songs, I would say I’m a seasoned beginner, maybe? I have tried to write a couple, but I just would like to get better at that. I just remembered there’s a little e-booklet that comes with Premium Membership about songwriting so I’m going to go back and reread that. 😅
Happy 2024 everyone! 😊💕🎊🥂🎇🎆🎉
Sorry to double post but I figured out what I want to do now. Obviously I’m not excited about this challenge at all… 😅
1. Execution: I think I am pretty okay at coming up with a simple arrangement of most songs now, learning most simple arrangements, as well as turning a simple arrangement into clawhammer. As much as I really want to do those things, I think it would be more challenging to come up with an original song, which I feel like I’m not as good at. So, my goal will be to come up with an original uke song using a randomly generated chord progression from this site: https://ukulelego.com/ukulele-chord-progressions/#c-g-am-f ( @lisadmh introduced me to that a while ago)
2. Application: Come up with an original song using that chord progression, working on adding to it a bit every day and practicing what I come up with. Bonus points if I can write it down. 😅
3. Evaluation: Play / record the song by the end of the month and share it here.
Hopefully I understood what to post for this first post. I also already picked a chord progression (attached). Thank you for this challenge! Also happy New Year everyone!! 😊🎇🎆🎉🎊🥂
@lhamilton, that’s so cool! Can’t wait to see what you come up with! 🙂
So exciting!! I’ll have to think for a bit about what to do. Now that it’s open ended, I am overstimulated by the possibilities, man. My brain’s going crazy, lol.
And that’s quite the prize. I already know exactly what I’d want to work on with either Andrew or Stephen if I’d win. >:)
@muzikmama, yes, it really helps to do a light sketch of the whole figure, then start adding in more shading / detail. I really think it looks good, though. Like I said, you did a great job with the form (shape) and that’s often the thing people struggle with the most. Even if you’ve been drawing for a while, it is tricky to get that perfect and you did great with it. You should try some different kinds of pencils. Some pencils are just more limited with how dark you can get the values, but something like graphite pencils or charcoal pencils, you can get those very dark without a ton of effort. So yeah, maybe try some different kinds. That’s always fun. 🙂 And I don’t know if you could still even add more pressure – Maybe try on a different sheet. You can add more pressure than you’d think to get the values darker (with some caution, lol). That’s really cool that you’re doing so well with drawing without a ton of experience. That doesn’t happen often, lol. You definitely should keep going with it and share it here so I can see it, ha. Also, I don’t know where the smilie face menu went. I’m lost without it. :S
Thank you so much for the kind words about me drawing! I’ve sort of gone through phases with the creative things I like to do, many different phases, because I love to try different creative things and I think it is a way I am able to connect with people and also try to express myself, obvs. All of them are a pretty big part of who I am. I actually have a lot of my drawings from high school; I think they’re at my parent’s house, but I don’t know if I have my childhood drawings, which, rest assured, are quite bizarre, LOL. I may have to recreate some of them because some of them were pretty hilarious. I do have a lot of the drawings I’ve done from high school, onward, and all the ones I’ve shared here span a fairly wide range of time. The most recent ones are the acrylic paintings, the strawberry, and some of the portraits. The oldest one is probably the one of Frodo Bag(gin)s.
Confession… I just bought a cheap pen tablet because I’ve wanted one for a long time and it will help with creating new “uke drawings.” The next uke-related drawing may have to exist after that arrives, because I am struggling to draw on the mousepad on the laptop I have now. But it should be here very soon. You didn’t need to know any of that, but now you do. LOL.
But for now, here are a few drawings I did in high school:
1. Gandalf, done with graphite pencil, if I remember right. Possibly charcoal pencil, too?
2. A random Australian person I used to know in high school. At one point I was doing commissioned portraits online of random people and I sold at least four of them. I don’t think this one sold, but I like it. He looks nothing like this now, as this was a long time ago (probably close to 20 years, eesh) and I’m pretty sure you couldn’t identify him based on this drawing, LOL. (Charcoal pencil)
3. Another portrait of this British girl who lived in Kuwait and she actually did buy this, or rather her parents did because we were both in high school, lol. Again, close to 20 years ago so this isn’t identifying her whatsoever, nor did I include her name, along with the accuracy of my drawing being imperfect. (Charcoal pencil)
Hopefully that wasn’t TMI, but it probably was. Thanks for the good discussion and for sharing! 🙂
