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@mark1256, thank you so much!! 😁
@jbmills07, that is absolutely gorgeous! You can tell how beautifully made it is, so shiny and that dark, rich wood grain is so beautiful. And obvs, the sound… So lovely. And you got chocolates with it, flippin’ score! 😅
Congrats again!! 😁
@mark1256, that was really magical! An amazing parody. Such a spirited performance, as well. 😅😊
@janaq1, thank you very much!! 😁 I really appreciate your kind words. I have maybe too many hobbies and interests, but playing uke has become one of my favorites. It’s always so fun to find a new way to create. 😊
I remember you posted one of your original uke songs here a while ago and it was really, really good. I may want to go give that another listen. 😅
@dianna, hahaha, thank you so much, friend!! 😅💕 That really means a lot. I hope that I can keep adding more depth and complexity to these arrangements and songs, but really it’s just for the fun and ridiculousness of it. 😅 That definitely isn’t the strangest thing I’ve written. 😅😂😅🐸
@gi_gi_, hahaha!!! I’m so happy you found it funny! 😅 I can’t tell you how much fun I have writing dumb, nonsensical things like that. 😂😂😂😅😅😅 That’s one of my favorite things to do. That’s why I like writing ridiculous posts for the live lessons and things, as well, while also trying not to be too disruptive, 😅 because Matt and Andrew are such a great teachers with a lot of great material to share.
@ldarrow, that’s so beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing that; I really love how you describe that, very lovely phrasing, and it’s so nice that this song caused you to imagine those things. I almost like that more than my silly story. 😅 I love that about music, too; just how it draws emotions and images out of different people in different ways. For me, when I play something like Beethoven’s music or any song I find beautiful, I think about the person who created it and their experiences, or I get swept up in imagining what the person playing it feels when they play it. With Beethoven, I think sometimes about the struggles he had with losing his hearing, as a brilliant composer, and the cruel injustice of that and the devastation he must have felt, but from that, he still created such overwhelmingly beautiful things; in my eyes, the music expresses that conflict, the mixture of sorrow, joy, and beauty that life brings us all. Also, frogs. 😂@gi_gi_, Thank you so much, my friend!! I may want to make another video like this one with a different tune. 😁💕
@gi_gi_, thank you so much, my friend! I really appreciate that so much!! 😁💕
The first half of the song is an original tune I came up with, and the second half is the arrangement of Pathetique I figured out, played slightly differently–all blended together. I may still add to this.
Here is the story. It exists because the title I thought of was, “That Time Beethoven Turnt Into A Frog, Then Turnt Back Into A Human, But Not All The Way”. 😂 Then it popped into my head that that is a story that should exist and kind of describes what the song is. 😂😅
Here is the story:
Way back in the day, back in 1876, around the time that Beethoven lived (because I guess this had to take place in a year he was alive to involve him), during his happier days (well, maybe his only happy day, poor guy), anyway, sorry about this sentence, one day he was taking a nice, pleasant stroll in the park when all of sudds a scraggly, wizened little man jumped out of the bushes in front of him, cutting him off.
“Dazs Häagen?” Beethoven said in German.
“Sir, would you like to buy a watch?” Said the apparent park imp.
“A watch? What’s that? Those don’t exist yet, because it’s the year 1876, a year I’m definitely alive during,” Beethoven replied with historical accuracy.
“Oh never mind! Let’s skip the pretence and flimflamery!” The little dirty man flapped his hands magically, then a cloud of green smoke erupted out of his palms into Beethoven’s sternum, causing him to fall backwards onto his tookus.
“Ah!” Shouted Beethoven, spooked.
Before old Beets knew it, his skin began to turn a bright lime green and he began to shrink, for in that moment, the disgusting, smelly, covert wizard had turnt him into a frog!
“Buuuuuurup,” cried Beethoven.
The park wizard cackled, then twirlt away in a cloud of magical purple smoke into another dimension.
“Please, sir! Come back! I didn’t choose this!” Beets objected in Frog.
Many years flew by. At first, ol’ Beets struggled emotionally with being a frog, but after a while he kind of got used to it. Then, he got so he depended on it. He was kind of scared to be a human again. He continued to compose Sonatas and such, writing the music on lily pads and playing them on a makeshift piano composed of reeds, but the music was a little different somehow, slightly off.
One day when he was chewing on part of a fly, Beethoppin’ felt something strange, like a weird tingle in his spongy feet. Then, he noticed a faint line of lime green smoke coming out of each of his toes.
“Yes?” Beets said literally for no reason, other than startled confusion.
Before our friendly neighborhood Beets knew it, the smoke spread to his entire frog person and he began to grow, his arms, legs, and bod. Until he was human-sized again, but something was a little off, still. Though human-sized again with his pre-frogian hair and countenance, his legs and arms still were shaped like a frog’s. Also, he was completely naked, as frogs technically are.
“Enh, oh well. I have to go fix these weird Sonatas I wrote as a frog, they’re not very good.”
…
This was the song he wrote during this experience. Turns out, he salvaged part of it, the second half, and turnt it into what is known at Sonata No. 8.
I found the sheet music for this pressed between the pages of an antique copy of Gulliver’s Travels, which was written during the time Beethoven lived.
Thanks for listening and reading this crazy, true, and accurate story!
@brettboy, your submissions are always perfectly played and so funny / entertaining to watch! You also have the essence of the actor Stephen Merchant, if you know who that is. So great! 😅
This will be a fun topic, can’t wait! I have guesses for what Matt’s picks will be. 😅
One song I feel everyone should know on uke is Bach’s Celler Preds (Cello Prelude) No. 1. Just one example of how lovely classical (baroque?) music sounds on uke.
Also, “I Want It That-a Way” by the Backstreet Boys. True poetry, from The Golden Era of music: 1995 – 2005.
@dianna, yay, I’m so happy that you took something away from this and that you enjoy these more candid videos!! 😁😂 That’s why I thought it would be helpful to film it because I don’t always fully realize how I’m arriving at certain results, because my technical knowledge is still a work in progress (hence I almost forgot what the brush stroke was called in the video 😂). I feel less nervous if I can be freer in my playing, allowing for mistakes, and without too much of a set plan.
You’re exactly right that the idea is to start with a very simple melody, or chord melody arrangement, then experiment, by trial and error, using the clawhammer pattern “over” the arrangement. It doesn’t always work, or might take many different approaches to get the song sounding right. And again sometimes it just doesn’t work at all (like with Matt’s Moonlight Sonata arrangement, for instance). 😅😂 Etude No. 5 may not have been the best example because it’s more complicated, like you pointed out, but it was the first one that popped into my head that I haven’t already tried to clawhammer. 😂
It might be fun to do the same thing with Drunken Sailor, make a video explaining how I created that clawhammered version. Honestly it’s just as helpful for me to make these videos because it helps me try to process what I’m doing when I’m not thinking about it, which is pretty much always. 😅😂
But it seems like you also enjoy the idea of trying to play more by feel and in a more experimental way, which is how I love to play music as well.
Anyway, thank you so much for inspiring this video, it was really fun to make! 😁💕
@dianna, hahaha, those puns, you can’t escape them! 😂 By the way, I posted a video showing how I turn a tune into clawhammer in the “uke talk” forum if you want to see it. 😅
@ldarrow, that’s a really good strategy, especially with the logic of having another week to incorporate the feedback before the next challenge starts. Clever, indeed. I also try not to wait until the last minute because of the recording anxiety, but I like your logic. Thank you! I love the melody of S(tr)ummer Nights a lot. You have fun with Summertime Swing, that one is also very lovely! 😊@ldarrow, I am the exact same way, much, much prefer fingerpicking over strumming and have therefore successfully avoided progressing much at all with strumming, even though that was one of my goals the beginning of the year. But after learning the three strumming parts for Matt’s Drunken Sailor at an excruciatingly slow tempo, I do think I can strum better than a capuchin monkey, which was technically my goal. 😅
But you’re right, that’s a really good idea to go through that course. Thank you for that! Maybe that will be my goal this month, along with learning Strummer Nights. 😉😅
Side note, your performance of Cielito Lindo last month was lovely! 😊
NGL, that little blue uke is pretty cute! For some reason the texture of the light blue with the wood grain is giving me Van Gogh vibes, but it’s great. 😅
And I love the “mini” challenges! I already started working on Summer Nights and tried to find a way to escape the strumming aspect of it, but it seems like it’s necessary for the song to sound right. It is a pretty tune. Most of the “modifications” I’ve ever made to songs were to escape Matt’s strummin’ because it’s so tricky if you haven’t done it a lot, but I’m pushing through this time, man. 😂😭
@nelsonlin2021, awww, wow, thanks so much for that! That’s so nice of you to say. That seriously means a lot. I feel like I learn just as much from the interactions here, and have been so encouraged. So, I’m very glad it’s helpful for you, too. 😊
