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@jbmills07, very beautiful! Love that song. You captured the feeling well. And goofy smiles, accepted. What if you played the whole song making direct eye contact with the camera with an unwavering huge grin? That would be pretty creepy. 😂😅😂
@uku241, congratulations!! Your performance was so magical and fun, and that uke is a beaut! 😁
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@jbmills07, I guess that’s true. Even if a song is a classic, if I don’t like it, I’m probably not going to learn it. 😂😳 It just takes me a while to really learn a song, and since it’s just for fun, I want to really like it. Still, that arrangement of that song is beautiful and you played it very well. 😊
@dianna, haha, strugglicious! 😅 Sigh, so true. That third section is so dang hard. Yaaaaasssss, I saw the clawhammer option! That may be the one I do. It’s very pretty. But… what if… My Heart Will Go On were in clawhammer? 😉😂 Actually, hmmm.@jbmills07, that was perfect! Really great job with that one. That isn’t my favorite song, Margaritaville, at all, but that arrangement is very pretty. I like it more on the uke. 😅 Looking forward to hearing your new uke!!
@dianna, really lovely job with that one! I feel like many people had to slow down with those muted strings, but you can do it way faster than I can right now! 😂 Really great! And thank you! It’s good practice for me to try writing down the things I figure out since that’s really challenging for me. 😊Everyone did amazing… ly this month! Congrats to everyone on that! 😊
@leb397, thank you, friend!! I love that style of music, too, bluegrass and folk music, and it’s so much fun to play. I only just started Matt’s strumming course because he has it on his Patreon and I think the course here is slightly different maybe? But I want to take both because the second video is the first time I’ve tried his kind of strumming and yes, boy is it tricky. 😅 It’s kind of funny and ironic because part of why the clawhammer version exists is because I was scared to start the strumming, so I did that instead, lol. Your take on that song was so good, you did a great job of keeping the timing steady and with those parallel octaves, so hard to do! 😁 Indeed everyone did a great job. I also really liked @brettboy and @abster ‘s versions of it. 😊
@mark1256, ha!! It’s a pretty beautiful key though. 😅In case anyone would like to try playing the clawhammer version of Drunken Sailor, I tried to write out the tabs. I think @dianna said she might want to try it. Here ’tis:
@robinboyd, quite understandable, friend!! If you ever get a chance, maybe you could share your current version of that here. 😊
@Stephen, thank you so much! I will try all that and also try not to react to my mistakes out loud / narrate them. 😅 That kind of strummin’ is so tricky along with the muted strings and things. Thank you! So fun to read through the feedback and see everyone’s amazing entries. 😊
@gi_gi_ thaaaank you so much! 😁 I really enjoy playing songs that way, in that style. Or rather taking songs that are already well constructed and remixing them in that style. 😅 Thank you!! 😊
@lisadmh, your method sounds like so much fun! I’ll have to give that a whirl. 😁 It’s like a magical game of chance to create a song. 😅
That site, ezfolk, is run by this kindly fellow from the south of the US and he also runs a YouTube channel and that’s part of how I learned clawhammer ukulele! So, it’s crazy that you reference that. 😅
This is the first clawhammer song I learned: https://youtu.be/hV3MTcVUvb8
I never saw that chord chart though on the site; that’s a real game changer because I’ve had such trouble finding a chart that showed the chords higher up on the neck, because I literally know none of those, except for maybe two. 😂 Matt also showed me another way in a lesson how to find chords that has helped me a lot, too.
This must be the chord chart you mean: https://www.ezfolk.com/uke/chords/A_major/a_major.html
Not gonna lie, I am very sad that I missed all the challenges here that involved more creative elements like that. I absolutely love doing that, too, remixing songs and reinventing songs, like you did with Inspired Tonight (also great work with that one!) but thankfully Andrew has kindly let me do that pretty often anyway, add little (or big) twists to the challenge songs, as long as I still included the original song as well.
Anyway, thank you so much for sharing how you approach creating your songs! Those are really cool and fun ways to do that. Your excitement in describing how much fun you have doing it is contagious and now I want to try. 😅 It’s so true what you say about how creating a song can happen like magic. I don’t even fully know how I’ve created the things I have, even though they’re simple still. All the songs I arranged, and the original songs I’ve started, are mostly by ear. I feel like your ideas can help me a lot and you’ve inspired me to try to finish one I’ve been working on! Thank you so much! Looking forward to seeing more of your creations in the future! 😁
Okay… Here is where I’m at with Drunken Sailor, all three levels. Some notes:
– I only played through each level once because I’m at the point with these strummin’ techniques that I’m still playing them excruciatingly slowly. 😅
– I had such trouble using my index finger to strum; that’s so unnatural for me. In fact, there is an overlap between clawhammer style which I’m okay at playing and ghost note strumming that took my brain so long to overcome because my thumb would “catch” and stop on the g string as you do in clawhammer when I was trying to do the ghost notes. So that took a while to break free of that to be more “open” with the strumming.
– I had a lot of trouble with the strumming rhythm, too, which is why they’re so slow. It took close to 100% of my conscious effort to do “all the things” with those strum patterns.
– This is a “real take,” a “beforemance.” I even had a couple of better takes than this but I wanted to show you the real struggle once again.
Okay, that’s all! Thank you so much! So many amazing performances especially by the younglings of RC101. Wonderful job!
Please remove me from the prize drawing, too. Thank you! 😊
@lisadmh, that’s so awesome! I love when that happens. I don’t know if I know the song you’re referring to exactly, but that’s cool. It’s so interesting how memory works like that. Also, I checked a couple of the songs on my list, namely Lacrimosa, and while I still know it, boy does that need work. She rusty, dusty, and crusty. 😂 Also also you’ve inspired me to finish an original song I started a while ago so hopefully I can turn that into something. Thank you for that! 😂💕
@robinboyd, hello there friend! You were one of the people I was wondering about with this topic. You’ve got quite an interesting spread of songs there. I forgot about Forest Stroll, that’s a really lovely one. The ones by Tobias Elof are very interesting, I want to look at those. Do you sing Creep? If so…………… I sure would like to hear that. That song amuses me. 😅 I actually genuinely like Radiohead though.Thank you for sharing!! 😊💕
Also, if anyone doesn’t have a lot of songs memorized at all, feel free to share your favorite songs to play. I think it’s just fun to hear what songs people like to play habitually. 😊
I wrote this super fast so hopefully it’s coherent. Bye and thank you again! 😅
@lisadmh, these are all so good!! Thank you for taking the time to record and share all of these. Each one is fantastic in its own way.
Hopefully this reaction doesn’t get too ramble-y, but it probably will. 😂 These are just my thoughts as a fellow learner:
I really appreciate that two of them are dedicated to your cats. I feel like there is an uncanny overlap between cat people and ukulele players. 😂😅
All of your songs are amazing and it’s so impressive that you created these on your own, but my three favorite ones are “A Grain Of Sand,” “A Beautiful Life,” and “Parking Lot.” The first two I really love the style of each, the dynamics and techniques you included, and the chord progressions you chose. Very beautiful. The last one has beautiful chord choices, but also to me it has kind of a Renaissance-y feel to it for some reason. 😂 It has a really interesting structure and it seems like you took the time to incorporate a variety of techniques especially in that one.
I find it interesting that it seems like you drew inspiration from different sources for each one. I’m very intrigued by how different people create songs. I’ve bothered Matt and Andrew a lot about that because I really find it fascinating to know how different people approach creating music.
If you don’t mind me asking, how do you decide what chords to use when you’re writing songs, and how do you look them up? For me, I have extreme difficulty with that because a lot of chords I only know by the shape, sound, and that they “go with” certain keys, like they are used in the key of C Major for instance.
I even have more thoughts than this, but I might have burdened you enough. 😂 Thank you so much for sharing these, they are really amazing! Maybe you could even keep sharing new songs you come up with here in this thread as you create them? Anyway, thank you and sorry! 😅
@lisadmh, lovely! I’ll be able to look at those and reply tomorrow, this weekend’s been cray cray (crazy). Crazier than expected even! Looking forward to it! 😁
For some reason I don’t think your post was showing either. Now I see it and it could be the links that kept it from showing. That’s happened to me before. Otherwise I just missed that somehow. 😅
Anyway looking forward to it tomorrow!! 😁
@jbmills07, Nooooooooooooooo!!! My life will never be the same having seen that! 😅😂😭😸😻🤯
Thank you for sharing, that’s quite adorable! 😁😂
I need pocket-kittens-who-become-ukulele-lovin’-shoulder-cats in my life! 😂
Looking forward to hearing your new fancy uke by the way! Congrats again on that!! 😁
