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@leb397, thank you so much, my friend!! 😁💕 Yes, the encouragement from others here means so much, especially since it’s so easy to just fixate on your mistakes.
I saw both your entries in the challenge; you really went above and beyond learning two and they turned out so great! I loved all the song options and listening to everyone play them, but I played it safe learning only the beginner song. Next time, I’m going to challenge myself a bit more, but I also felt blocked or stuck this month, like you mentioned in your post in the challenge thread.
Hahaha, cozy clothes indeed! 😅 Yes, definitely after 5pm, but………. I enjoy being in pajamas as much as is reasonable. 😂 And again thank you so much! I feel more open to sharing and being silly because everyone here is so encouraging and accepting of those things. 😊
@karenj, that’s so touching and lovely. All the performances I’ve seen of yours have made me smile because you always seem so happy in them. Your story is really special, made me tear up; thank you for sharing that. Praying for peace and comfort for you. 💕
@surferjay, thank you kindly, friend! 😻 I may want to get a better take on this that doesn’t have that messed up slide in the middle; it irks me. 😅
I also really like your picture, GG! I’ve thought about drawing a little picture for on here and for my sad little YouTube channel, but haven’t gotten to it yet. 😅
Hahaha, @gi_gi_, when you used the phrase “yummy goodness,” just for a split second I thought you were referring to Brandon Acker himself. 😂😂😂😅😅 But that may be me projecting because I think that he’s pretty easy on the eyes. 😂😳😂 This really is fun. 😁
Ha, I have a guitar but I bought it from a thrift shop not knowing it was a child’s guitar. I took it to a Guitar Center to get the strings replaced and the guy was laughing at me and also staring into my soul so I never went back there. 😂 And really barely played the guitar after that. I got the guitar after I got the uke though so that experience just pushed me more in the direction of the ukulele. 😂
Oh my gosh thank you so much for saying that. I can’t even say how encouraging that is to be compared to the likes of these fellows. I will defs keep practicing and you should, too, as your performances on these tunes is so lovely. Lagrima sounds so familiar but I can’t quite place it. And you should defs learn Spanish Romance. It’s incredibly satisfying to play.
Oh my, yes, his performance of that particular song rocks me to my core. It has the effect of completely transporting you. That’s the feeling I want to capture and experience when I play music.
Brandon Acker also plays a song called Los Recuerdos de Alambra, but sorry if the spelling is wrong. It’s absolutely stunning. He’s probably the guitarist who inspires me the most as far as the type of songs he plays and the way he plays them.
@gi_gi_, this is the exact book for John King: https://www.amazon.com/John-King-Classical-Ukulele-Masters/dp/0634079794
Fair warning, some of the songs are quite tricky because they’re written in the campanella style. Difficult fingering. Don’t know how much you know about that, but basically the idea is that each successive note is played on a different string, so that every note rings out as much as possible. I may not be explaining that well. 😅
Jeff Peterson’s Adelita was a-mazing! Absolute perfection. That arrangement seems a lot like Steven’s, but you would know more than I would. Cool, now I have another great uke player to fixate on. 😉😂
He also played Spanish Romance (or Romanza; it has many names): https://youtu.be/0iKSm6hiY8M 😳😂😭
(Snaps my ukulele in half over my leg) 😉😅
I still can’t believe I won that electric uke. When I got the email I was in the grocery store and felt like I was going to faint and cry. It was crazy. I may actually not want to be in the drawing for the Kanile’a because I already won once.
…….. Last thing….. Have you ever heard of Brandon Acker? I stumbled across him playing Chopin on guitar and it, well, changed the way I viewed classical music. Just so amazing.
This song: https://youtu.be/wgm7rmWjNpo
I learned a version of that song on uke because I loved it so much, but it’s still a work in progress. And it’s not that. 😂 But boy is his playing beautiful…
@gi_gi_ you did such a lovely job with Adelita! I really loved that one, too, but sigh, I was too scared to try it. I still haven’t tried it. I don’t know what my issue is with that; I’m still trying to figure out why sometimes I feel so hindered from trying certain things and so anxious. I’ll get there eventually. 🥺😂
That’s really cool that you kept working on Adelita though. That’s part of why I love classical music because you can impart so much subtlety of feeling through the notes with enough practice. For me, I have to be extremely familiar with any song before I can express the kind of emotion I want through it.
Oh no, I haven’t heard of him, but I feel like I should seek out that book, too! I also love classical music so much. I love any song that can be flowy, fingerpickity (that’s right 😂), and rubato-y–and that you can express the ebb and flow of the human condition–with all its sorrows and joys–through the notes. …I also love The Backstreet Boys. 😉😂
That was so neat! I saw that you were featured. 😁 Wait, I think that Crazy was in the first challenge I joined in on! In July? If so, that was the first challenge I was a part of that I won the electric uke. It is so “crazy” that that was almost a year ago already. Time really does fly.
One last thing, if you haven’t, you should also get John King’s classical ukulele book. Matt recommended that a bunch of times and it is also very, very lovely. 😊
@gi_gi_, thank you soooooooososo much, my friend! I can’t even say how encouraging that is. It’s so easy to get caught up in your mistakes or what you could’ve done better, so I really appreciate that. 😊💕
I saw your entry for the monthly challenge and it was very lovely indeed! I also really liked the monochromatic style of the video. 😊
@Andrew, thank you so much!! 😊 I’ll try an intermediate, then, at least give it a try!
@dianna, thank you kindly!! 😊
I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
‘Ello friends! 😊
This time I went with Echude No. 1.
I’m in an odd place with these challenges now, I’ve realized. I feel like the beginner songs are not always as challenging as they used to be and I can learn them fairly quickly, but the intermediate songs feel overwhelmingly difficult at times. So, I think I’m going to adopt the strategy of learning the beginner song if it’s easy-ish enough, then working on (one of) the harder songs once I have a completed entry. Otherwise, despite all reason, I feel way too overwhelmed with the difficulty and too much pressure, along with the anxiety of the recording process. 😂 No one needed to know any of that, but just sharing my thoughts.
This song is so pretty and still was challenging, but not overwhelming. It reminds me of Etude No. 5, which is my favorite Andrew Etude. Thank you for these creations. 😊
Sorry the video is so quiet. Still trying to fix that, but I think I have an idea what to do now.
Great entries by everyone so far!! 😊
@annemarie, thank you very much!! Same here, I love the traditional hymns the most. 😊💕
@surferjay, piano is really great to learn! I think if I hadn’t learned piano first I’d have even more trouble than I do understanding how to play ukulele, and all the theory necessary (that I do know). Pianos are so much more black and white 😉😂 as all the notes are linear from the lowest to the highest note, obvs. But that makes a difference. Ukuleles are rather cheeky in their layout and I am still very confused by it, but I love them, maybe even slightly more than piano now–which is really saying something.
Ha! That’s so amazing that you found that! I may even have some piano music books somewhere from when I was a kid, probably with notes from my teacher telling me not to play by ear. 😂 She was great though. I need to look for those books.
Um, that’s flippin’ amazing! Maybe I do like jazz… On ukulele. Those super fast, complex riffs are crazy. 🤯😎
@surferjay, haha, thank you! 😁💕 I “arranged songs” on piano since I was around 8 years old so it’s sort of an engrained skill, and playing by ear. 😅 But still I can only really do simple arrangements because my knowledge and other skills are more limited. By the way, if I were arranging these songs on piano I would know all the notes. The only reason I don’t know the exact melody notes on ukulele is because I don’t know all the notes on the fretboard, of course. Forgot to mention that.
That’s an interesting way to think of theory. Theory really is a language. I do feel like I know just enough theory to create these arrangements and read music, but I really get overwhelmed trying to write down the arrangements so I just record them for my reference and sometimes to share. So, basically I know, “dónde está el baño?” on uke. 😅😂😅 (Also those accents may not be right.) I guess if I couldn’t read music I’d be a dang genius like those guys! 😂😅😉
That is really amazing! I haven’t seen any live music in years but that seems pretty great. I’m not the biggest fan of jazz but the skill exhibited there is impressive. 😊 You can play some jazz on uke?
@surferjay, thank you so much, friend! 😁💕
I did arrange it myself! I figure out the melody by ear that goes with the chords I choose somewhat arbitrarily, but I don’t really know what the melody notes are exactly. 😂😅 I know they’re one of the notes in a C or G chord, for instance, and they’re on the A string usually, but I don’t know what the notes are.
I actually didn’t have to look up any chords for this one. I just guessed based on songs I’ve learned before from RC101 and based on the other hymns/songs I’ve arranged. Sometimes I just remember the shapes of chords I know from other songs and try them until they sound right with the melody. 😂🥺 I know the names of just enough chords and their “functions” from playing piano to start most arrangements I’ve tried, but these hymns are pretty simple. There definitely are multiple songs I’ve tried to arrange that I couldn’t figure out this way, though, because the song or the chords are too complicated.
But I basically do these arrangements for fun, and to relax, which is why I haven’t pushed myself super hard to learn all the theory yet, even though I really should. 😅😳
That’s probably too much of an answer but there you have it. 😂😅 Thanks again! 😊💕
Just a few, completely hypothetical questions related to maintaining a ukulele:
1. If someone splashed root beer inside a ukulele, is there any way to get that out, or is that just kind of permanent?
2. If someone were to glue googly eyes–say, 450 of them–onto the surface a ukulele, would that negatively affect the sound at all?
(Two of them are already glued on, so…)
3. If a ukulele’s strings have never been changed since its purchase four years ago, is that bad?
Hopefully this lesson can help “someone.” Thank you! 😂