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I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
Here is my entry – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (using thumb throughout was challenging). I decided to set a limit of 5 recording attempts but am not sure that this approached worked as after take 3 it all started to fall apart; anyway here is take 3!
Happy Christmas and New Year to all
I donated $25 to UKC
@Andrew many thanks for the kind words and advice, always much appreciated!
I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
As I was away for much November (without a ukulele, and yes I had withdrawal symptoms!) I only had ~ 10 days, which thankfully included a weekend, to work on Steven’s beautiful arrangement of ‘Always with me’. I only got it up to 80% speed and there is clearly much room for improvement, especially the hammer-ons and pull-offs got lost in many places.
However, on a positive I feel that being able to play this song through in the time frame I had available is a personal achievement, this time last year it would have likely taken me the whole month to get to the same performance level – thanks RC101!!. Though I am not familiar with the Studio Ghibli movies the songs are amazing; I plan to keep working on this arrangement and hope in time to progress on to Howl’s Moving Castle.
I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
Here is my entry for October. I selected Hourglass as in a addition to being a lovely tune it combined picking and strumming as well as co-ordinating timing with the backing track. The strumming was the most challenging aspect as I usually avoid strumming, but was glad I moved out of my comfort zone gave it a shot!
@leb397 – hi yes it is a tenor, though large body probably closer to a baritone size. The model is called Sedara, it is the product of a collaboration between Matt at World of Ukes in the UK and Uluru; cedar top and mahogany back and sides. The lack of fret board markers was a challenge at first but having to rely on the side dots has hopefully helped my posture as I had a tendency to always crook my neck and peer over the fretboard.
Your Cielito Lindo was fab, loved the humming – was a great accompaniment.
There have been some great entries again this month, it so inspiring!Here is my attempt at Cielito Lindo. Its a bit choppy in places but this was the best recording I could get in a limited time – the relief of getting to towards the final section led to my brain deciding to check out.
I noted that my strums seem a lot louder/dominate on the recording (phone) even though I tried to lightly strum…@The_Bumble_Bard – wow that’s impressive!
I seem to only have the bandwidth to remember the song I’m currently learning and then as @ldarrow forget it quite quickly.The only songs that have stayed with me are Spanish Romance and the Last of Us.
I have noticed that I am now able to remember songs I’m working on faster than when I first joined RC101. So maybe in a year or so time I might be back with an actual list!
PS @The_Bumble_Bard great version of the drunken sailor this month!
@The_Bumble_Bard – thank you! Lately I haven’t had much free time for ukulele but am now trying to set aside regular time slots and set myself some challenges. I have really enjoyed and been encouraged by seeing you and others posting some great songs and arrangements!
@janaq1 thank you so much for your kind words and encouragement, I really appreciate it – still along way to go to mastering it 🙂
Steven’s tutorial is so good, as are all of them on RC101, they are such great teaching resources.
Have a great day!I AM A PREMIUM MEMEBER
I have spent most of this month learning Gymnopedie no 1 (just uploaded it to the Showcase forum) but just managed to fit in this mini-lesson which turned out to be fun. Despite thinking this was going to straightforward (well compared to Gymnopedie it was easier) it was a bit trickier than I thought – I think that due to the quick transition from strumming to picking I sacrificed the final up strum of bar 10 (probably other mistakes!).
@stephen, thanks for the really helpful feedback, I never thought of using a metronome for strumming – I’ll definitely give it a go!
I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
I started every challenge since Xmas but never had the time to either finish the piece to a reasonable level or post. I was then tempted to give this month a miss as I don’t really like strumming – but decided to give EP010 a go to challenge myself with a piece that I would normally avoid. While it still needs work I feel happy that I actually managed to get through the whole piece and also manage to upload it in time.
@andrew – Thanks so much for the feedback that is so helpful! I also started on Carol of the Bells and had noticed that my pull off / hammer ones don’t have a good balance between the single notes and so it looses the essence of the rhythm.
Meant to mention I donated $30 to the ukulele kids club.
I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
This month I chose the Nutcracker Medley – Steven’s performance was amazing! It is beyond my skill level but a piece I aspire to be able to play well one day. Today my rendition has many mistakes, is too slow but I generally feel quite pleased as I hardly had any time this month to practice. In addition, I managed to memorise it and got to the end – something I wouldn’t have been able to do in such short time this time last year. So a big thankyou to Andrew, Steven and all the teachers at RC101 for some amazing arrangements and great tutorials.
Happy holidays/Christmas to everyone!
