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January Challenge – The Outline- Offical mandatory post #1 of at least 2
I’m not sure ever prompting me to write a long post intentionally is wise.. 😯 gads.
Niel Gow’s Lament For The Death Of His Second Wife. The entire song, and making it sound great, is my year long goal and uke resolution. I don’t plan on tackling the entire thing this month.
A) Skill level- Beginner. Song level: NOT Beginner. (I’m really curious where it might place in the rock class level system.) The version and tabs done by Ukulele Secrets.
By the end of January I’d like to be able to make the song – up to ‘ending 1 sound like music, and hopefully be able to play it at any speed of 3/4 time with a metronome. (Hopefully close to the 100 bpm but I’m not going to stress on that.) Additionally, successfully play the ghost notes correctly which means achieving some form of dynamics my playing totally lacks.
How I will hopefully acomplish this: 1) Practice through the tabs until I’m sort of comfortable with what’s coming, and when. Get the correct fingerings down from the video, because it makes life easier, and the tabs assume the person attempting this song isn’t a newbie uke player like me. 2) Slow down the Ukulele Secrets video and attempt to do what he does on it when I can access my device that can use that YouTube feature. 3) Beg in the forums here for help if I get desperate, and hope someone has enough experience playing to have a clue. (being totally serious here..)
Practice Schedule: I can get in a bare minimum of 15 minutes a day. I’ve managed this since I began playing in October. I usually get in about an hour (sometimes more) total ukulele practice. (Challenge song, and other stuff I’m working on.)
B) Application: Better understanding, and ability to make a Scottish song SOUND Scottish. Feel great playing the first part of a song I absolutely love? If things go wrong, i’ll at least hopefully have ghost notes down.
C) (pre)Evaluation: I found the Ukulele Secrets version and got so excited he did a great job with this song that I posted here. Then I promptly found out his version is a ‘bit’ beyond my skill level and got discouraged I couldn’t play it. (It didn’t sound like music or anything like I know the song should sound in my hands.) At the time i’m posting this, I can play an out of time, limping rendition reading the tabs, up until the tricky bit where it still goes completely and non-musically wrong.
Hopefully I won’t regret choosing my higher bar challenge instead of my alternative choice. Guess I’ll find out lol! It’s on now!
miztaken- Your new euc 😁 is sooo Sooooooo pretty! It sounds awesome! And boy it’s really making me twitch wanting to make the dive and invest in a instrument I don’t want to ever put down! Good job on the base evaluation video with chopsticks too!
Gads, guess I’ll officially commit to my January challenge and hope for the best. Had an easier thing planned today but that’s a cop out on my part.
Robin- Great song! Eventually when you get a handle on it you and Tiffany would sound great harmonizing the vocals on that I bet! (I’m not saying do it for the challenge, just eventually it would be awesome!!)
Andrew- This is kind of a scary challenge! It fits with my uke resolution but argh! (Hard) LOL!!! After I posted for December I printed up The Entertainer, (really hard) and Game of Thrones (Hard) Still working on Moon (Hard) and I was completely delusional thinking “I” could turn Coin Operated Boy into a uke song any time soon! ROFL!!!! (But I got a little understanding of theory before becoming lost again)
So hmmmmmm I accept the challenge but need a day or two to think on it. 😅
Ricky- There ya go! That’s me every night!
Also good to know you have drunk friends who sing to you on the phone at 2am!
(Joking! I know what you meant lol, I just couldn’t help adding that since your comment was written vaguely and it left me a wide open door to give you a hard time. 😇)As for uke-plausibility, not so sure. The guitar riffs around the 1:40 mark, might be though. (That’s an awesome song btw 😁)
Rofl miztaken! That made me laugh so hard. I will never deny being a little crazy lol! It doesn’t feel like a victory but at least I learned… something…
Ricky – Not quite the reason I was awake 😉 but I did have a friend playing ukulele and singing ‘It’s a mad world’ to me on my phone the other night, so it does have bothered and bewildered going for it, though a different definition of bothered😉 And yes bewitched because I seem to be under this tiny stringed instrument’s spell LoL! Funny enough the song I was trying to convert was ‘coin operated boy’ almost the polar opposite of ‘Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered’ but that song seems like it would work really well as a chord melody song, or at least as a ukulele song and no one’s done it….
Gads… Shutting up now and finishing the laundry
Do we get any kind of deals from uke republic as premium members? I forgot and can’t find the video that made me ask you anymore…
Love that song btw 😁 I’m the weirdo that sings it badly in the grocery store getting looks from everyone when it comes on. I noticed if you catch the grumpy ones eye then dance a bit too they run off quickly. 😉 (people are too uptight sometimes lol!)Congrats though! Those tiny ones are so cute, beautiful green. I’m still trying to decide if I should get a spruce tiny tenor, or the oscar schmidt spalted mango uke to have a nice instrument that plays like a dream and isn’t trying to kill me…
I did a quick google of baritone uke tutorials and it looks like you could jump right into learning the new chord fingerings. Brettboy has one, he played Moon on it, so i’m guessing you can play anything on it, maybe take something not too difficult, you know and play it using the new chord shapes till you’re used to it? (ignore my advice though. I’m going off his video and what he said in the post.)
Seriously though congratulations on your new goodies! 🙂
Grats on the new banjo uke Steve!
Check out a small company with a youtube channel. Company is called Duke they make banjo ukulele and hooked up with a guy I think is called Ukulele Stu? He has some tutorials played specifically on a banjo uke.
I’ve been attempting to learn how to do bum-ditty picking, which is totally a banjo/banjo-uke thing, but sounds great on a regular ukulele too. That’s been difficult because the videos I found on it, don’t show quite enough of what to do to make me succeed or how to apply it. The best ones I found were from a folk ukulele site but they don’t quite show enough of what the picking hand is actually doing for me. 🙁
I’ll keep my eyes open for good versions of dueling banjos and rainbow connection for you.
Hope more people can be more help, good luck, and id love to hear your new instrument in a challenge!
I’d like to see some technique videos. There are no videos I can find on youtube covering Scottish/ Irish ornaments. (On guitar or ukulele, I found them on tin whistles but it doesn’t translate as well to me..) More music style specific things like rasguedo. (I never thought I’d be saying that when I started practicing it lol!) Maybe nothing long, but something we can practice like the coarse examples for hammer ons and pull offs etc.
Side note: Keep on showing the little chord diagrams in the youtube lessons, it’s so helpful when you can see it on screen. The older videos that don’t have it are harder to use.
A short exercise to practice, to build up the ability to succeed at the bum-ditty so it can be applied to songs!
(Thank you soooooo much for the stretch chord exercise btw! I would have been up a creek without a paddle without that, learning NG’s Lament. Huge stretch chord in that. 7,10,12 using pointer middle ring fingers but I can do it now, just not in time yet lol! :D)
Perhaps one more forum for things that don’t quite fit into the other forum headings? I don’t know if others would want that though? I feel uncomfortable asking for help from the community or teachers, over things you guys didn’t make in ‘lessons’ for example. I love rock class songs but realistically there’s songs out there we want to learn that aren’t covered here but might need help on tricky bits… (Don’t kill me for that one 🙁 Seems easier to ask for help on a bit rather than ask for a whole new arrangement in some cases.)
One last totally doable request: If the site goes down for an extended period, could you holler on YouTube since not all of us use social media like instagram, facebook, twitter, etc?
Anyway thank you to everyone!
Welcome Sami!
There are people from all over the world here. Everyone is really great!
Andrew has a really good style of teaching and the month long challenges are really fun. I’ve only been playing for two and a half months but i’ve learned a lot. I would have never recorded myself either, if not for the challenges. It’s kind of nice to have at least some kind of record to look back on to see how much you improved. Andrew and Stephen do an awesome thing and provide feedback for the challenge entries as well, for everyone.
I used to game a lot, as for online games, I used to play Rogue, (Man, that puts a date on me… 😬 ) Then Ultima Online back in the day for around 10 years before they sold the game to EA. Then I moved on to Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. I stopped once my mom got sick and became a caretaker. (She doesn’t like computers or cell phones 😉 ) Then I managed to get injured fairly badly. I bought an inexpensive ukulele on impulse because of a silly song, and found I love it. I found Rock Class 101 from YouTube a couple days later.
Anyway, hope you enjoy it here, and enjoy your new ukulele!
Sprintingyogini- It’s probably more common with guitar strings, but phillip mcknight from know your gear made a youtube video “Can you spot counterfeit guitar strings?” a week or so ago. He shows real and fake ones. They’re pretty clever. I wouldn’t know the difference without a real set right by the fake. (His Christmas story had me laughing so hard too lol!)
In personal ukulele context for those going ‘why watch a guitar string video?’:
The concert uke I got comes with a “lifetime supply” of free above mentioned brand strings. After seeing this video I have suspicions they aren’t the brand they claim they are, (They come with zero branding in a clear baggie..) but the customer service is really nice and prompt and I really have no reason to think they’re lying, I mean, they probably made a deal with the manufacturer in bulk. (I’d like to think so since they seem like a popular, big, legitimate brand) Plus strings on request for life is a nice perk IF they send them since I’m monetarily challenged 99% of the time so i’m not pushing the matter…
Seems like the consensus is leave the neck strap button… I will then. We have to go back to the music store soon, i’ll see if they have some in stock, if not I’ll get a pair off Amazon.
I’d never in a million years drill into an expensive instrument because my nerves or Murphy’s law would make me mess up and damage it!
My concert was $40, and my soprano was $12 so i’m not overly concerned about drilling into it. I have one of those old fashioned type egg beater drills and some masking tape for traction and protection if it does slip. The soprano has a 3 year accidental damage policy too. Drilling isn’t covered but if my niece’s 2 year old gets mad or something and throws it, or plays “will it flush?” and puts the uke in the toilet for some reason, it’s covered at least. (Hopefully nothing like that ever happens but kids are quick!)
Good tip on the drill bit one smaller miztaken, ty.
Thank you all too! Honestly was scared to unscrew that neck button but I didn’t want it to weaken the neck or something
I 5th? Pink Floyd ‘wish you were here’
But I have my hands full with really hard songs right now for my skill level and the [coming soon] bouree is probably going to be another in the really hard song list lol!
Andrew!!! I mean, I caught onto what you were up to with your teaching methods pretty quickly since I found you. It made me look into furthering my rasguedo ability (Seriously thank you for introducing and “forcing” rasguedo on me- though my family members must hate you secretly LOL!!) and made me want to start practicing golpe because it’s amazing…. but reading sheet music…. I can’t even wrap my head around the circle of 5ths or I- V – VII chord progression (That’s probably not a thing, but an example of what I go “wha??” to lol.)
I’m only lightheartedly complaining btw! 🙂 (since it’s hard to know just from text.) I did get kicked out of jr high orchestra though once the teacher caught on I was playing by watching her rather than reading the music so it’s not got a good memory connected to it. Sigh… I wasn’t bad either but since I couldn’t do it I got the boot.
Congratulations again Felix! Merry Christmas (and belated Chanukah) to you and to everyone and their families here at RockClass101!
Thanks again Andrew, Kanile’a, and Uke Republic for the chance at the shiny Kanile’a! 🙂