[gstriph]

Hi – here’s this month’s recording (I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER – are we still doing that?)

What a month! It started with me not paying attention while chopping vegetables and chopping off the end of my left index finger and nail. I ended up in the ER (you don’t want to know the bill for cleaning, cauterizing, and wrapping a finger). It did make playing pretty difficult but I made lemonade out of lemons by practicing barre chords…

Then I found out Saturday that one of my patients tested positive for COVID and now I’m off work and quarantined. But at least I’m starting to be able to use by finger gingerly so I’ll get some ukulele time in if nothing else. I think quarantine has actually improved my social life as friends are making an effort for virtual get togethers.

I apologize for the microphone/sound quality – I promise it didn’t sound like that in real life.

Hope everyone is staying healthy

[gstriph]

Sittin’ on the dock of the bay.

[gstriph]

I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER.

Here’s my December entry — memorized (though I do think I play it better if the music is around as a crutch). Happy holidays to all.

Jerry

[gstriph]

I’d like to learn more riffs and other things to do between chord changes in various keys (walk ups – either notes or with chords) to spice up strumming songs – low or high G.

Love the site.

Jerry

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I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER.

Since November has only 30 days, here’s my video of Can’t Help Falling in Love…

Jerry

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Andrew

Thanks for the video – HAPPY to ditch the metronome though being forced to pay attention to counting was interesting. I can definitely play less “mechanically” but then I rubbed up against the player being really out of time so now my teacher has given me permission! 🙂

Jerry

[gstriph]

I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER.

Well I love Sound of Silence but it seemed deceptively hard to get it right. I spent a lot of time with a metronome and the player and played slowly. The oddest things were how slow the stumming had to be to stay in time with the slow picking – not very intuitive. No time for more takes and practice so here it is Andrew…

Jerry

[gstriph]

I feel like I’m swimming against the People are Strange tide, but I’d vote for Morning has broken.

[gstriph]

The Martin T1K is pretty loud. It has a very bright brassy tone – love it or hate it – but in our group, the Martins seem louder than everyone else.

Jerry

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I am a premium member.

Well, time is running out… so here’s my take on Kemp’s jig.

I love the idea of the monthly challenges as well!

Jerry

[gstriph]

Not sure that exercises will help a lot. This is a common complaint in musicians like guitar players and pianists. There are 2 anatomical concerns (remembering there is some variation in all of us). Most of us share a common tendon between the middle and ring fingers making it hard to move one without the other. The other issue (and this one practice might help) is that the pinky and ring fingers have a separate nerve branch than the thumb and other two (branches of the ulnar nerve). The lore is that we do so much more with the index and thumb that this nerve branch (which is also larger) works better. It’s also more of problem with the whole finger than just the tips (people type ok. You can see this in action. Put your palm flat on the table and fold your index finger under. You can lift the others three independently but the middle (same nerve) is the hardest. Now just fold under the middle finger – probably can’t life the ring finger but pinky and index are find. Now fold under just the ring. You can lift the middle somewhat but not as well as the index and pinky — a combination of the nerve and tendon split (or so the theory goes…)

It is somewhat similar to the Spock Vulcan salute – some people can do this easily and some people just can’t. I read that the actor who played the young Spock had to rubber band and sometimes glue his fingers together when filming. Don’t know if that’s actually true.

[gstriph]

Sound of silence for me.

[gstriph]

You might look at the book Arpeggio Meditations by Daniel Ward. He also has a new counterpart Melodic meditations.

Jerry

[gstriph]

Thanks! I’ll work on this over the weekend. This song is a big step up in complexity for me which is why I picked it. I appreciate the extra help. I’ve also been working on a reggae strum and playing this song in a strumming style so eventually, I’d like to combine the two.

Are there any muted strumming lessons on RC101? (Some of the Steve Martin song had muted strumming in melody B). I’ve been working on a barre chord muted chop strum on beats 2 and 4 and a pinky mute as well for the more open chords for this song. The barre chord is ok for a fast DU but I haven’t figured out how to make a pinky mute work quickly (no problem on a down but not too hot on a fast D-U) (Yeah — I know RC101 is more of a chord melody site… 😉 )

Thanks again for the extra lesson and fast response,
Jerry

[gstriph]

Hi Andrew:

I’m just getting back to this and the start of the lesson is still a little fast for me to understand. I think the video above helps – it’s the start of verse, right? But I’m still a little confused…

I’ve played the start slowly trying to show what’s really a chunk followed by a thumb up-brush on the A string. For example, in measure two, there’s a quarter note, then 3 pairs of eighths. Unless I misunderstood, you talked about doing something with the first pair of eigths but the music has the x’s with the 2nd pair. So I’m not really sure about this…

Thanks,
Jerry

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