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My goal is to improve strumming techniques by completing the Next level Strumming course. I will complete all modules and record and post a video of the lovely capstone piece, Crossing Hemispheres. It is feeling a little ambitious, so I hope to also work on another goal that was inspired by several comments in last month’s challenge. A couple of other members mentioned their perfectionism and limiting their recordings. I will set a specific number of takes and/or time spent trying to get a clean take and pick the best of the imperfect options.
@brettboy. I know I’m late to the melon bar party, but I gotta say I totally loved your Severance piece as well as the related comments. I always look forward to your submissions and this month did not disappoint. You had me at the goat photo.
Here’s my July Challenge submission of Cripple Creek. I love Bluegrass and was excited to learn another clawhammer tune with my banjolele. Despite my efforts, the 100% speed went far off the rails for section D and thus I settled on the 75% backing track. I wish you could hear the backing track better, but I guess I need to work on my sound-mixing skills a bit more. Alas, this is the best of my million takes.
Thanks again to RC 101. I love all of the variety this month and am looking forward to viewing everyone’s submissions.
Take care,
KarenI AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
Here is my June Challenge submission of Summertime. This was certainly a fun song to learn and helped to get me into a summer vibe. The difficulty was a bit challenging for me and I struggled to get a clean recording, not to mention full tempo or memorization. Here is the best of a zillion takes. Everyone’s submissions have been wonderful which help make mine feel even less satisfying but also help motivate me to improve.
Happy Summer!!!
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Here’s my take on the Star Wars Theme. It was so much fun to learn a song for the U-Bass. Bring on more! I am pretty new to U-Bass and struggled with those fat rubber strings and getting a good feel for the frets, not to mention the overall increase in the size of the uke. And looking back at my videos, I notice how much I need to work on not stretching the strings when fretting. It’s still rather rough, but it’s my best overall take. I’ll keep working on it and hope to learn Dock of the Bay too. There are so many lovely submissions so far and I look forward to more.
Happy Summer and Happy Memorial Day to those in the USA. And thank you to all who have served in any way.
Take care,
KarenI AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
This month has been a challenge indeed. I have beed plugging away with the Music Theory Course and worked a long time on the EPOO2 concept lesson. But I realized it wouldn’t be ready enough for me to be happy enough to submit, so I switched to April Smiles. What a lovely song! This was also my first lesson with Evan and I am looking forward to many more. I learned all parts, although certainly the chord melody section still needs some work. I struggled mightily with my lack of video editing skills, however, and ultimately gave up trying to sync my recorded rhythm video with my recorded lead. So I switched to the backing track. As my third plan of having something to submit, here it is flaws and all.
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Here’s my March Challenge submission of Here Comes The Sun, Take 2. I’m still not as happy with it as I would like, but I am out of time and this is the best of a zillion takes. Sometimes my progress feels like a snail’s pace.
Happy Spring to all.
KarenI am going to revisit Here Comes the Sun which I originally submitted in May, 2019. I love this sone and want to improve my overall playing and bring thoughts of a little more sunshine these days too. I hope to get it up to full speed and especially want to work on tone and sustain.
It was fun to look back at prior videos and realize I’ve worked to submit almost every month since October, 2018. Some performances are certainly better than others, but all 75 songs have been fun and challenging to learn. Thank you to RC 101 for continuing to push me up that ukulele learning curve. I would love to be higher than I am and continue to be motivated by others in this group. I bet brettboy could make magic on one of those nice Kanile’a ukes!
Here is my version of Blue Skies. Thank you Matt for this beautiful piece and that was a lot of fun to learn! I’ve been a bit behind the 8 ball the past couple of months, so I wanted to get this in early. I now hope to revisit Daybreak that I had learned for a previous challenge. It will be nice to see if I’ve progressed since then. Happy Valentine’s Day for all who celebrate.
My goal for the month was to complete the Classical Technique and Style course. It was a busy month for me, but I kept plugging along with my daily practice and was able to complete the course, including learning Adelita. I am still working on getting the pull-offs to ring out, especially with some of the tricky fingering. The song is not nearly polished enough for me to be happy with any recording I could submit. So I am going to embrace my partial success and let go of the goal of full participation in the challenge nor entry into the prizes. Thank you for a challenging but fun course. Best wishes to all.
Sorry if this is a duplicate post, my recent submission didn’t seem to go through. . .
1) Execution – plan to complete the course on Classical Technique & Style. I had started this course a while ago but never completed it. I plan to start over and complete all units and the capstone. I plan to practice 20+ minutes per day, completing the units by the 3rd week in January so I can have a solid week to work on the capstone piece
2) Application – I will complete the captone piece, Adelita. I expect I will also use the techniques in future challenges that include classical options. It will also be nice to have additional techniques to augment my playing and when just “noodling” around.
3) Evaluation – I will evaluate my progress at the end of each of the units’ performances piece. Although a perfectionist by nature, I will try hard to focus on progress rather than perfection.
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Here is my December submission of O Come, All Ye Faithful. It was fun to learn this lovely arrangement. It’s been a hectic month for me, but I am looking forward to taking some time to view everyone’s submissions! I wish you all a happy holiday season. And may your 2025 be filled with peace, joy, good health, and lots of ukulele!
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Here is my November Challenge submission of Fingerpicking Etude #5: Travis Picking. I was drawn to this in a recent challenge so was happy for a reason to spend some more time on this fun picking technique and great tune.
I am thankful for the Rock Class 101 community and for all of the joy that ukulele brings to people around the world. Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate.
Take Care
KarenI AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
Here’s my October Submission of Spooky, Scary Skeletons. (I hope this isn’t a duplicate, but I just tried to post and it didn’t show up here.) This was a fun song to learn! I always get so tensed up when I record and it never sounds as good as when I am practicing. But here it is, wacky rhythms and all.
happy Halloween!
Karen