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@The_Bumble_Bard Thanks a lot!
Malagueña has been on my backlog for a long time, so now was the perfect opportunity to learn it. I cheated and simplified the trickiest part a little, which left me with a piece without any particularly difficult part, but also no particularly easy part. In other words, it’s really difficult to get through the entire two minutes without slipping, and the slip happens in a different place each time. So here’s the least imperfect out of way too many imperfect takes. But on the one hand, it’s important to learn to play through one’s mistakes, as Andrew keeps repeating rightfully, and on the other hand, the focus here was less on technical perfection and more on expression. So I tried to vary the tempo a little throughout themes one and three, as taught in the lesson, to make it sound unique, and I tried to give theme two a different, contrasting sound, also as taught in the lesson. Here we go:
I also just caught up with the forum entries and really sorry to hear about Brett’s accident. Glad to learn about the opportunity for him to catch up in September with three entries and maintain perfect attendance (though it will be challenging to learn and record three pieces within one month, after not having played for almost two months, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s Brett).
Also like the idea about creating an open string/right hand only etude. There are so many right hand techniques that can be mixed and matched (strumming, picking, chucking, tremolo picking, palm muting, harmonics, tapping, knocking to name just a few), that with a clever open tuning it should be possible to come up with a half decent etude without fretting any notes with the left hand.@abster: Thanks 🙂
@annyuke Are you kidding me? 5 months only? For someone who’s just started 5 months ago, your progress is outstanding. You’ll get there in no time. I was not nearly that good after 5 months.
@annyuke: Thanks a lot! You already made the first and most important step by becoming a premium member. Now just keep doing the challenges every month, and you will inevitably get there. 98% of what you hear in my recording is the result of me doing the challenge month after month for almost six years now, and literally challenging myself by picking a piece at the upper end (or slightly beyond) my current playing abilities, even though sometimes it seemed completely impossible at the beginning of the month to get that down within just one month. Somehow it has always worked out. And remember: if you don’t make mistakes, you don’t practice. By definition, practicing means learning something you can’t play yet, so mistakes are inevitable and proof that you’re actually practicing. My personal experience is also, if I had the feeling I was just not getting better at a specific part no matter how much I practice, I would let it rest for a couple of days and work on something different, and when coming back later to that part, more often than not it would go much better right away. I don’t know if there’s scientifc research behind this phenomenon, but it’s definitely something I noticed for myself.
I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
That’s surprising – more than one week into the challenge, and I’m the first one to enter it. I don’t think I ever managed to do that in almost six years of challenge participations 🙂
Anyway, I picked Red is the Rose, such a lovely tune, and such a perfect arrangement. I haven’t played any Irish folk tune on the Ukulele up to this point yet, so it was about time to finally learn one. Reminds me of my summer vacation I spent in Ireland almost 30 years ago – I don’t think I’ve ever been to another place so steeped in music as that. It’s literally everywhere at all times. Loved it.
Thanks a lot @Andrew
I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
Give me any selection of songs to choose from, include a classic from the nineteen-twenties, and you can be sure that will be my pick.
Trigger warning: a wire coat hanger was seriously abused during the, ahem, “production” of this video.I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
Here’s my take on Spanish Days. Due to vacation and other circumstances I was only able to start working on it last Monday. As I only had about ten days to get this down, I had to compromise, so I reduced the tempo to about 80% and omitted the harmony part, otherwise I’d have loved to play and record that as well. Maybe I’ll add it later.
This was a good one to make use of the audio interface again to record the two parts and put them together. As my only low G uke doesn’t have a pickup, and my only uke with pickup is high G, I had to move the low G string between the ukes. You can see my low G uke lying around in the background of the rhythm uke video. That was just before I did the string switcheroo, I decided to record the rhythm part with high G, sounded better to me.
So here you go:
@katazumiri: Makes complete sense, Chet Baker is very much cool jazz, and cool jazz is one of the main building blocks of Bossa Nova, so that association is valid. In my understanding Bossa and Jazz are not two different genres, but I see Bossa as one specific style of Jazz. Although Bossa Nova is often also associated with a certain rhythm or beat, and at least Chet’s version of I fall in love too easily is not set to a Bossa beat (although it might be worth a try). But a great example that comes to mind of a song with a very similar vibe that actually is set to a Bossa beat, by a Jazz composer who is not typically associated with Bossa Nova, is The Shadow of Your Smile by Johnny Mandel, another one of my all time favorites. There’s a great ukulele arrangement of that song by Kiyoshi Kobayashi in his Ukulele Bossa Nova book, if you’re lucky enough to secure a copy (unfortunately only available in Japan or via Ebay for outrageous shipping fees).
@abster: Thanks! Very nice playing by you as well, bravo! On the technical side, I use a Focusrite audio interface and a uke with a pickup so it plugs right into the interface. I recorded the two uke tracks (rhythm and lead) using the interface and the digital audio workstation (DAW) software Ableton which came with the interface. The video was recorded as per the usual with the cell phone, and audio and video were put together using a program called PowerDirector. I pretty much followed the process step by step exactly as described by Andrew here: https://rockclass101.com/ultimate-guide-recording-ukulele/
@The_Bumble_Bard: Thanks! Yes, I did it by ear. I sat down with the uke playing along to Ashley’s singing and trying to emulate pretty much note for note what she sings, which in this case was really easy and straighforward, as the entire melody falls nicely into the first position (first three frets) of the uke, and it is very “cantabile”, i.e. it moves slowly and gently from high to low back to high without any big interval jumps or quick runs. So the ideal melody for a beginner to figure out by ear I’d say. Ear training is something I definitely don’t do enough and should do much more, it’s so important and beneficial.Regarding the jazz chords on uke: that was pretty much free lunch for me, as I learned a few of the jazz standard arrangements form James Hill’s brillant book “duets for one” several years ago, and ever since I did that, all the jazz chord shapes have become deeply engrained, I guess I’ll never forget them again. The funny thing is: it’s really just the same five or six shapes, that repeat all over again with every jazz song in any key, just moved all across the neck. Once you’ve learned those, you can play pretty much any jazz standard out there. In that respect, I guess it’s much easier to learn jazz chords on the uke (or any other stringed instrument) than on the piano, as the shapes stay the same in every key and just move up or down the neck. So learning those shapes, and learning them well, is a small investment with a huge payoff.
I really like your snippet, both the playing and the singing. For someone who didn’t know how to play jazz chords on the piano, it sounds pretty jazzy to me. And your singing actually sounds closer to Chet Baker’s “original” version than Ashley’s take. You should listen to it if you haven’t yet. “Original” quote on quote, as Chet didn’t write it, but he came up with the definite rendition and kind of made it his own.Dear friends, I fall in love too easily. Also, coincidentally that happens to be the name of the song I chose to perform for the March challenge 🙂 What a song, what a performance by Chet. Easily one of my all time favorites. No giveaway entry for me this month. Thanks!
When I first joined RockClass101.com more than five years ago, I went through all the songs and added those I eventually wanted to learn to my favorites, and Tennessee Waltz has been on that list ever since, so really happy to see it coming up in a monthly challenge. I love this song, so many different and interesting versions out there. My take is quick and dirty though, just started learning it last weekend and did my first recording attempt today, one week later. Sounds decent enough to me to leave it at that. I have to admit, not expecting feedback from Andrew this time takes away the pressure to shoot for perfection, and the frustration that sometimes comes with that, so I actually enjoyed just recording a “good enogh” take for once. But I do hope we will eventually get the feedback feature back nonetheless 🙂
Please exclude me from the prize drawing this month.
The tabs with Wilfried’s arrangement which I recorded can be found here:
https://www.ukulele-arts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/KlassischeMusikMitDerUkulele_example.pdfAs announced, I worked on learning an arrangement of the second movement of Vivaldi’ winter concerto, a favorite melody of mine which I always thought should lend itself quite well to the Ukulele. Incidentally I found a nice arrangement by a German guy called Wilfried Welti and started learning it a few weeks ago, before Matt released his own version just recently. So here’s my recording of Wilfried’s arrangement.
Wilfried’s version is in G major and goes up to the ninth fret, while Matt’s version is in C major, five half steps higher, and goes all the way up to the fourteenth fret. So while Wilfried’s version might be a little more beginner friendly, and also more doable on a soprano (he actually does play it on a soprano, see the link to his version in the description of my video), Matt’s version is a little closer to the original. That’s in E flat major, so yet another three half steps higher than Matt’s arrangement.
