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The Pachelbel progression has been used in a million pop songs, no surprise Maroon 5 adds just one more. Check this out. Super funny and very true:
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Playing along with a backing track, listening to and staying in sync with music other than my own while playing was completely new to me. I have to admit so far I haven’t even bothered to use a metronome while practicing (big mistake, I know). Hence my ongoing timing issues in many of the past challenges. I was really thrilled when I saw this arrangement of Jailhouse Rock being released by Rockclass101.com, and even more so when I saw it was included in the June challenge. So it was a no-brainer for me, this would be my pick for the June challenge, as it is super fun to learn and to play, yet with a manageable difficulty level, making it the perfect song for learning to play along with a backing track. For me it’s just what the doctor ordered. Here’s my take, I apologize for the sound quality, and the solo still needs some polishing, but overall I’m quite happy with the result.
@Andrew, thanks! And yes, I know, it’s my usual isue, and here it’s so obvious I didn’t even mention it. When I listened back to my recording I noticed the tempo makes it sound rushed and short-breathed in some spots, plus it’s not even consistent throughout the take, I think it gets even faster towards the end. I tried a few takes playing slower deliberately, but then I kept messing up real bad, so I posted the take I had. Gives me something to keep working on, and I really need to incorporate the tempo aspect earlier in the process of learning a new piece. It’s weird, but I tend to learn the songs in a tempo that’s too fast, and then it’s actually difficult for me to slow down and re-learn them in the correct tempo.
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Ukulele literally translates to jumping flea if I remember correctly, so Jump was the obvious choice for me this month. When I started learning this three weeks ago, it felt like I just got myself into an expedition to climb Mount Everest, and at some point I thought I bit off more than I could chew. But somehow I made it, at least the version without guitar solo (I’ll save that for a special opccasion), mostly thanks to Andrew’s excellent tutorial, without which I wouldn’t even have tried. Thanks for the hint to play through the mistakes, ovisously I did that a lot this time.
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Here’s my attempt at Tiptoe through the tulips. Took some modest liberties with the arrangement in a couple of spots just for fun.
Thanks for the feedback, AJ. When I learned the piece, my main focus was indeed on bringing out the melody over the accompanying arpeggios. So thanks for noticing and mentioning it, that’s very motivating.
Here’s my version of Spanish Romance. Was lots of fun to learn, thanks for the beautiful arrangement.
Also, I just happen to have learned the James Hill version of L-O-V-E a little while ago, so I thought since this song is part of the challenge, albeit in a different arrangement, I post it as well just for good measure (pun intended). Hope that’s ok, otherwise please go ahead and delete or move to a different part of the forum.
Can I post a revised version of my entry? Hope this one is a little closer to what it’s supposed to be:
Sure enough, I just listened to the song once or twice to get a general idea what it sounds like, and from there on I just worked with the tab, as it seemed pretty straightforward. So at first I wondered what exactly was meant with “getting the rhythms a little more accurate”, as I was pretty sure I played everything exactly as written. But after following the advice of listening to the song a little closer I noticed that while I played all the notes as written in the correct timing, I got the accents all wrong in some of the places. There’s an interesting accent shift going on in the A melody, back and forth between straight (emphasis on the downbeat) and shifted by 1/16 ahead (emmphasis on the 1/16 before the downbeat, while the following note on the downbeat is barely audible). Typically the first half of each measure is straight, while the second half has the accent shift. As this is not indicated in the sheet music, but can only be heard in the recording, chances are you get it wrong if you just read the music, as I did. Interestingly, the soundslice tool offers the option to switch from the actual recording to synthesizer, which just plays the notes as written, and sure enough, that sounds just like my first version. So if you want to know what information exactly is not included in the sheet music, just compare the synthesizer version to the real version in the soundslice tool.
Ah well, I heard a conductor once say “you should have the music in the head, not the head in the music”.Here’s my take on Santa Fe. Was a lot of fun to learn. As usual, I play a tad too fast at least in section B.
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Here’s my entry for the December challenge. I chose the Christimas song, as I’m a big jazz fan (as I mentioned in the 2021 curriculum topic), and to me the Christmas song really is a jazz standard which just coincidentally happens to have Christmas themed lyrics.
After listening back to my recording I noticed a number of timing issues, particularly with rushing the quarter notes. So I still need to keep working on that, but for now this will have to do, really need to practice something else for a while.@cinichol No, it’s from Paul Auster’s novel Timbuktu.
My request for 2021: jazz, jazz, jazz. I’m a big jazz fan, and it’s also my favorite thing to play on the ukulele. So I’d be interested in anything related to jazz. Courses on chords, chord progressions, comping, scales, improvisation, but most of all, rockklass101 style solo ukulele arrangements of jazz songs, and especially jazz standards from the great american songbook. I know there’s some stuff out there on ukulele jazz, but it’s not much, and certainly not in the rockclass101 quality.
The ukulele is actually a perfect jazz instrument in my opinion, especially when compared to the guitar. Whenever I watch a jazz guitarist play, I almost always notice two things. First, they tend to play relatively high up the neck much of the time (as the bass player usually takes care of the lower frequencies), and second, they’re almost always busy muting two or three strings, they hardly ever strum five or six strings at once. Might as well play ukulele, is what crosses my mind then.
General feedback: I couldn’t be happier with the content and quality of rockclass101. What appeals to me most is that the majority of the content consists of high quality song arrangements, and that you get to learn new techiques by actually learning songs. The best and most fun way to learn for me is by practicing songs, not techniques.
I have to admit I’m a devoted high G afficionado, it’s what defines the ukulele sound to me. Low G is too close to the guitar sound for my taste. So for me it’s definitely a plus that the majority of arrangements are for high G.I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER
Here’s my entry for the November challenge. I ended up playing it a little faster than I really would have liked to for this piece. I’m somewhat new to recording myself and for some strange reason find it difficult to play really well while recording myself, I end up making mistakes I usually don’t make when practicing. Hope this effect will wear off as I get more accustomed to the process. Anyway, I guess I just wanted to get it over with after a dozen or so takes, so I kept this speedthrough version as my best recorded attempt.
