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I picked DayDreaming for the August challenge. And since one of my ongoing issues in many of the previous challenges has been that I tend to play too fast, I specifically challenged myself this time to come up with a rendition that is as laid-back and relaxed as humanly possible for me. So this is a fair deal slower than Andrew’s original version, and believe me, doing that was much harder for me than meeting or exceeding the original tempo. It’s interesting how the character of the piece changes by just slowing down the tempo.
My version sounds almost like a lullaby, which is not too bad of a fit given the title.Ok, now that I’m done early with the August challenge, I’m going to head right into learning the Motown medely. That’s going to be tons of fun, and I’m sure it’s going to pop up in one of these challenges in a not too distant future 🙂
I love surf rock and really like the wipe out arrangement, so that was my pick this month. I had very little practice time due to vacation the last few weeks, thus the late and yet unpolished submission. But I guess surf rock is suppposed to sound a little under-rehearsed 🙂 For the same reason I didn’t bother to learn or even memorize the ending lick, so I just winged it on the spot.
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.
