[nat-uke]

Yay! Choose your own RC song! I’m continuing the Clawhammer practice this month with Cripple Creek, arranged by Christopher. It sounded a little intimidating, but I looked at it again- actually simple chords without any “reaches”. Sounds awesome with the backing track. It’s a short month, so happy to have advance warning so I can start a little learning today 😁 👏👏

[nat-uke]

I am a premium member.

Wow this was a fun challenge and I enjoyed seeing the large variety of things everyone was working on. The challenge I chose was ‘clawhammer’. Starting from zero on this technique. I used the RC clawhammer course to understand the technique. For the song, I preferred to learn ‘Wildwood Flower’. It has many verses that just repeat, so I just did one run through. I enjoyed clawhammer and the song so much, I ended up buying a banjolele. 🙂 It just arrived last night, so I added a “take” of the same song with banjolele so you can hear the difference. There was some chatter about GP – I love that program and it is what I used to create the tab that I learned the song from. I created the tab using GP, but the arrangement is from Matt Stead. I just tabbed out the handwritten notes he had in his video. I attached an image of the GP arrangement in the post.

I think my next banjolele song will be Cripple Creek (from RC101). This instrument is just such a happy sound.

-Natalie

[nat-uke]

@anyon1 – love to see & hear another person learning Clawhammer this month! Nice playing 👍 I appreciated your comment about the arm guard and some discomfort using the banjolele that you borrowed. I have been intrigued with the banjolele sound and after working on Clawhammer this month, I decided to finally go ahead and buy one.😁 Sadly I’m still waiting for it to be delivered (hopefully here Monday because I wanted to record one take on std uke and one take on the banjolele to show the difference). Anyway – I ended up buying an Aklot banjolele – final swing point for decision on this was the Aklot had arm guard which none of the others I looked at had. I wasn’t sure if it would make that much of a difference, but based on your experience, I think, for me, I’m going to be happy that I got this one with the arm guard. Hope to see it delivered tomorrow!
-Natalie

[nat-uke]

So many choices 🤯 🤔! I love this challenge concept. I like how it makes you think about what you are learning, why (what you will do with it) and your plan for breaking it down step by step to get there.

1) Execution
Learn the Clawhammer technique. It is such a happy sounding vibe. I think there are tons of songs that are suited for the technique. I’ve loved the countless YouTube videos I’ve seen, but always thought it seemed too intimidating to tackle at this point.
I’ve previously poked around on the rc101 Clawhammer course, but it didn’t come quickly enough to me (motion so foreign to what I’m used to doing), so I set it aside in a bit of frustration and moved to the next “shiny thing”.
I’ll restart the RC101 Clawhammer course and practice more consistently, trying to do a little bit every day and not jump forward until the new motion becomes automatic. Patience.

2) Application
Be able to play “Wildwood Flower” in the Clawhammer style. I know there are learning songs included in the Clawhammer course, but what I’d find more joy in learning is “Wildwood Flower”. I feel like this is still a fairly simple song to learn in form and length. I’ve seen a lot of videos where the player spiced it up with hammer-ons, slides, and other funky things, but I think a basic version still sounds pleasing. I saw this video which is probably the end game I’d like to reach. (Jump to 41:50 for uptempo playthrough)

3) Evaluation
Week 1 – learn & ingrain Clawhammer technique by using Clawhammer course lessons
Week 2 – start learning & memorize wildwood flower section 1
Week 3 – learn & memorize song section 2 and put it all together
Week 4 – practice and record result reached

Have fun everyone!

Natalie

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by nat-uke.

[nat-uke]

@abster – wow, that was awesome and made me smile 😊. He plays so smoothly and confidently – making it look easy. ❤️ p.s. love the thumbs up and big smile at the end. 👍👍 😊😊

[nat-uke]

Thanks @The_Bumble_Bard – I can understand why the Aura Lee song would always be special to you for sure. 🎸 I have recently started recording myself for fun when I first start learning a song. As I progress, I think – “yuck, not getting too far with this!”, but then when I go back and watch an early days recording I can readjust my perspective and see hey ya, much better, there is progress! It’s a great motivator for me to use to compare myself on a song. 📈

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by nat-uke.

[nat-uke]

Thanks much @dianna 🥰 – what a great group of folks here!

[nat-uke]

Thanks very much @andrew ! 🥰

[nat-uke]

I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER

I didn’t want a Christmas song this time, so I went with the classic Aura Lee. FINALLY, a song that didn’t take me the entire month to learn – haha. Will be out of town quite a bit with some medical procedures for my hubby coming up, so I was happy to be able to learn and record this one before we left. I looked up all the lyrics for this one and am working on singing/playing together for it. I only recorded my playing here – no vocals (you’re welcome?? haha) :-D.

Love the music therapy for kids (or patients in general) program! It’s tougher to focus on your problems when you are learning an instrument or a song.

-Natalie

[nat-uke]

I am a PREMIUM MEMBER.

I went with Haunted Uke – it was tougher than it looked with the timing, hammer ons, pulls offs, slides, vibrato. I liked learning what the little slash through the note meant in the score on the slides too – 🙂

Excited to see what the Nov choices will be. Again, this month’s song is not a style I would have even looked at before, so these challenges are fun to keep things different from what I normally gravitate to.

[nat-uke]

Wow – that is a stunner for sure! I’m think I’m going to work on “Haunted Uke” for October. Loving the backing track accompaniment feature on most of this month’s songs. I’d better get busy – haha. 👍

[nat-uke]

Yay – congrats @rafaela ! Enjoy! 🎉🥳

[nat-uke]

This made me smile. Nice! 👏

[nat-uke]

@andrew thanks for the feedback and tip on the G string/thumb in B section 👍👍👍😁

[nat-uke]

@jbmills07 cool idea with the unboxing video – thanks for letting us all participate in the joy of unboxing. Such a pretty instrument and it sounds so warm. Congrats! 🎉🎈

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