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Thanks for the feedback! It helps a bit after I try to be more conscious with my wrist position.
And I’ve started learning St. Anne’s Reel as that’s such lovely song 🙂 Probably won’t be able to make the desired BPM by the end of moth, but hopefully I can play the entire song through by then.
I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER.
Not sure if my wrist is twisting too much though. In this etude, the index down strumming all starts from the fourth string and the thumb down pick is all on the first string or second string (except for the last note in Melody B), so I find myself have to twist my wrist so that my thumb can reach the two lower strings. I’ve already taken and practiced the couple lessons in the new course prior to this etude, but still couldn’t figure that out whether / where I got it wrong. Thanks!
Thank you Andrew for your suggestion! The anchor method does feel and sounds different than the floating method. Cannot tell which I prefer yet but I’m practicing to be more comfortable with both for more flexibility 🙂
Thank you Andrew!
PLEASE DO NOT ADD THIS POST TO THE RAFFLE, because I already had one entry posted earlier.
I just realized this weekend that Rainbow Connection only goes up to 7th fret, which is finally a perfect match for my 12-fret-only Soprano 🙂 So I recorded it on Soprano today and also tried using thumb for down strumming instead of index finger.
I have a small question from this shift. I like the sound of thumb strumming better, but still feel more comfortable strumming with index finger (at least when strumming all 4 strings). I feel that if I strum with my index finger, I can just slightly and quickly rotate my forearm and wrist and back, so my hand is in a relatively stable position (i.e. fingers with respect to the 4 strings); but if I strum with my thumb, I’d have to actual shift my entire hand to a lower position in order to make the thumb strum ring well, so the other fingers are no longer at a good position with the strings and the move of the entire hand is slower, which is fine for a slow-pace song like this, but it feels a bit awkward to me. Am I doing something wrong with my way of thumb strumming (from the video)? Or is it just me lack of practice to be more comfortable? Thanks!
@Andrew You caught me! I have two almost identical ukuleles for some reasons and therefore kind of alternate between using them, sometimes put them in different rooms for easier access. Yesterday after I practiced a while on uke1, I found it sounding a bit dull somehow even with tuning, so I switched to uke2 (which I haven’t used this week) before recording this attempt, and forgot that I should tune uke2 too. I checked uke2 with tuner just now: the G string was a little bit off and the E string was very off… Also, uke2’s action is slightly higher than uke1 so I may have not pressed the strings at lower frets firm enough… Wish I have good ears as you do…
Btw, I’ve watched some videos for changing strings, but how do I tell that the strings are actually worn out and that I do need to change strings? Like my uke1 sounded a bit dull yesterday even with tuning but seemed totally fine today… Also, since I have two identical ukes, I was thinking of converting one of them to a low G for fun, when the original strings are worn out. Can I just buy a set of low G strings to replace them? Or is there any specifial requirement on the uke itself? Thanks!
I didn’t grow up with The Muppets as a kid, but I fell in love with Rainbow Connection as soon as I heard it! It’s so beautiful and I am so happy to learn it and play it myself. Thanks to rockclass101 and to Matt for the arrangement and tutorial!
I’m still practicing the Rainbow Connection, but I find that the rhythm of bar 31 in the interactive player audio doesn’t seem matching with the tab. In the downloaded tab and the tutorial (25:25), the 3 notes last for 1/8, 3/8, 1/4; but in interactive player’s audio (non-synthetic), it sounds like 1/4, 1/4, 1/4 to me? Thanks!
Thanks for the feedback and suggestion, Andrew! I did sometimes find it hard to keep the first joint bent and keep the strings pressed firm enough at the same time. I guess I need to work on my fingers stretch a bit more. (I think that improving stretch would help for bar 18 too.)
Btw, I think you put me 3 times in the raffle (twice as qiuyan, once as misspelled quiyan). I submitted Yankee Doodle twice (second time after some more practice with your suggestions) and The Entertainer once, but I think I should only be given one raffle ticket according to the rules. Otherwise, I’d hesitate to share progress next time as I don’t want to take more spots than I should have. 😀
I know it’s beyond my current level and I probably should take time to practice the basics more, but The Entertainer just sounds so fun that I couldn’t resist. So yeah, my second half of July was distracted to learning this… I know it’s not good, but I also want to leave a record here and look back after a few months or a year.
Hi @jlbross, thank you! My playing still doesn’t sound as smooth as I’d like to, but the lesson that Andrew suggested definitely helps! And I find practicing more on chord transition also helps, because given the same speed, if the chord transition takes less time, it should mean that I can leave my fingers on the strings for a longer duration.
Regarding the uke, I just got a Concert bundle from Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015XD4YLY/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_kQMdFb5N474TM). I bought it mostly for the overall price (considering the bag, tuner, extra set of strings, etc., and it was $10 cheaper when I bought it). But here’s my warning: there could be setup issues. How do I know? Well, after I received my bundle, it was missing the extra strings and the bag was very dirty, so I contacted the seller, and they offered me 2 more bundles that were returned to the warehouse to avoid me returning mine… Then I found that one of the 2 had slightly lower action than the original one, so it actually felt a bit more comfortable; but the other of the 2 had too low action so sometimes it buzzed on the fret… Of all the 3, the edge of the neck is scratchy as the metal fret bars pokes out a tiny bit, so I had to use sand paper to smooth it. Also note that the back of this uke is arched, intended to have fuller sound I guess, but it does feel a bit strange when holding it.
Got a small stand to support my phone to take video instead of audio only, though it’s a bit shaky and tilted 🙂
I’m still working on better sustain as Andrew suggested (with chord transition), hopefully it has been improved a bit since about a week ago…
But did I accidentally get the tapped harmonics working for once? (Most of the time I can only do weak single note harmonics tapping now, so I’m not even sure if the last note is the right sound for the tapped harmonics on 4 strings.)
(yea, I know the pull-off note in this video is a bit rushed, and a couple other notes sound a bit off…)
Thank you Andrew for releasing my post and great great feedback! I did notice previously that my playing sounds choppy, but haven’t really thought much into it until today. Your suggestion and the linked lesson are both very helpful. I’ll definitely work harder on this issue!
This is my first participation in the monthly challenge, after slowly taking some of the basic lessons since last Sep. Here’s my submission for I’ve got so far for Yankee Doodle. Hopefully I can get better over the next couple weeks.
TBH, when harmonics appeared in some of the lessons and songs I learned here previously, I always just gave up and simply played the 12th fret note directly. I thought it impossible for me to get the harmonics working. I even thought that maybe my ukulele wasn’t good enough to have the harmonics ring… But after more practices on only harmonics (while watching TV shows over the long weekend…), I think I finally get it working with the “pluck” version, but am still having trouble with the “tapping” version even on single note.
Btw, I find it slightly easier for me with the artificial harmonics technique than with the natural one, probably because it’s easier to sync between fingers of a single hand to pluck and lift at the same time than to sync between two hands…
I tried to submit my Yankee Doodle, but kept getting the error: “Duplicate reply detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that.” However, I cannot find my submission post in this thread. How can I fix that?
Btw, I saw some posts having the line “I am a premium member.” – which I am too, but is that required to put in the post? (Sorry if it’s a dumb question. It’s my first time participating in the monthly challenge, though I have slowly learned lessons and songs here since last Sep…)
Thanks!
