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What a bunch of great advise Jina. I could read that several times.
I have one tiny thing that might help. Do you ever play E – 1402. I think it sounds good and is easy to get in and out of.
I can totally relate, think I’m slightly introverted so crowds are not my comfort zone.
One of the things I like about the ukulele over guitar is that when nerves play havoc the tenor ukulele is just physically easier to control.
-RonHi Holly,
When I studied classical guitar way back in high school I had a teacher with much smaller hands than mine. I have really long fingers. My teacher could execute stretches that I could not at that time. Those stretches that seem out of reach may become very possible with time.
RonI have seen this happen when my strings get older – lots of playing in the first position forms little fret dents on the bottoms of strings. It can also happen if your action at the nut is higher than necessary, pushing the string down.
-RonAnother cool topic. I don’t think it’s correct to avoid looking at the fretboard, assuming you are not playing completely by reading sheet music. I think when you have learned a piece, you want to change fingering based on muscle memory and not based on looking where you are and going to where you can see the new position on the fretboard. When making a large jump to a higher or lower position you need to visually check that location. In general, I usually gaze away but have the fretboard in my peripheral vision. I once heard in a guitar master class an exercise to look at your right hand while thinking about what your left hand is doing and also the other way around.
-RonCheck out “Discuss Your Gear” => “Does anyone does ukulele setups, as some of this was discussed there.
I know I had my higher end uke’s nut work done by a luthier and it is good and I don’t want to touch it. On my medium grade uke I wasn’t afraid to give it a try and got good results.
-RonRealizing my Snark tuner is able to change the A hertz, I had to try this. I had never heard of this before. Had no idea there might be a better tuning reference. I like the sound! I now have two ukuleles and two guitars all tuned to A=432. Not sure if I’m healing my DNA like some evidently believe, as referenced in the video, but it sounds good to my ears. There are lots of other reasons someone might do this, especially on a tenor ukulele. It definitely lowers the tension a little bit and I don’t know that it would work without a somewhat higher tension string. I use Aquilla nylgut. It could definitely be useful for a beginner to play a 1st pos. Bb cleanly. String bend and vibrato is a bit easier also. I am curious if other people try A=432 and like the sound. It is very easy to do on the newer Snarks.
RonGood question. Somewhere I saw a video where Taimane talks about her 5 string Kamaka. She explained that she actually uses a double low G and that it gives her uke a deeper tone.
-RonI’ve been exploring those two triplet patterns this last month. I’ve found that I like to use Matt’s method when I play a slower more deliberate triplet, and Jake’s method (id – tu – iu) for fast triplets.
-Ron
I’ve worked out a bunch of things and committed them to memory. Now I’m juggling them all so that I can keep them at performance level and don’t choke as the nerves attempt to sabotage me while playing for people. For some it has helped to be able to play the piece starting near the end or 1/2 way through. Some of the ones that I like to play and require almost daily attention are.
“I Will” – UkuLenny tab
“Always with Me” – Corey Fujumoto tab (this took me by far the longest to memorize but was worth it)
“Still Can’t Say Goodbye” – Corey Fujumoto tab (Chet Atkins piece)
“Moon” – Evans tab
“Clair de Lune” – From a new book “Romantic Ukulele”, I adapted to low G
“Hallelujah” – Kimo Hussey tab
-RonHi Lisa,
Good question. I have some flamenco background prior to the uke being my main focus. You are exactly right in your description of the “modern” flamenco triplet “down with middle+ring (or just middle), down thumb and up thumb”. I tried this on the uke and it worked OK. A couple months ago I started working on Jake’s and Taimane’s method, as you describe “down index, up thumb, up index”. Once I got the muscle memory and practice of Jake’s method down, I found that it works MUCH better. I think it might have to do with the distance across the strings. I also found that I can go in and out of that uke triplet with other strumming patterns.I always try to bring my Uke or a guitar on my car (usually camping) vacations. Usually very dry weather is something to look out for especially with solid tops. Leaving it in a hot car can cause the bridge to pull up if the glue gets too hot.
I have been meaning to say this for a while but with his performance of Moonlight Sonata I feel like I just need to. Other than maybe Taimane my favorite ukulele artist is Evan J De Silva on this site. It is a bit humbling when he is that good at his age. His musical artistry is much better than mine even though I have decades of classical guitar background before diving into the ukulele 2 years ago. I’d love to see concert him in concert. His musical sensitivity is as good as almost anyone’s (not just ukulele) in my opinion.
I never had callouses on my finger tips until I started playing tenor ukulele. Never got them on nylon string guitar and didn’t really play steel string where I’m sure I would have developed callouses. I do smooth them down a bit with my Emory board. The only problem I had was sliding across a couple fret ends next to the A string and have since had those rounded down.
Joel, the setup expert at “The Ukulele Site” has a good podcast on doing a “ghetto” ukulele setup. It gave me enough information to do a setup on my intermediate level uke. The key thing is to go slowly, a little bit at a time and stop when you get it to the low range. I use a magnifying glass, 320 grit sand paper folded over as he suggests in this podcast and then very fine sandpaper. Low action makes a big difference on tenors (2.5 – 3.0 mm at the 12th fret / just the tiniest clearance at the first fret when pressing down at the 3rd fret) but might become problematic if the neck has straightness and relief issues.
Here is the podcast:
Once again I am in complete agreement with Andrew. So far I have not found a string I like as much as the regular Aquila nylgut. I use them on both a solid Koa and a solid w/ spruce top. They just sound fuller to me. Like Andrew has said they last a long time before the intonation starts to slowly go. The low G does need to be replaced more often, but I move the low G down toward the saddle a tiny bit after a few months to get a little more out of them. The only thing I would say about the Aquila nylgut is that they are fairly high tension and you might need to get the action at nut and saddle pretty low on a tenor so that they play easily. I do my own setup own setup adjustments now very carefully with sandpaper and magnifying glass. I probably will check out fluorocarbon clears again some time, but last time I took them off pretty quickly as they didn’t seem to sound as good to my ears.