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Hi Anirbaf
My wife and I own a 1 soprano, 2 concerts, 1 tenor, and a guitalele. Excluding the guitalele, I prefer concerts and my wife prefers sopranos.
The downsides of the soprano are that my fingers get cramped on the fretboard, there aren’t enough frets to play everything I want to play, and they are a bit quiet. They produce a wonderfully plinky Hawaiian tone though, and my wife doesn’t find the fretboard cramped at all. That’s just me.
I find the concert fretboard most comfortable and there are usually enough frets as long as I don’t use a capo. They are still a bit quieter than the tenor, but that isn’t usually an issue. My wife finds the concert fretboards a bit of a stretch though. The tone is a happy medium between the soprano and the tenor.
Both my wife and I struggle to play stretch chords on the tenor. The tone is really resonant, though, almost like a guitar. It’s great for if I want to play really high up the fretboard or if I need volume.
I hope that helped.
Robin
Thanks Andrew. I’ll look at that video when I can.
I think what you were seeing was the culmination of hours of frustration trying to record in the evening, so all the rhythm and tempo just went out the window. I’ll see if I can get a more relaxed recording done when I get back.
Also, as always, I forgot to say I AM A PREMIUM MEMBER.
Hi Jina,
Yeah, the D shape was something that I asked Andrew about before I did it.
When you are asking about the 4th note, I assume you are talking about the verses? In that case, yes, I’m plucking it, but it isn’t very apparent and I miss it half the time. I decided that rather than tapping the fretboard, I am more comfortable chunking to get the percussive sound, so I replaced the tap with a chunk. The trouble with that is that I end up with my hand out of position for the 4th beat, so rather than plucking with 2 fingers, I’m strumming up with the index, but missing the C and G strings. I hope that makes sense.
I know I took a few liberties with this arrangement. I hope that’s OK.
I really need a few more days to get this polished, but I’m going on Holiday to Cairns the day after tomorrow and I just can’t devote any more time to it. Basically, it’s fine except that I’m still not entirely comfortable so I sped up halfway though the first verse and then brought it back into a good tempo by the end of the song. Anyway, it would have been sooooo much better if I could have posted next week.
I imagine it would give a generally fuller sound when strumming, with an emphasis on the C and A strings… Not something I would go out of my way to achieve, but I suppose if you are made of money and have a huge uke collection, then it is something to try…
I also haven’t tried one but I am interested. Mele (who made my good uke) make 6-string models with doubled C and A strings, but they aren’t cheap!
It’s not just you. Jack Johnson is well known for squeezing weird numbers of syllables in lines and then making it sound totally natural when he sings. Actually, I could even hear Katie struggling with it a bit in her video.
Guilty. I try to refer back to the videos to make sure I’m not missing anything, but I start by printing out the tabs and taking them to the lounge room.
Finally got around to watching it. I’m glad you’ll be covering vibrato in the future because that’s something I really need to work on.
@lildevil – I suppose I could record at the beach and pretend that it’s not FREEZING right now.
I have a question about Better Together. When Katie mutes the G string for the chorus, is that for ease (so you don’t have to fret a full E chord shape) or for aesthetic reasons (it sounds better)? Personally, I find it easier to slide the full E chord shape up and down the neck (including the G string) and I don’t think that negatively impacts the sound, so that is what I have been doing.
D’oh. I forgot about it. I decided to go for a walk to de-stress after the valuer came to look at our house, and I could have just logged on to the lesson. I’ll have to catch up later.
@johanna2509 – I was waiting for Andrew to reply to you but he must have missed it. Anyway, NONE of us can sing like Katie. I don’t think it’s an issue.
