[tonydismukes]

Robin, my primary martial art is BJJ. (I teach as well as train.) I currently also do Judo, Muay Thai, Boxing, and Capoeira and have trained in a bunch of other stuff over the last 35 years or so.

[tonydismukes]

Time for my weekly progress report:

I didn’t do so well this week on making my daily practice time commitment. I did practice every day, but on two days I failed to put in the full planned time. (One day I was busy with an overdue work project and another day I was just struggling with a bit of seasonal depression.) I managed an average of about 50 minutes per day.

The ear training is progressing. I’ve added chord recognition to my exercises. My melodic interval recognition is getting pretty reliable, but it’s slow. I have to listen to the notes, think about them for a couple of seconds and sometimes play the interval again. This will have to improve in order for me to do better on the “intervals in context” and melodic dictation exercises.

The songs in my repertoire are getting more and more solid. I’m still working on adding Wipeout to my list of memorized pieces, but I’m not there yet. I should finish getting that down this week.

I figure my performance piece for the end of the month with be Ode to Joy. That’s starting to sound pretty good.

I managed to bruise my left hand pretty badly at the dojo last night and it’s complaining about having to do much work today. Seems like a good day to work on right hand rhythm exercises. I’ll put in some work on the percussion section for Wipeout.

Spent some time watching Stu Fuchs on YouTube yesterday. Gave me some motivation to work harder this week.

I hope everybody is enjoying their practice as we approach the finish line for this month.

[tonydismukes]

Kay & Lisa, one thing you might find encouraging is that in my experience those plateaus where you don’t feel like you’re improving are often the precursors to significant improvements.

This can happen in a couple of ways.

1) Sometimes your proficiency in execution actually is progressing – but your critical perception (your standards) is progressing just as fast or even faster. Sometimes this can make you feel like you are getting worse even though you aren’t.

2) Sometimes your execution isn’t progressing, but you’re still strengthening the neural pathways which underlie the physical movements. There can be a delay before you see the external results. I think of it like laying down fertilizer and water for a plant. You’re providing the prerequisites for growth, but you have to wait a while before you get visible outcomes.

That’s been my experience in various fields , not just music.

[tonydismukes]

It’s working for me, but I have had occasional problems in the past accessing the premium lessons – it’s as though the page with the video thinks I’m not logged in, even though I am. What I’ve found is that logging off (via the “Log Out” link, not just closing the browser) from the website and then logging back in fixes the issue.

[tonydismukes]

Andrew, I have multiple reasons for my ear training. I want to be able to be able to figure out songs by ear – transcribing both melodies and chord progressions. I want to become a better singer. I want to be better at improvising – if I hear something in my head I want to know what the notes actually are so I can get them out on the instrument. I want to be able to jam with other musicians without always having to memorize the charts beforehand. I want to better comprehend what is going on in a piece of music that I am listening to and enjoying.

In short, I want to better comprehend the language of music. Not just analytically in the sense of knowing music theory, but in the way a native speaker of French can intuitively carry on a conversation in that language.

[tonydismukes]

Progress report for my second week:

I met my daily practice goals, but my time is down from last week. I averaged a bit over 75 minutes per day.

My ear training is progressing. I’m up to over 95% with identifying melodic intervals, so I’ve added harmonic intervals (doing better than in past years), melodic dictation (still pretty crappy at this), and intervals in context. (This is a feature of the software I hadn’t tried before. The first step is just identifying a melodic interval with a random noise note added afterwards as a distraction. It’s amazing how much harder this makes the exercise, even with only a few intervals to choose from.)

I’ve started memorizing a new song for my repertoire, but haven’t gotten it all down yet. The songs I’ve already learned are getting more and more solid and I’m trying to focus a little more on interpretation and expressiveness.

Some of the initial excitement for working on a new project is starting to fade and I’m having some days where I have to just embrace the grind. Having this challenge that I’ve committed to is helping. Also helping is that I’m doing my practice in 15 minute chunks with a timer. No matter how resistant I am to putting in work, I figure there’s no excuse for not being able to manage 15 minutes.

[tonydismukes]

Another possibility – almost anything by the Grateful Dead. They have a lot of really interesting melodies and harmonies.

[tonydismukes]

I’d love to see some traditional folk songs: Wayfaring Stranger, Wraggle-Taggle Gypsies, Scarborough Fair, that sort of thing. (I also like the pop and classical tunes you’ve been doing, but I’ve got a special place in my heart for those old songs I grew up with.)

[tonydismukes]

Thanks!

[tonydismukes]

I’ve already started on my own challenge, so I might as well post my plan for the month.

1) I’m an intermediate musician (who hadn’t been practicing much 2017), but new to the ukulele. My goals for the month are:

To establish a solid routine of daily practice (minimum 1 hour daily, including minimum 30 minutes ear training)

Build good technical basics on the ukulele, focusing on efficient left hand movement, timing, dynamics and good tone. I’ve discovered that even simple arrangements can sound really good if they are performed with good timing and tone. I’ve also discovered that the ukulele can sound really thin and plinky if you don’t work to coax a rich tone out of it.

Start building a repertoire of pieces that I have memorized solidly enough to perform without hesitation, focusing on tone and expressiveness rather than on remembering what notes to play.

2) I’m doing my practice in relatively short bursts (15 – 30 minutes at a time, generally setting a timer so I can focus on the topic at hand rather than worrying about how long I’ve been going.) For ear training, I’ve been using the Right Note app on my iPad, but I have a couple more apps (Ear Trainer lite and Earpeggio) that I may try out when I need some variety. For repertoire I’m sticking with Level 1 lessons (and some arrangements of equivalent difficulty I’ve gotten from other sources). I figure that harder pieces would take me the whole month just to get to where I could play them at all and I wouldn’t have time to work on memorization, tone, or expressiveness.) For technique, I’m trying some of the basic technique lessons, but mostly I’m using the songs I’m learning, focusing on efficient fingering and tone.

3) I’m keeping a daily record of my practice, with a breakdown of time spent on ear training, technique practice, learning new repertoire, and polishing existing repertoire. The ear training software lets me know how I’m doing on those exercises. I’m building a list of songs I can play without looking at the music. I’ve been relying on my ear to tell my how my tone and performance are improving, but I plan to record myself at the end of each week to see if I can hear the improvement from the outside on a week-to-week basis.

For my video at the end of the month I’ll pick one or two of the repertoire songs that I think are sounding good.

Since I’ve been doing this for a week now, I’ll report on my progress so far:

I’ve met my daily requirements – practice ranging from 1 to 3 hours daily with an average of a little under 2 hours per day. One day I only did 15 minutes of ear training because I lost track and thought I had already done my requisite half hour.

Per my ear training app, I’m averaging about 90% in identifying all ascending and descending melodic intervals. This is better than I’ve done in the past, but I want to get a little more solid on this before I move on to melodic dictation and harmonic intervals.

I have 5 songs memorized (3 are from other sources that I started learning in December before I signed up for this site). A couple of them I think actually sound pretty good most of the time, but I’m still putting too much effort into remembering them and I make the occasional flub.

I’ve figured out a couple of practice tricks which may not be new to others but have been helpful to me. (I’m glad to share them if anyone else is interested.)

I plan on recording myself tonight so I have something to compare to next week.

For this coming week I want to learn one or two new songs, continue polishing my existing material, and add melodic dictation and/or harmonic intervals to my ear training.

I hope everyone else is have success working on your own goals for the month. I’ll check back in next week.

[tonydismukes]

I’m a bit late to the party, but since I just joined I figure I’ll toss in my two cents:

Question 1) Rank from 1 (most important) to 3 (least important), what do you value most about Rock Class 101?
Detailed instruction – not just “here’s the notes to play”, but careful breakdown of the fingering, timing, technical aspects, etc. I also appreciate that you have lessons both on specific techniques and complete songs.

Question 2) Which level would you like to see more lessons on in 2018?

It’s all good. Right now for me, level one lessons are simple enough that I can learn them in a day, but are still helpful for learning. Level two lessons are going to be a challenge. I’m hoping that by the end of the year I’ll have progressed enough so that level twos are easy and I’m looking to the higher levels for a challenge.

Question 3) Do you want to see more community interactive events? Such as our 25 Question Lightning Round or the Q&A session with Taimane.

Community stuff sounds cool, but I’ll wait until I’ve been here longer to voice an opinion.

Question 4) Do you own a Low G ukulele?

Nope.

Question 5) Do you own a Baritone ukulele?

Yep, but currently with re-entrant tuning (high-D) to take advantage of the greater tab resources available for standard uke.

Question 6) Write any comments on what you would like to see in 2018 and/or how we could improve Rock Class 101.

A couple of thoughts:

I’d love to see song arrangements that include both vocal accompaniment (rhythm + any signature licks & fills) and a chord-melody instrumental solo. This is the way I would like to play during performance. I can come up with basic accompaniment arrangements (though not always with the cool fills) and I’m starting to learn the basics of how to build a chord-melody instrumental solo, but what I don’t have down yet is how to fit the two together so that the groove of the accompaniment fits stylistically with the solo.

Another fun idea would be to take some of your technique and theory lessons and show how they could be used to create different arrangements of the same song. For example, you could pick a simple folk song which could sound good with different interpretations and then have different lessons where you show how to create a blues version, a reggae version, a clawhammer version, a percussive version, a version using harmonics, etc. This might help make the technique lessons into compositional tools rather than just physical tools.

[tonydismukes]

I’ll see if I can get a video together in the next few days.

[tonydismukes]

Thanks for the videos above, Andrew. Those were helpful. My ukulele has a strap which I really like, but I want to be prepared for occasions where I might pick up someone else’s uke which doesn’t have the strap.

I do have a couple of related questions which I hope you might help with.

1) Do you change anything in how you hold the uke while standing up to play? I come from a background of playing bass and guitar, so I’m more comfortable performing while standing.

2) I’m a big guy (6’4″) with large hands. When you hold the uke, it looks like you have roughly the middle of your right forearm against the corner of the uke. When I hold the uke as you demonstrate and have my fingers over the soundhole, the contact point for my forearm is only 1-1.5 inches from my wrist. This feels less stable while I’m strumming. If I slide my forearm deeper to a contact point like you have it feels more secure, but my fingers are now past the body and up the neck of the uke. This doesn’t work for fingerpicking, but seems okay for strumming. Do you have any recommendations (Use one position for strumming and one for picking/ stick to one for both/ other)?

My strap does take care of both these issues for me, but I’d like to develop good habits so that if I pick up a friend’s strapless uke I can function without confusion.

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