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Hi, Andrew,
Here is my submission for this month’s challenge, Down by the Bay. As usual, I am not posting in order to win anything. It is just for fun.
The thing that I have the most difficulty with in this song is playing swung 8th notes at high speed. They tend to want to even out and lose the swung timing.
I am certainly not playing it anywhere near the posted speed of 180 bpm. I saw Tessa playing this song on Friday’s posting, so I thought I might as well submit my attempt too. These challenges are very enjoyable.Hope you are having success getting your hands to heal.
Regards,
Vida FentonHi, Andrew,
Here is my entry for this month.
As usual, I do not wish to win anything, just to participate for fun. I started learning this piece in mid March. I am also working on Etude no. 11, but it will not be up to speed and ready to post this month. Thanks for these monthly challenges. They help me stay focused and motivated.
Hi, Andrew,
Here is my entry for March. As usual, I do not want to win anything. I am just entering for fun.
Thanks for your prayers for my father-in-law. He rallied very nicely. He was home from the hospital just before we left for our trip. We had a good visit with everyone. Dad loaned me a spare baritone so I could continue practising during the trip.
Regards,
Vida FentonHi, Andrew,
Here is my offering for this month’s challenge. Blues Shuffle played on baritone ukulele.
Once again, I am not entering to win anything. It is just for fun.
It would have been nice to have had another week to polish this piece, but my father-in-law is seriously ill. We are flying out to Ontario from BC Friday morning. It is the earliest we could get away. With all that is going on and our preparations to leave, I did not want to leave this posting to the last minute.This performance needs more work. I sped up when playing the strummed sections of this piece. I also had problems with sweaty fingers creating the effect of unwanted pull offs.
Here is my submission for this month’s challenge. This is the before video posted last November.
Here is the recording that I did tonight.
In the finger picking course, I have only gotten as far as the three finger approach. I am having difficulty getting the exercises up to their rated speed. The beginner exercise is supposed to go 180 bpm on quarter notes and exercise is eighth notes. I am having trouble getting the speed above 150 bpm. The intermediate exercise was only rated for 80 bpm on quarter notes with exercise being mostly triplets. I could get that much more easily. The Finger picking Etude #5 is supposed to be played at 200 bpm for quarter notes. Much of the picking pattern is in eighth notes. This will also be very difficult to achieve the rated speed.
Here is my practice schedule for the month.
This month, I am working on the finger picking course. I would like to complete as much of it as possible this month. Last year, I jumped way ahead working on pieces without studying some of the basic techniques first. I was particularly disappointed with my
choppy performance of Fur Elise. I hope that by taking a breather from learning difficult songs and working on basic technique, I will play this piece more smoothly. My practice schedule will be attached when my final performance is posted. My progress will be evaluated by seeing how far I have gotten in the course by month end and a rerecording of Fur Elise for a before and after.Very sorry for your loss Deb. My condolences to you and your family. Remembering you in prayer. It was very courageous for you to post your performance at this difficult time. Hugs.
Hi, Andrew,
I just donated $20 US to the Ukulele Kids’ Club. This challenge is a wonderful idea.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone at Rock Class 101.
Vida Fenton
Hi, Andrew,
Here is my entry for this month’s challenge. As usual, it still needs a lot more work. I find the vamp section tricky. In the final theme, I seem to pull string #4 in too tight. There are a few hesitations and little mistakes.
Hi, Andrew,
Here is my submission for the November Challenge.
It still needs a lot of work. It is not quite up to speed. It sounds very mechanical, almost plink, plink plink. I have difficulty getting the notes to ring clearly in the chords of the middle section. I do not think I am pressing the strings with sufficient tension. I find that playing with a metronome seems to make my playing very mechanical.
Hi, Kit,
Congratulations on such wonderful news! Praise God for answered prayer! I hope and pray that you will continue cancer free and have a long, healthy, and happy life.
I have had breast cancer twice 13 years apart. I am OK now. The last recurrence was in 2015. It was all removed with surgery in 2016. Looking after health issues is often a journey, not an end in itself. We need to be watchful and proactive, but not fearful.
Hugs.
Hi, Andrew,
Thanks for your comments about my pieces. I am a little puzzled about the comment concerning the piece ‘Halloween’ where you recommend that I hold the chords so that they ring out for the whole duration that they are supposed to. I keep full tension on the chords for the allotted time, but the notes seem to decay fairly quickly, so do not last as long as I would like. Could it be the strings that I am using? They are Aquila red series. I got a set of Kala Pearls from Uke Republic. I plan to put them on after these wear out. The Kala Pearls are supposed to require less tension to fret the notes.
Hi, Andrew,
Here is the link for my second piece.
I loaded the video from my ipad air 2 to my laptop, then uploaded it to youTube from the laptop. To my relief, that worked well. So, there was an issue with my upgrade of ios on the ipad that caused the problem.
This performance of ‘Halloween’ is not very good. I have an awful time with nerves when I am recording, so make a lot more mistakes than I would otherwise. I found the D melody the hardest to play cleanly, especially the first measure of it. Perhaps I should have tried muting the 4th string with the thumb. I just thought of that now. But that seems to give an unwanted click when I strum the chord. I seemed to trip over the strings with my fingers when I tried strumming this section quickly. I still have some issues with hand cramping when playing melodies A and B. The pinkie does not want to stand up perpendicular to the strings. My right hand seems to want do drift south and not stay in place near the top of the sound hole. Over all, I found this piece tedious to learn. I think it will make a good warm up exercise, so I will keep working on it.Hi, Andrew,
Once again, I am entering this challenge just for fun, not to win anything. I could not get youTube to work, so tried uploading to Vimeo. I do not play this piece quite up to speed, but that will take more time. I will be posting another song shortly.
