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Andrew, Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I also appreciate you and all the teachers here at RockClass101. You make learning the ukulele challenging and fun.
I play bass in various bands and pit orchestras and I got into the habit of always having a tuner either in the stomp box chain or clipped on the bass. In live performances a thousand things things can detune your instrument. The singer or guitarist or crew can bump your head stock and put it out of tune, the temperature and humidity can change causing the strings to detune, you can be sitting/standing too close to the lights which can detune the strings, actors can bump into you during a quick exit, and if you’re playing outside stringed instruments just go out of tune every other song, etc… It’s just a good idea to have a tuner handy. So I always leave one attached to all my instruments. Although, I’m not good enough to perform on the uke yet, I have one on my uke because I’m lazy and don’t want to have to look for a tuner when I sit down to play. 🙂
Here is my entry for the September strumming challenge. I have a fake finger nail on the index finger and haven’t figured how to use it yet.
Stephen,
Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I’ve played bass for fun (local rock bands, praise bands at church, pit orchestra, etc.) for the last 48 years. About a year ago I had to stop playing the upright because of hand problems, but I still play the electric. So I took up the ukulele to fill the hole in my practice schedule dropping the upright caused. I love it. My biggest challenge so far is realizing that I’m just a beginner on the ukulele and shouldn’t be embarrassed to be a beginner. So for this challenge I chose the beginner piece and much to my delight I could play it…kinda sorta…but in any event I could play it much better than I played St. James Infirmary last Christmas. So I’ve now learned to embrace my “beginnerness” and can start from the beginning and actually learn to play the instrument. Since I don’t have fingernails on my right hand (for bass playing) I really appreciated the fact that we got to use our thumb to play this song. I notice that you’re also a bass player, how do you handle the fingernail issue? Woo hoo! Thanks for all your help.
Cheers,
BrianAndrew and Rickhan,
Thanks for the encouraging words and advice. I appreciate them and am working on them. Thanks again for letting me participate. This is a lot of fun and I’m improving.
Thanks for teaching us how to play the ukulele and for the opportunity to ask questions.
1. I undestand that, unlike most ukuleles, Kanile’a Ukukeles are just as easy to play at the twelve fret as the first fret. How do you accomplish this?
2. How do you decide on issues that affect both playability and tone? How do you choose?