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Here is my attempt at Matt’s beautiful song ‘Winter Glass’.
@Andrew – Please do not include me in the draw this month.Here is my attempt at the 3 finger tremolo from Matt’s lesson at RC101. I started at 60 bpm and got to 105 bpm – I don’t know what the recording is at but hopefully not far off. I haven’t quite got the tremolo sound, maybe it needs to be a little faster or maybe because I don’t use nails or both – anyway I am relatively happy with the final product, though obviously still room for a lot of improvement and a good one to keep practicing.
I found on YouTube an arrangement of Malagueña by Jeff Peterson (thanks! – the tabs can be downloaded in case anyone is interested).
The arrangement also allowed me to practice the Rasgueado strum, so I could build on the November challenge – hopefully some improvement.
Amazing and inspiring entries from everyone as usual!
Happy New Year!
If I have time this month my plans are:
Execution – learn to play a little faster (but with accuracy) – with this longer term goal in mind I will start off with the triplet tremolo
Application – go through Matt’s mini lesson on the 3 finger tremolo.
Evaluation – use a metronome to increase speed and then apply to Malagueña (a shorter version than Evan’s – I need several months to learn that!) and then post my progress at the end of the month.
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I missed getting in my entry for last month (given I was struggling with Bad Moon Rising it might have been or the best!) as I went down with the flu. A colleague said her test for whether she
has a bad cold or flu is whether she would pick up a £50 note next to her bed – mine is whether I pick up my uke – since that didn’t happen for over 2 weeks then that equals a nasty flu..Anyway back now and here is my entry for this month La Gitanita. I hope I managed to get in a few rasgueado strums (or some variant) perhaps more towards the end.
Amazing entries from everyone!
@The_Bumble_Bard – that made me laugh – very creative – definitely a super power!
Here is my attempt at Matt’s arrangement of ‘You are so beautiful’ by Joe Cocker. As mentioned by several others I am trying to restrict the number of attempts at recording, this was recording number 3, still some issues but decided to go with it.
Been enjoying everyone’s entries!
@Andrew Please don’t include me in the draw this monthAndrew suggested trying a different instrument for this month’s challenge which made me remember a few years back I bought a guitalele (or guilele) as it intrigued me being a baritone size ukulele but with 6 strings (I’ve never played the guitar or any other instrument other than a uke). I didn’t really take to the guitalele and found it distracted from me trying to learn ukulele so it was put away and forgotten. Inspired by Andrew – I dusted off the cobwebs and aimed to try and learn a song – this was a real challenge as although the nut width is 50mm the string spacing is narrower and there are 6 strings to contend with!
I came across the YouTube channel Sky Guitar (which seems to be a fantastic resource if you are a guitarist) and chose the tune A Dandelions’ Promise by Jay Chou which I believe is a song from a movie. I tuned the guitalele to E tuning (Pepe Romero strings), perhaps G or A tuning would be better as the high strings sound a bit ‘compressed’ to my ears.
As the song is all in first position I thought it wouldn’t be too challenging – I was wrong – and a real pinky ‘workout’. I had to do the last part separately as the tempo change had my fingers tripping up all over the place – on a positive I dabbled a bit with iMovie and learnt how to merge two video files.
I’m glad I gave this challenge a go – although I feel I have done a disservice to a beautiful song. But I am happy to be back and reunited with my ukulele where 4 fingers = 4 strings.
@Andrew – many thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated!
Uploading this now as otherwise I won’t have time the rest of the month. I chose the classic ‘Can’t help falling in love’ by Elvis. One of the challenges was rolling, arpeggiating, the chords, it sometimes works and sometimes not so well…
PS sorry for the horrible string screech at the beginning, I usually prefer unwound G-string but the string slot width on this uke is a bit narrow. This was the best out of 5 attempts of recording (I’m trying to set a limit) so went with this one.
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With little time left this month I decided to go for Etude no. 37 and also as it is such a pretty tune. The challenge for me (as is always the case) is getting up to speed so I thought this beginner level etude would be a good opportunity to focus on speed and reach 100%. While speed isn’t everything and playing smoothly at a lower speed is better, I feel that this time I may have achieved both..
Another challenge was playing with nails, which I don’t do usually – I kept catching them on the strings and also found it difficult to control the volume. Probably will go back to no nails, as I also prefer the tone.
@Andrew – many thanks for the feedback, as you have picked up on I found that part the hardest. Also the pull-off is a bit hit and miss and haven’t quite got the hang of it so that the note sounds smooth/part of the melody, I plan to revisit your lessons on hammer ons and pull offs.
OK take 2, I’ve discovered the form doesn’t like 2 video links in one post as I’ve lost the post.So the old version first
@Andrew thanks for the challenge – I often feel that I am not progressing and even regressing some days. However, I feel that I achieved my goals for this month although the original post was ~3 years ago so I would hope there is some improvement! I focused upon, dynamics, memorisation, fewer pauses and also speeding up a bit, though once I memorised it I stopped using the tab player and just played it at a speed that sounded right and hopefully achieved the aims. Of course I couldn’t get a recording without some mistakes!Old version December 2021
After changing mind about which piece to revisit at least 4x over the last few weeks I have finally settled on Andrew’s ‘Classical Etude’. I posted it on the forum (showcase your playing) ~3 years ago. Although I now only have ~2 weeks left to practise, I will aim to memorise it, smooth out the pauses, add dynamics and try and play it a little faster. I’ll post the ‘old’ and hopefully ‘improved’ version together if I manage to get it done in time.
