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My Late Week #2 Update 😁
I’m learning fundamentals of u-bass and have switched fron Ukulele Wales to Stephen Cox’s YouTube lessons for consistency (because he’s also here in Rock Class). Uke Wales is great; I’ll probably check there from time to time, but Stephen’s great too.
—> I’ve just started Lesson 7: Major and Minor Scales, but still working a bit on 6: Grid Warmup.
Didn’t realize that bass would be harder than regular uke in terms of fretting and plucking hand coordination. It’s fine; just a bit surprising. I played a little guitar as a kid, so that might be why regular uke felt natural from the start.
So since early Jan. I’ve done ultra basics like holding, tuning, and other, with some note learning which I started over at Uke Wales and will finish with Stephen’s Lesson 8.
—> I’m also learning “3 U-Bass Lines for 12-Bar Blues.” Coming along fine, just trying to make myself slow down and emphasize accuracy over speed. I always want to go too fast!
Thanks, @Andrew!
Weekly Report 1
It’s coming along, slow and steady. Well, too slowly and kind of unsteadily lol.
—Have learned to tune, hold, and pluck my u-bass.
—Am learning (from Ukulele Wales) to fret so that my whole hand is used, even if I’m just pressing one string, and am about a quarter of the way through learning the notes. I hope to join a uke group soon and at least be able to play along and pluck notes using their chord charts.
—Have just started learning Stephen’s “Come Together” and “3 U-Bass Lines.” I won’t be able to finish both; just wanted to get a taste of each before deciding which one to complete. “Come Together” has kind of a tricky number of continual small changes which will be hard to memorize, so I’ll likely do “3 Lines.”
Sure is fun playing the start of ”Come Together,” though.
Next week’s aim: finish learning notes, decide on song, be at least a quarter of the way through song.
Guys, to post weekly updates on our self-selected challenges, do we reply to the general thread here or to our individual thread? TIA!
Love this challenge! Only problem is that I want to learn so many things, I initially thought I’d never decide. My Christmas gift, however, helped me to figure it out.
Execution
Learn preliminaries of U-bass.
I’ve had a Kala Journeyman U-bass for awhile but haven’t begun to play it. I got a Kala Solid Body for Christmas as well, so now’s the time to start!
Application
—-Learn bare-bone basics via Ukulele Wales on YouTube: holding, tuning, plucking, fretting.
—-Master Jaco Pastorius’ “Donna Lee” and perform it to a sold-out stadium.
—-Learn or get a start on “3 U-Bass Lines for 12 Bar Blues in G” on Rock Class 101.I don’t know if I’m ready for the theory part of “3 U-Bass Lines” or its multiple levels, so I may instead learn one of these pieces: Beatles “Come Together,” Khruangbin, “August 10,” Brandi Carlile, “The Story,” or CCW, “Fortunate Son.” Tabs are available on Rock Class as well as YouTube.
Evaluation
I’ll post a paragraph summary each week.
Thanks so much, @mysticrick! I’m off to check those links.
@dianna Great job. 😊
@otzepeng Boy. That was really nice.
I’d also love a score for anything by Brandi Carlile.
Maybe “The Story,” “Hold Out Your Hand,” “Human,” anything from first two albums, even something really simple like “Have You Ever.” Anything.
Honestly—wouldn’t it be a kick trying to figure out how to do the big transition near the beginning? lol
Hard, I know. But who cares? This is Rock Class 101!! Best uke teachers on the planet!
Ok, I know this will sound nuts. But I would love tabs for Carlos Santana’s “Europa.” It’s probably utterly antithetical to uke, but I’m thinking Risa Les Paul or Flight electrics or other. I’d just die to have something remotely close.
In some of his performances, the song probably has the longest held note in history and on planet earth lol.
Really enjoying this thread.
I’ve had a lot of ukepiphanies, in all different sizes. 😊 The first was just discovering again the utterly basic and pure joy of making music. Meaning: relearning how to read a score, struggling with the first notes and fingerings of a new song, on a new instrument, and then suddenly–a few bars! I played a tiny bit of guitar, clarinet, and flute in my youth, so this was kind of an epiphany revisited 40 years later, or Bare Bones Music Epiphany, The Sequel.
Or, yeah, a ukepiphany.
I’m not familiar with him, but will certainly look him up. And there’s nothing cringeworthy about your post! A thoughtful longer comment is fabulous.
(I go by Cindy Bremer as well as Cindy Nichols. Cin + Nichol–hence “cinichol” which became my common screen name eons ago.
That was probably more info than anyone needed lol )
His performance is such a trip! I notice right off how he varies volume and tempo pretty dramatically. (At least, I think that’s what he’s doing.) It’s amazing too the constant flourishes he brings to everything (like hammer-on/pull-offs and little slides?). (I just flashed on that old Elvis song, “Love Me Tender,” which is like the diametrical opposite: stripped utterly bare of flourish. I always thought it sounded kind of funny but also sweet that way.)
Anyway, one question: what do you call that kind of intro he does at the start? And what is that ultra intense strumming he does later in the song??
Also, how in the heck does he keep from beating his ukes all to hell lol.
