Aloha everyone! This week, as you may have noticed from the title I have been practicing, a lot! Most of that practicing can be amounted to learning "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", the first song that I have really spent time on. And if I don't say so myself, I have gotten quite good at it. When playing, the song is actually quite basic chord-wise. It is mostly C, F, and G chords, with a few A-minors. Though it may sound a bit daunting to the "average person", but these are some of the most basic chords of the instrument. The tough part of the song is the strumming. I can't really put how to do it into words, but this guy explains it very well.
Over spring break I will be away, so I will probably have to meet with Ben over Skype. This is not optimal for my lesson, however is much better than nothing. Anyway, I will be going to an island in North Carolina on break, a perfect place to play the ukulele. I'm pretty excited to play some ukulele on the beach, it seems to be a very traditional way of playing. Also, because I will be on a beach, I may try to record a music video of sorts on the ukulele, which would then be shown on the Ted Talk. This may not be the most professional of videos, but I think that it will be fun to make, at the very least. On the topic of the Ted Talk, I am starting to really get some good ideas. I can't really tell you what those ideas are yet(confidential stuff, no spoilers!), but I can say that I am getting pretty excited.
In general, this has been fantastic in ukulele playing. Last week, I had practiced for at least six hours, which is quite a bit of playing. Along with that practice, I had watched an hour or so of Youtube videos on the ukulele, typically consisting of covers of songs. These covers help me see the ukulele in action, and though I cannot really play those songs yet, seeing them helps teach me a few strum patterns and chords. Before I go, I have a question for any ukulele players in the gifted class. Maybe it is just because my ukulele is small, but when I put my finger on the first fret of a string the resulting sound is very twangy, probably because the string is vibrating against the metal fret too much. Are there any strategies to avoid that "twang", or is that part of the ukulele's sound? Anyway, that's all on my ukulele adventure this week, hopefully there will be a music video soon!
Aloha,
Lukas Ukulele
1 comments:
Lukas-
I can't believe you're playing ukulele! It's always been my dream to play a ukulele in Hawaii or something and play a variety of happy songs on it. I think this instrument matches you perfectly. I've went to a seminar on the ukulele and I have to admit, it was pretty difficult. People who had an experience playing the guitar could play within 5 minutes, but for people, like me, who didn't even know about the chords couldn't do anything but to strum on it. I think it'll be a great experience for you to play a ukulele in an island. One question: how are your fingers? Because from my sister's experience, they become pretty sore and swollen after playing so much. Keep up the good work!
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