The Underground Ukulele Railroad

The overall simplicity of the ukulele makes it challenging to judge my progress with it. I have hardly touched finger picking, which in all honesty, can be as difficult as anything depending on its complexity. I know that any pop song or rock using chords and a standard progression is nothing difficult if I only need to strum, however once it becomes necessary to pluck intricate melodies along with strumming is where my capabilities end. This is where the problem of not taking lessons from a private teacher becomes apparent. I do not know the direction I should be taking myself. I have recently found  a site called "Ukulele Underground" with almost 100 lessons on songs of varying difficulties. I will most definitely be learning my next song from their library of videos.

Holding Onto You

This is seriously a percussive driven song and was an absolute blast to learn how to play. Playing this song requires the constant muting of the strings with mainly the left hand, and every once in a while with the right. The Reggae style of the piece serves to drive the song forward, complementing the sharply spoken, yet sung, lyrics. When I was learning this song I tried playing it a dozen different ways. Quickly with fast staccato words, slowly with more lyrical lyrics, and everywhere in between. In the take I have below, I am very happy with the rap section, and most of the singing sections, however I lost focus on some of the "O's" making the performance slightly muddier than it should be. The strumming throughout the song is improvisational. There are several different strumming patterns that can be used anywhere in the piece, and for the song to feel exciting I found it necessary to change between them whenever I deemed it appropriate. I did make several small mistakes in the strumming. My finger slipped on a C-chord, and in order to save the take I had to change my strum pattern to a rapid series of down strums because I had omitted an up strum where one should have been. Also, I would like to mention I am, as always, singing an octave down from what is sung by Tyler. Tyler's voice can go seriously higher than my own, granted her can't go anywhere near as low as I can. Such is the deference between a tenor and a base. As always, if you would like to give my cover a listen, you can find it down below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_3A3dxjWyx2Sl8yMDVHUXFMLTg/view?usp=sharing

Tear in My Heart

"Tear in My Heart" was a difficult song to learn. For one, I had never played a ukulele song like it. It was percussive and utilized different strum patterns throughout. The singing did not easily line up with the chord changes and it took some practice to get the lyrics to properly fit in with the ukulele part. There was also not a single tutorial video to walk me through each part of the song. I had to learn the song using my ear and watching Tyler's left hand, the band's singer, as he constructed the chords along the fret board. Some chords I couldn't make out which fingers were placed where, and thus I was required to guess and check until I found the proper position for all my fingers. The strumming pattern was a nightmare on its own. The pattern is not constant throughout, therefore I had to closely watch his right hand and mimic its movements over and over again as he played through the three minute song. Once I had it deduced, and muscle memory set in, playing the ukulele part was a piece of cake. There is a weird plucking section in the middle of the piece I was unable to ever play correctly in any of my takes. The section itself was not terribly challenging when played separately, however when played in conjunction with the rest of the song and singing, I was never able to get it totally clean. It only consisted of plucking the same note six times, followed by shifting and playing another two notes one time each, yet each time I played it, I could never count to six while singing. For the most part, I am pleased with how it turned out, and should you care to give a listen, you can find it below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsiuXezLEo0

Getting to Know You

The biggest problem with teaching myself an instrument is, if I don't have a drive to play or something to draw inspiration from, I fizzle out and may not pick up my ukulele for between a day to a month. The past few weeks I haven't so much as seen my ukulele, much less play it. I ended my stint today with an 3 hour practice session. While I was at school, I felt a sudden, strong urge to figure stuff out on my ukulele, so when I finally returned home after the long day at school, I tore it out of its cloth case. I learned, practiced, and sang various songs. Some I already new the chords for and not the lyrics, other I new the lyrics for and not the chords. It does not matter what exactly I did in the span of my playing session, rather what mattered was it was what I desired to do at the time and I played my heart out during it. I made no recording of my practice session, as it was just that, practice. I was not performing music. I was organically moving from one piece to the next in no particular order, playing half of one song and then starting another. There isn't any specific technique I practiced, I simply experimented with the instrument and got to know it a little more personally than before.

Too Good to be True

Part of playing an instrument, at least in my belief, is in order to truly play, and play well, it is necessary to feel some sort of emotion while playing. To figure out what the song means to you, and play it as though you are trying to get across that emotion. Once again, I decided to learn a Twenty One Pilots song, "We Don't Believe What's On TV. I find their ukulele parts refreshing as they are different than most of the tradition ukulele songs in their structure or use of chords. In this case I also took it upon myself to learn the vocals to go along with the strumming. I surprised myself with the speed at which I learned this specific song, and after several hours of work, I considered myself capable of producing a video of me playing the song. Another period of time passed as I attempted to find a good location to place my camera, and a good distance away from the camera as to prevent my voice and instrument from overpowering the cheap microphone on my IPhone 4s. Eventually I found such a location by placing my camera on top of my unbroken book which itself was placed upon the bass speaker of my computer. It would take several attempts before I produced a video I was content with. Even the video I am as of now still content with contains mistakes. It's technically a live performance done in a bedroom and scrapped together within the span of less then half a day. Oh wait, never mind, it isn't technically that, it is literally that. The video is down below, should you care to watch it. I hope you like Twenty One Pilots, because I am probably going to be learning a lot more of their music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtjii9DOpyQ

To the Beat of the Drum

The terribly unfortunate aspect of the ukulele is that it's basic are just that; basic. There are many songs that require only the strumming of three or four simple chords with a basic strumming patter in 4/4. My struggle is those songs are too simple and I will stay at a level of mediocrity if I limited myself to only those songs. Thankfully, more "modern" ukulele songs exist. Songs requiring reggae, which where the emphasis is placed on beats two and four, and more staccato pieces requiring the muting of strings after a strum, or the independent plucking of a string while still strumming. I find those more percussive songs incredibly interesting to play. Percussion in itself is the driving force in music, so being able to almost produce my own percussive element while still creating a melody is incredibly engaging, and most importantly, fun. I came across a musician on YouTube after searching for "modern ukulele music", and was not the least disappointed when I heard him begin to play. I am not anywhere near his ability or skill, but I believe his video may give you a smidgen more respect for the instrument in general.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7pGB3gxUZk

All Thumbs

I play three different stringed instrument: violin, guitar, and finally ukulele. Though each shares nuances with the others, they are all independent, unique instruments requiring work and practice to be put into them before progress can be made. Time spent on one instrument can, however, affect my ability on another. A specific example of this is the shape of my left hand when playing my violin. The thumb should be perpendicular to the ground, across from my index finger when I am in first position. Guitar requires my thumb to be much closer to my middle finger as it must be closer to the center of my hand so it can support more pressure. For the ukulele, do to its small size, my thumb tends to rest a little bit off center from palm, though it is largely in the same position due to the similarities between the ukulele and guitar. This constant change in the position of my thumb causes me to, if I am not actively thinking about my thumb placement, move my thumb much to far down my violin neck. This in turn changes the position of my hand just enough to where my muscle memory is causing me to play sharp. Despite having played the violin for almost seven years, the more natural thumb position required to play both my guitar and ukulele has caused my less natural thumb position on the violin to degrade. On another note, my progress with the ukulele has been chugging along. I took it with me to celebrate Christmas in the balmy winter weather of Florida. Musicians are drawn to other musicians, and while waiting for my flight, a friendly woman struck up conversation. She herself was a professional ukulele player and played in an all ukulele orchestra. I know, I didn't know such a thing existed either. After discussing the joys of ukulele playing, and dispensing some advice, she left to board her plane and I left to board mine. I later searched "ukulele orchestra", and not to my surprise, they are as weird as they are cool.