Building the Repertoire

This past week or so (finally caught up to the present) I've mainly been focusing on my guitar, however I still found the time to learn a few more songs. The first one was "Riptide" by Vance Joy. Truly a beginner song, and one of the first songs I learned on my guitar as well. The next was "Can't Help Falling In Love" by Elvis Presley. This one I too learned on the guitar previously. Finally, I undertook "The Judge" written and performed by 21 Pilots. All were relatively easy and were more or less learned (save a slow chord change on "The Judge") within an hour or so of practice. One aspect of my ukulele I've discovered is it does not go out of tune. Since getting it, I have only had to make small adjustments to the tuning pegs.

Riptide

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_3A3dxjWyx2ckU2Nl9qU3FHZjA

Can't Help Falling In Love

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_3A3dxjWyx2dDlEdThXU0pxVE0

The Judge
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_3A3dxjWyx2OU5IZ0VuaXVFZk0

Humble Beginnings

I had little idea on the best method to approaching the ukulele, so I decided my best course of action was to just begin playing. I decided the first song I was going to learn was the song that instilled in me an inspiration to learn the ukulele. House of gold by 21 pilots probably was not the best first song choice I could have chosen, but it was a song I wanted to learn. It turns out people are not kidding when they say the Ukulele is an easy instrument. The most difficult part about the song was a simple chord change I hadn't yet developed the muscle memory for, yet it wasn't a difficult chord. The other challenging aspect of the song was its fast paced strumming. I don't really have the endurance in my wrist as of now to comfortably play my way through the entire song. I could if I felt the need, however I can feel the exhaustion in my wrist slowly start to build. For at least a couple of months I will build my repertoire of simple ukulele songs. After awhile, I will seek to learning more intensive finger-style type songs

House of gold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDyxykpYeu8

Me playing the first few verses
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_3A3dxjWyx2T0Z2NWVCZUs1OTQ

Decisions

All I really needed was a decent excuse to buy a ukulele. As fate would have it, my 18th birthday was just around the corner. I had my parents backed into a corner when it came to this one. Luckily, both of my parents were all for my increased pursuit of the arts. It was a cold November evening when My father and I pulled up to a Satori Strings off the access road of highway 183. Thankfully, at least a for a beginner, their ukulele selection was small. On the wall which held ever type of ukulele in the store, there could not have been more than 15. I tried a soprano, a concert, and a tenor, all of which were near the 100$ mark. I quickly decided the soprano's size and weak sound did not please me, however deciding between a concert and a tenor proved more strenuous. The concert fit my picture of what a ukulele should look like in terms of size and sound, yet I enjoyed the sound of the tenor more. The tenor produced a slightly larger, richer tone. After much deliberation, I settled on the tenor for its louder sound. A major (minor) factor on its side was it had a far more beautiful finish on its body.

Not quite too late

So after a month went by and I made no heading into my lock picking project, I decided it was time to change what my ISP was on. My decision happened a little haphazardly. I recently discovered the band 21 pilots and a few of their songs feature a ukulele. I became fascinated at the way the ukulele sounded and thought it sounded simple enough to achieve a level mediocrity in. I desired to purchase a ukulele that was of a certain quality, and after doing some research I discovered I would have to shell out around a hundred dollars. Thankfully, I had been teaching myself guitar with a fervor for about four months, so my parents had faith I would see my goal through. Ukuleles come in four different sizes: Soprano, the smallest of the bunch, the Concert, slightly bigger than the soprano, the tenor, a little bit bigger than the concert and much bigger than the soprano, and the baritone which functions as a little guitar and has a different traditional tuning when compared to other ukuleles. The standard tuning for a Ukulele's four strings are GCEA. A baritone traditionally has its strings tuned to DGBE. I did some research into the sound quality of the all the sizes other than baritone. Basically, as the acoustic sound box increases in volume, the sound gets a increasingly fuller sound. Unfortunately, the internet was unable to grant me a good comparison of the different ukulele's sounds, so I was going to have to try one out at a store in order to make my decision.

Also, a link to my old blog should you care to read its two posts.

http://benjaminlearnslockpicking.blogspot.com/