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.