my ukulele progress

I just put Guadalupe strings on my new baritone and I have to say that I am not exactly a convert. I suppose it all goes back to style. They are clear, loud, and I think they would be good for strumming. However, they don't bend whatsoever. So they aren't so well suited for expressive finger picking. They excel in other aspects such as strumming, as I said, and picking without ornamentation. I will leave them on 'til they snap...then I'm going back to my Southcoast fluorocarbons.
 
I lasted two days and I couldn't take it anymore. I went back to my Southcoast strings. Those Guadalupes were excellent for what they were, but they just weren't me. They were louder and brighter than my usual strings (and accordingly probably better to most people's ears) but I prefer the mellower, warmer sounds. The Southcoast strings do have their drawbacks. The D string has a tendency to hum unless you mute it. That's a trade-off that I am willing to pay in order to have vibrato and note-bending. I don't really understand why those wound strings wouldn't bend (they would physically bend, but the notes wouldn't bend); my steel strings on my cigar box guitar and tenor guitar bend.

Oh well...I did make some progress on a goal of mine. I wanted to finish some of these instructional books I have sitting around. I am blasting through the second half of my ukulele blues book because I already do much of the stuff. I whizzed through the chapters on hammers/pulls and sliding and vibrato. Next up is the pentatonic scale which I already use a lot. I just want to say that I finished it.
 
I sat around ruminating about the ukulele that I am going to receive some time this summer. it is going to have a cutaway so that I should be able to get up to the 19th fret. That will mean six pentatonic shapes (the 5 shapes+ 1 repeat an octave higher). It is going to be my dedicated low-G ukulele. One thing I like about the linear tuning is how the open tunings sound. Re-entrant tuning is great for so many things, but not playing slide. The G and A string are only a step apart. Therefore they almost always become duplicates, thereby rendering the ukulele to a 3-string instrument.

My favorite tunings are open A or C for the linear uke. I like A because it is so logical. The strings line up as they're supposed to: root, 3rd, 5th, and root at an octave higher. However, if I am going to be picking or doing something mixing sliding and picking I prefer open C (or G on the baritone) because the 1st string is the only altered one. Therefore I can still play my pentatonic shapes as I learnt them on the last three strings.

However, since I won't have a linear ukulele 'til summer (I traded in all my other ukuleles to appease my wife who found the clutter too much; plus, I am a one-uke guy. Once my new one arrived, I never would have played the others.), So I am going to be shoring up my re-entrant skills. That will undoubtably mean trying to get through my clawhammer book. Obviously I will continue practicing my pentatonic scales on the 1st three strings of the re-entrant, which are the same as a linear uke. The dominant and subdominant shapes will be a challenge as they require some shifting. If I am blessed with ekagratha, singleness of purpose, and I get through my clawhammer book I think I would like to tackle Daniel Ward's arpeggio book.
 
I officially finished my blues book. It was rather quick because all the stuff contained therein I had already acquired through autodidacticism. One funny thing: I spent a considerable amount of time creating from scratch some charts for all the modes of the pentatonic. If I had just finished the book, it already had done so. However I still think it was better to do it on my own. It makes it more personal. It was good to receive the confirmation because my charts are exactly the same as the book's. Also, my charts are superior because they duplicate the book's schemata for the first three strings and they do the same for pentatonic scales bridging all four strings. The book doesn't do that.

There was an added value to reading the book. It made something click for me although the information wasn't new to me. For some reason I can now see the geometries of these scales. A lot of the notes are aligned horozontally, vertically, or diagonally. If you can imagine the lines, you can play them. I used to be stuck thinking of the notes on a certain string. Now I can see the notes on adjacent strings as part of a whole. This is where I miss a linear tuning. With linear tuning you can combine 4-string modes with the 3-string modes. For example, you can noodle around in the mediant shape of the linear tuning until you reach the 5th on the A string. From there, head back down to the C string using the tonic shape of the re-entrant tuning.

Something a little less cool. My new baritone has a slotted headstock. I have heard people praising this because it is lighter. I don't give a rat's ass about that since I use straps. However I do like how the tuning pegs aren't sticking out. And I really like how they all turn the same way. It makes it so much easier. Even on my custom uke which will have friction tuners the tuners will have to turn differently on the bass and treble sides. Had I known about this when I commissioned the build, I don't think it would have influenced my decision because I like the look of wood more than I like the consistency of slot-headed tuners.
 
It was kind of a depressing weekend. First of all, I had to pay $2500 for a new bed. I suppose it is a liability of being heterosexual. The woman in your life is going to want some expensive stuff that you as a man have absolutely no need for. At the time when my wife and I met I actually was in the habit of sleeping on the floor. So beds aren't really that important to me. Secondly, our community suffered the tragedy of losing a police officer. That was bad enough, but the proceedings became depressingly political. The actual man was quickly lost sight of and it was about repudiating Black Lives Matter and national anthem protests with endless seas of American flags. I always find patriotism creepy, but this instance was tinged with racism as well to take my misgivings to a new level.

To counteract all this negativity, I sought refuge in my ukulele, but not in the stereotypical way. Most people, in and out of the ukulele community, would think the solution would be to play some frenetic island vamp. However, I really dislike that sound; that would have made me more depressed. Playing minor keys and shortened intervals and darker things actually make me happy. So I practiced.

I am actually finally coming around to a goal of mine: sight reading with the ukulele. I was looking at some music with my eyes and fretting the notes with my fingers. I was a good feeling. I don't want to exaggerate my accomplishment. It wasn't like I zipped my hand up to the 11th fret and play the required note. I was down in the first five frets...but it is a beginning.

I have my cigar box tuned to open G. I was practicing my slide. I wasn't doing anything fancy--just sliding. I want to get more fundamental. I want to get the technique down so that I can move on to something more difficult. I was using open G so that I could still finger pick as well. Open E would completely blow my mind since the bass strings are altered. Additionally, those guitar strings are sooooo delicate. I am afraid of tuning them up. I already snapped one string and now I'm paranoid. I suppose I could do open D. Three of the strings would have to be altered, but at least they all would be tuned down with less tension.

I practiced clawhammer. I really want the technique, but I don't know if I like the music. Like the island vamp I mentioned above, clawhammer is so quick and chirpy. I know it is completely psychological and completely me, but quick music sounds vapid and superficial to me. Slower tempos seem more meditatative. I can only hope that the sense of accomplishment I will gain will eclipse my natural disdain for happy music. And, of course, once I am proficient in clawhammering, I can make it more interesting with tastier chords.

I started the first selection in the Daniel Ward book. I can perceive immediately my challenge. Discipline. The arpeggios are very simple and I quickly veered away from them. The goal is to stick to them and dig deeper into them and to meditate with them. One thing I could do is use the metronome. A second thing is dynamics. In this first selection, at least, each arpeggio is played four times. Each time I could emphasize a different note of the arpeggio.

Lastly I gravitated back to my comfort zone and tried to figure out ways to connect the different pentatonic shapes. It is a little bit difficult with the re-entrant. With the linear, it is easier because there are actually two sets of shapes: one set spanning the first three strings, a second set spanning all four strings. Obviously these ten shapes overlap, making it easy to transition. With the re-entrant tuning, you have to figure out when to jump from shape to shape so that it sounds natural and good.
 
Hi,

I like to read your thread from time to time to see what you are doing.

Regarding Clawhammer, it’s a funny beast. On the positive side once you can frail it becomes very intuitive and a lot of fun to use the technique. On the negative side it takes quite a bit of time to learn and is very much a one trick pony. It isn’t a chordal thing at all and quickly sounds repetitive when played against chords. It’s really all about melody lines in a particular key played over an unfretted drone note in that key. Unless you are mad keen on either learning to play some old time tunes or want to focus on melody line playing then I’m not sure it is worth the effort to learn. IMO FWIW.

Rgds

Ernie
 
Hi,

I like to read your thread from time to time to see what you are doing.

Regarding Clawhammer, it’s a funny beast. On the positive side once you can frail it becomes very intuitive and a lot of fun to use the technique. On the negative side it takes quite a bit of time to learn and is very much a one trick pony. It isn’t a chordal thing at all and quickly sounds repetitive when played against chords. It’s really all about melody lines in a particular key played over an unfretted drone note in that key. Unless you are mad keen on either learning to play some old time tunes or want to focus on melody line playing then I’m not sure it is worth the effort to learn. IMO FWIW.

Rgds

Ernie

Thanks for the insight. As you may have intuited, I am tending to feel the same way as you. However, I am going to stick with it...at least for a while. I never play other people's music; my goal is to be able to make my own simple music. To that end, I was hoping I could use clawhammer to:
1. gain thumb independence.
2. play my own melodies/riffs in a very distinctive style for a few measures. For example, I could be playing some pentatonic stuff and play the riff in clawhammer style before returning to the main part of the song.
3. I did have some hope of making chord melodies by using some tastier chords and play them with the clawhammer.
4. There must be a way to improvise using some bluegrassy thing like a mixolydian mode.

Anyway...I have to get ready for work now (beds don't pay for themselves!), but thanks for the input. I will definitely keep it in the back of my mind as I stand in front of my music stand this week like a school boy learning to play "Wildwood flower."
 
You are welcome. There is no doubt that it is a lot of fun to play that way. But maybe better on 5 string banjo where the drone is very distinct from the melody tones cf the uke. Learning to drop thumb is crucial otherwise it really does sound very repetitive.

But if you want to be inspired check out the several videos of the guy on here who frails a Baritone. Search the videos section under clawhammer and you’ll find him. Awesome stuff but it is all old time tunes that he has moved over from many years of banjo playing. If Americana is your bag then great but otherwise ....

I have read that you are a student of scales so maybe clawhammering around the pentatonics might get your juices flowing but you need to use a capo so that the open drone is always in key. Clawhammer is very closely related to the open strings with hammers and pulls. Clawhammering barre chords is a waste of time ... like combining chalk and cheese.
 
I did some thinking and realized that Ernie had something. Clawhammer isn't for me, just like campanella arrangements aren't for me. Neither of those things work for me because I want to be competent in skills/techniques that are readily transferable so that I can improvise with them. I may have said it before...but my goal is to have "moments" with my ukulele. My concept of a "moment" is somewhat Dadaist. It is to create something, improvise with it for a while, and then forget about it. I want a life punctuated with these frequent moments.

To that end, my energies should be focused elsewhere than clawhammer. I have re-arranged my book list a bit. I am going to actually go through my Fingerstyle Ukulele book to get a grip on those techniques. Most notably, I want to get some training in thumb droning to accompany myself. Along those lines, something else that is looming large in my musical horizon is chord melodies...or, rather, the ideas behind chord melodies. I really like the idea of playing a chord progression, but picking in between the chords. However, I think that is beyond me right now. I mean, I could follow the lessons in Duets for One but I don't think it would sink in. I think what I have to do is approach mastery of finger-picking and of chord-playing and eventually my skill-set will allow for a small jump in combining the two.

Enough programmatic theorizing. Here's what I did today. I play 19-fret instruments. At least my Kamaka and my new baritone are 19-fretters and I assume my new ukulele will be when it arrives since it is the same scale as the Kamaka. I was wondering how far up the frets I could run my modes. I commonly play my five pentatonic shapes, but I have never played around with my seven heptatonic shapes--i.e., the modes. I found that if I started playing the Ionian In E on the 4th fret, I could squeeze in the D# Lokrian on fifteenth fret. That's the highest I could go before I ran out of frets. Of course I could loop it back around--play an Ionian in G on the seventh fret and play the Lokrian in F# on the sixth fret. Or I could do something very ad hoc, like playing a mode by sliding up the E and A strings. However I am not really interested in that right now. I just want to go from to low to high on the fretboard using the modes. One application of this is to create some music by taking a key, Db for example, and then playing the first four notes of each mode with some phrasing to make it a riff. Scilicet, I would start with Db Ionian on the first fret and end up on fifteenth fret with the C Lokrian. The result is a cascade of music whose pitch gets higher and higher. And if you sharp the last note of the C Lokrian, you hit the root note of Db for nice closure of this little solo.
 
practiced some little things today. Practiced chromatically maj/min triads as well as 7's and min7's. Then I practiced my pentatonic and heptatonic shapes in D. Pentatonic is fine. I can play all the shapes back-to-back without missing a beat. I could even start working on speed. The heptatonic shapes are still a bit murky. It is kind of like how I can read Spanish but find it very difficult to actually create Spanish thoughts in my head from scratch.

It is kind of funny. I read in a thread earlier today someone say that hadn't the patience for scales. It takes about ten seconds to learn a scale. How little attention span does someone have not to be able to learn a scale? After all, a scale on the ukulele only has three string patterns. The fingers go 124, 134, or 13/24. That's my shorthand in which 1=index, 2=middle, 3=ring, 4=pinky. All the modes do those things, but they do them in different order. For example, the Ionian mode is C: 13, E:124, A:134 and the mixolydian mode is C:13, E:124, A:124. And these string patterns also work in linear tuning with one caveat: when using the G,C, and E strings for these scales, you have to shift your hand down a half-step for the C string.

Anyway, for the heptatonic shapes I just focused on memorizing the first three. I still have some work to do because I just picked up an instrument and tried to play them all. The Ionian and Dorian were fine, but the Phrygian has slipped my memory.
 
I haven't really done much that is noteworthy. I have essentially just practicing modes. Something I noticed is that you don't have to be sequential with the modes. I had been playing the first mode really low on the fret board and play them in order until I got really high on the fretboard. However, these things are like a never-ending circle. So I played a G Ionian on the 7th fret (the first mode) and, of course, if you move up two frets you're playing the second mode, the Dorian. But if you actually move down a fret, you're back at the 7th mode, the Lokrian. It is fun, but it hurts my head a little bit.

Speaking of fun, my other goal isn't really inspiring me right now. I have two technique books on the music stand and they require learning songs which to me is booooooring. It is odd, but my previous paragraph probably is most people's definition of boring but I enjoy practicing modes and scales and improvising therefrom. Songs to me are boring. I can learn them easy enough but they don't seem to lead anywhere.
 
Hi again,

The key to understanding modes is to focus on the chords generated by a particular mode rather than the mode itself. Yes you have to learn the mode patterns around the fretboard but that is secondary to the chord progressions. Work out the chords in a particular mode (I would advise Mixolydian as it is the most useful) and get a feel for how the chord progressions differ from the Ionian chord progressions rooted on the same note.

Remember single note lines are generally played over chords constructed from the same scale. So learning the C Lydian scale patterns but playing them over the C Ionian major chords is not really modal playing and will sound quite dissonant in certain places and probably not that great.

Modes are a bit like Clawhammer (which is very often modal music anyway). Cool, fascinating but rather limited in its application.

Ask yourself what you want to achieve with your music. If it’s good old rock and roll then the pentatonics are all you’ll ever need to become a full blown rock god. Just ask David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.

Keep studying :eek:)

Ernie
 
ex3.jpg

I think this is what you mean. I am relatively new to instruments that play chords, so there are blind spots in my knowledge. I played around with I IV V progressions with the modes and they produced tastier progressions. Some of them I had already been playing through my haphazard noodling. My head is full; this was quite a revelation.
 
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That table perfectly embodies why people do not understand modes. It trots out the same “C Ionian = D Dorian starting at D” line which is true but does not explain in the slightest what to do with them.

You need to think of the modes in “parallel” terms ie you need to choose a fixed Root note and look at all the different modes starting at that same Root note. Then work out the chords for these different parallel modes and then play and compare the different progressions available from these chords always centred on the Root 1 chord.

The table you present has the same chords for each mode because the Root note is moving each time. So you see nothing different and wonder what all the fuss is about.

Let me know how you get on.

Ernie
 
Maybe to save you some time I will get you started.

The major chords in C Ionian are C, F & G. We all know what various progressions sound like with these three chords resolving back to C Major.

The major chords in C Mixolydian are C, F & B flat. We lose the G Major but gain the B flat Major. Try playing around with those three chords each time resolving back to C Major.

Compare the two sets of possibilities between Ionian and Mixolydian.

And that is modes :eek:
 
Maybe to save you some time I will get you started.

The major chords in C Ionian are C, F & G. We all know what various progressions sound like with these three chords resolving back to C Major.

The major chords in C Mixolydian are C, F & B flat. We lose the G Major but gain the B flat Major. Try playing around with those three chords each time resolving back to C Major.

Compare the two sets of possibilities between Ionian and Mixolydian.

And that is modes :eek:

Thanks. I am just seeing this as I head out to work. I think I see what you're saying. C Lydian's major chords would be, I think, C, D, and G. C Dorian's are Eb, F, Bb. The mixolydian and lydian have pretty easy applications as variations on the ionian. The dorian is a little more tricky, but here's what I did: 1. start with the ionian; 2. repeat the ionian, but when I come to the F, move to either the Eb or Bb to create some tension; 3. go back to the C

At least that is what I conjured up as I walk out the door.
 
Forget Dorian, Phrygian, Aeolian and Locrian for now. Not because they are particularly any more complicated (well Locrian is but it’s better to forget that mode altogether) but just because it is best to start with the major rooted modes.

You are correct with the C Lydian major chords so now you have the three sets of major chords which resolve to C Major.

C Ionian = C, F & G

C Mixolydian = C, F & B flat

C Lydian = C, D & G

Play some chord progressions for each of these sets always resolving back to a C Major chord. They sound different. You are playing in three different modes rooted on C Major.

Repeat the analysis for the minor modes Dorian, Phrygian & Aeolian now with the Root chord always being C minor and the other two chords being the other two minor chords in that mode so that the chord progressions are all minor. Listen to the difference in these minor chord progressions.

Finally start playing the major rooted mode chord progressions but now including some of the minor chords from that mode (not solely the major chords as before) and then the minor rooted mode chord progressions with some of the major chords from that mode (not solely the minor chords as before).

You are now exploring the different modal options from a chordal point of view amongst six different modes all rooted on C and which have either a major (3 modes) or minor (3 modes) flavour for the Root chord.

As an academic exercise you can also do Locrian if you want but now your Root chord is neither major nor minor but is a C diminished triad so that the chord progressions in this mode resolve back to this dissonant diminished chord which makes the progressions sound bad. Better to forget it IMO.

It is over these different chord progressions that one then uses the modal scales that you have been learning in order to play melodies or solos. But it wouldn’t really be modal playing to choose a C Lydian chord progression but play a melody over the top in C Mixolydian.

I hope this helps.
 
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thanks. As you may have seen in my last response I understood the Lydian and I understood that the minor modes were a bit different. So I am finally getting it. I am still going to practice my modes because it helps me memorize the fretboard, but I will certainly explore the modal chords as well.
 
Absolutely keep working on memorising the fretboard patterns. We all need to do that as much as possible.

It’s just that modes are so badly taught that I decided to try and help. You only actually hear how the modal scales vary when they are either played over a droning Root note (5 string banjo), a droning Root chord or a modal chord progression. In isolation the different scales don’t sound like much at all.

Anyway, back in my box :eek:

Cheers,

Ernie
 
I haven't been doing much too structured--just playing those modal progressions Ernie showed me. I'll have to re-check this, but in my memory there are only 3 progressions:

1.the 1-4-5, which for the ionian is I IV V and for the ailolian it is i iv v
2. the 1-2-5 which for the lydian is I II V and i ii v for the dorian
3. the 1-4-7b which for the mixolydian is I IV VIIb and the phrygian is i iv viib

Again, I'll have to go back and check and make sure I am not just misremembering but it seems like there are only three progressions, each with a major and minor version.

I'm getting better at my pentatonic shapes. I can arbitrarily pick any fret and any shape and then, by using that as my starting point, I can move up and down the fretboard 'til I hit the nut or the 19th fret.

Speaking of fretboards, I recently saw an article that proposes learning the fretboard by doing some obvious things like memorizing the marked frets. I've actually done a few things with this topic and I have never had success. I made flash cards and I memorized all the notes on each of the frets. However that knowledge didn't seem to transfer to musicality. I am making promising progress with my modes.

What I do is take a key whose notes I know by heart--for example, D with its C# and F#. Then I will just play the modes in that key--i.e., D ionian, E dorian, F# lydian, etc. The trick is to be hyper-aware of what note you're on and where you're fretting. I think it also helps to say the note out loud so that you get the note through your eyes, through your ears.
 
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