Season 312 - Contrast

One of the saddest songs I know set to happy music.

I was totally unsure about how to approach this when the theme was announced. Usually I will have a few ideas pop into my head at the beginning of a season, but I was totally stumped this time. Then I was watching a TV show, which had a beautiful sad and sultry cover of this song over the end credits. I thought maybe I could do something with that and play a more conventional chorus. Anyway, here it is. Hopefully this works for you.

Hi, Elena! A great and challenging theme for this week! I think the contrast here was supposed to be in the change of tempo ... I had great difficulty uploading the vid. and have managed to use 13% of our monthly "allowance" on the first day (thank heavens it's a short month!) Anyway, that is why I got up in the middle of the night (FREE Internet) to have another go at uploading. Have sort of lost the will to live and am now going back to bed - goodnight!

The contrast in my song this week is between generations, between locals and immigrants and between those who stayed at home and those who left.

It's a true story, it happened to me this week. I wrote the song for the FAWM Challenge (write 14 songs in February) In case you are interested, here is a link to hear what I have posted so far.

Seasons Songwriters! - Why not come along and join in the fun?

Meanwhile, here is my entry for 312:

This is what came to me this week for 'Contrast' - hope you can stand watching it.



I made a mistake - it should have been solid & porous, not repeating soft!

Is your cup half full or half empty?

Original Song, I wrote this song in 2014 and I had it recorded as a Demo Recording back then.
I was wondering what this one would go like on the Uke, and thought it would be an ideal opportunity to give it a whirl.
"My Bowl Is Empty"
Hope you enjoy it ...

Hopefully I've caught the gist of the theme here Elena. I covered this one a few seasons back but this time I've messed around with the tempo and alternating around strumming chords and picking notes out within them and playing between loud and soft.

Season 312. Submission 2. "From Me To You" (Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and recorded by the Beatles, 1963)


Elena, I've tried to take a more jazzy approach to the vocal and accompaniment for this classic Beatles song. Some arpeggio picking, some plucking. I hope you enjoy it.

Hi Seasons Friends, Here is my entry for Season 312, "Contrasts", a song by Katy Perry off of her One of the Boys album, called Hot N Cold. Thanks for listening.

Hi all, sorry no comments today on the latest videos - wasn't feeling too good! Normal service will resume tomorrow Irish time. Looking forward! : )

Aloha Friends: Thank you Car Singer for offering this great season!
Here is my second entry to Season 312 of the Ukulele for Ukulele Underground. I'm sorry I was so hasty in posting a second song. I won't be available the next couple of days. The topic for this week is "Contrasts". For this song, I sang the verse first in Hawaiian and picked it. For the second time I sang it, I sang in English and strummed. If you want to bypass all of my talking about the song, please go to around 1:25 seconds.
I am having some problems with my asthma again and having some breathing problems as you can probably tell. But I hope it sounds okay. And I apologize in advance for any mispronunciations to the beautiful Hawaiian language...I am still learning the beautiful Hawaiian language and have much to learn. This was a "One-Take Recording." Mahalo for listening!
Ukulele: Kamaka Tiki Concert
Recorded using a Zoom Q4 digital recorder

Car Singer said:

Hi all, sorry no comments today on the latest videos - wasn't feeling too good! Normal service will resume tomorrow Irish time. Looking forward! : )

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Poor you ... have you succumbed to the dreaded lurgy? (P.S. "Irish" time is much safer than Hawaiian time!)

LimousinLil said:

Poor you ... have you succumbed to the dreaded lurgy? (P.S. "Irish" time is much safer than Hawaiian time!)

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[FONT=&quot]Normally used in the form "the dreaded lurgy".

The term originates from an episode of the 1950s radio comedy "The Goon Show" in which an epidemic of "The Dreaded Lurgi" was said to be about to sweep across Britain. It turned out that the lurgi was in fact a ficitious disease created by brass instrument makers who had claimed that no brass band player had ever died of the lurgi (thereby increasing sales hugely).

"The Goon Show" was an anarchic and surreal radio comedy series that starred Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe. It was written by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I think I've got the dreaded lurgy.

He's not coming into work today, apparently he's coming down with a lurgy.

I'm not quite sure what's wrong. Just some form of lurgy.

Urgh. You've got the LURGY![/FONT]

Do you know ... I hadn't realised the Goon Show connection! And I hadn't realised that it was originally spelled with an "i". But, whatever... just hope you are feeling better soon, Elena.

Well, we're half way through the week - though you Stateside folks may still be in bed despite it being lunch time here in Ireland. I have, you will be happy to hear recovered from The Lurgy (or Lurgi). I too didn't realise it had any connection to the Goons, and assumed it was some ye olde English worde - you learn a new thing every day!

So, there's been a good few more entries and below is a round-up - Oh! And! If I've not put someone on the playlist do let me know, I noticed I nearly missed a couple of people, getting caught up listening to their songs!

Birds Eye View OMU Played her yummy sounding KitKatulele and brought an original song lyrically contrasting thoughts of cold winter with being lovelorn and warmth and summer with being in love, along with contrasting fingerpicking and more punchy playing.

uke in the heart of texas Teased with a slow and sad start before politely racing into a fast pasted, bop-along version of what normally is a sad and slow song making it sound entirely different in the best of ways.

Robin Boyd Treated us to the classic 'woo the ladies by playing my acoustic guitar' (apparently!) song: Wonder Wall. But slowed slooooowed it right down thus giving it a wistful air only to contrast that with a belted out chorus, both of which complimented the lyrics.

Limousin Lil Bravo to Val for heroically uploading a video in the middle of the night no less on limited Internet. Take it from one who's been there, it's not easy, with slow speeds, limited usage and general low speeds! Although it was misbehaving Lil wasn't with her cover where a slower part works well with the lyrics and the tempo change gives them more of a pleading urgency - no! I'm not misbehaving, I swear!

Berni Armstrong Brought an original song (and a reminder that there's a link in his post above if you want to join the Feburary songwriting challenge he mentioned!)
His song had lyrical contrast in theme, comparing generations and different cultures. With an upbeat folk style fingerpicking also contrasting against the rather sad lyrics.

Croaky Keith - who has changed his name on this forum since I've last been here (it has, admittedly been a long time!) uploaded a very creative video using contrasting colours and what to me sounded like a (non-croaky) spoken word, sparse poem, meditating on contrasting colours and textures. This wouldn't be out of place as a video piece in a contemporary art gallery (and I am a visual artist, so have seen my fair share of exhibitions!)

Wee Ginga Accentuated the Positive, there was no in between, as the lyrics stated, as he seamlessly swung from sloooow to fast all the while adding fuzzy effects to vocals and plastic uke. Great stuff!

Dean Beaver His bowl may be empty but he's obviously full of original songs, of which this is one. The rhythmic strum worked very well to provide a drum-like beat which got my foot tapping. Listen out for the contrast of 'normal' vocals and a sudden higher register!

mythinformed 'Because' a beautiful song I'd not heard before (and might be stealing for my repertoire!). Gorgeous strumming with the slightest touch of a couple of fingers to give a fandango-esque touch, contrasting with a subtle tempo change to a more pared down arrangement with pauses and silences and fingerpicking.

Turtledrum Displays her adept use of fingerpicking which contrasts with her use of the more minimal sound of all the strings plucked at once. And her overall arrangement contrasts with the original being a beautiful and softer, more sweet take on this well known song.

Kale’a Covered a song with contrast as its main theme already, playing it alternating between fingerpicking and funky strumming along with a tempo change. This arrangement isn't hot, then it's cold, nor yes than it's no, just hot and just yes!

She also brought a second entry (it's perfectly okay to post one after the other!) of Aloha Oe, with a potted history of how the song came to be and with the contrast of singing the song in both Hawaiian and English. While the English parts are beautifully sung, the original language sounds, as Wee Ginga commented 'magical'.

Thanks for your patience with my delayed comments! Once again I'm blown away with everyone's creativity and individual takes on how to cover their choice of songs. Thank you all for inspiring me (and I hope each other) to mess around with arrangements when covering songs.

For my final song of the week, going back to the first idea that popped in my head when I read the theme. Reason I didn't go it off the bat was this is not my arrangement, it a Buck Owens song from 1965 I always liked, but then again I like almost anything by him. A song of great contrasts here, from the tempo, to the time signatures, and even the lyrics between the verses and the chorus offer totally different viewpoints on the subject at hand. I also wanted to try a weak facsimile of the great Don Rich guitar licks on this. This was my 2nd take, not perfect, but I kept it.

Great entries this Season! For me, every week there is quite a contrast between the original song and my cover, and another contrast between the idea and the final result. Here is a version of "Poison" (1989) by John McCurry, Alice Cooper and Desmond Child, on banjolele :rock:

Greetings,

I recorded this with strums, string pulls, picking, and some things I don't know what they are called. The 2 songs mashed are very special, one is by Pink Floyd called Echoes, the other is my own called the The Place of Echoes. Both have meaning to me, and although I am not sure how successful they were together, the inspiration and intent was there.

Ciao

Hello again, Elena! And here is a second offering which comes to you via the middle-of-the-night recording studios in southwest France; this time, a sort of terpsichorean "mash up", which, I hope, fits into the "contrast" theme.