Playing Tastes

Down Up Dick

Down Up Dick

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What kinda music do you like to play/sing best? Not what kind do you like, but what kind do you PLAY? (I don't know how to underline.)

I play mostly folk music and country, and I'm working on blues. Listening, I like almost all music except Rap (I like the rhythm though.), Loud Raucous Rock and Flamenco.

So, wadayalike to play when yer gettin' down wit yer bad self? :eek:ld:
 
In 1968 I was facing the draft, and I enlisted in the Navy to avoid the infantry. I spent almost the next five years on ships, or stationed somewhere. When I got out, I went to college, got married and kids got in the way. I missed out on that whole folk song, protest era. I always wanted to be the guy with the guitar, singing those songs on the street corners and in the coffee shops. I'm trying to relive that period of my life now, with a ukulele, instead of a guitar. I feel a closeness to the likes of Dylan, Pete Seeger, Krsitofferson, Cash, Paxton. I also like to play some of the old sixties and seventies rock, especially stuff like "Little Red Riding Hood", "Cover of the Rolling Stones", "Moma's Got a Squeeze Box", those kind of songs. Living in the tropics part of the year, I play a lot of Jimmy Buffet. I like to play and sing songs like, "Look What They Done to My Song", and "Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me A Mercedes Benz." OK, that about covers it.
 
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I like to play anything that doesn't include barre chords... and I'm only half-joking :)

Actually, my playing tastes are all over the place... different styles of music present different learning opportunities and I am currently enjoying my slow-but-steady improvement with the ukulele. The chance to practice some element of technique often drives my choice of music. Currently my desire to master Bm for example sees me regularly stumbling through versions of both 'Diamonds Are Forever' and 'Teenage Kicks'.

I have been putting together a 'fake book' pdf consisting of favourite chord sheets scavenged from online sources. Music genres include ska, blues, punk, folk, country, 60s pop, 80s indie and there's even a George Formby song (heh-hey!).

These days I will pretty much listen to anything, including rap :p The only things I avoid are bland commercial pop music and prog rock.
 
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It's not so much what kind I like to play as what tab I can find online. :)
(Or notation that I can rewrite as tab.)

Rock/blues/folk/country are likely to appeal to me for playing, but I also like some classical, like Fur Elise. :cool:
 
I'm all over the place, but I get a lot of satisfaction from playing really simple classical or campanella arrangements, such as John King's arrangement of "Danny Boy" or Matt Dahlberg's arrangement of "Dona Nobis Pacem" - arrangements that really showcase the melody. The melodies are so beautiful and I'm constantly amazed that I'm able to produce a sound like that!

As for listening - didn't someone really wise once say there are only two kinds of music, the good kind and the bad kind? I listen to the good kind :)
 
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I play a lot of John King and Rob McKillop stuff and I'm starting in on some blues as well. Almost entirely fingerpicking stuff.
 
I play quite a variety of music, but for fingerpicking i gravitate toward traditional American music, the sort of songs found in Aaron Keim's fingerpicking book, and classical. When I get together with a group to strum & sing, I like 50s/60s rock 'n' roll.
 
I'm giving my arthritic hands a break from the mandolin. I'm also a fairly accomplished musician, so I find the simple songs ( ...Row your boat ashore ) of little interest. The Tin Pan Alley songs, show tunes, the later big-band era are jazzy and complex, so that's where I'm focused. I can easily play a B-flat7, flat5 on the piano but how the HECK do you find that on the Ukulele? With such fantastic representation these days on the internet --- Dr. Uke pops to mind --- I'm finding it quite easy to get started in this genre with the available tabs and words.

With this wonderful leg up, it's fairly easy to play most jazz standards from charts. ( I might add, I'm finding this way easier on the concert and tenor sizes. It gets pretty concentrated on the soprano fretboard.) Having booted up on the Uke, now the challenge is to find the ornaments and right-hand to make it all interesting and something I want to hear myself play day after day. This pursuit has kept me very engaged and I look forward to the next musical evening at our house when I spring the new songs and the new arrangements on my musical circle.
 
I'm a strummer and traditional country and ukulele fit together like a hand in a glove. I like that and country rock/folk rock or whatever would encompass artists like Bob Dylan, John Prine, Gram Parsons and such. I like a lot of the stuff Leon Redbone does whatever genre you'd call that. It's kind of hard to nail down the specific genres. Just paging through the songbook I put together I have Bob Dylan, Walk Off The Earth, Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Herman's Hermits, Emmylou Harris, John Prine, Jimmy Buffet, Gordon Lightfoot, Hank Snow, Hank Williams, The Derailers, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, The Everly Brothers, Gram Parsons, Don Gibson, The Band, Leon Redbone, Sam Cooke, Eddie Cochrane, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Buck Owens, Dave Dudley, and that's just over half way through the book. I like to play a nice mix of stuff.
 
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OK guys and gals, I'm going back another generation since I really enjoy the slower, romantic songs of the
30's, 40's, and 50's. A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, How are Things in Glocca Mora?, White Cliffs of Dover,
Dean Martin songs, Granada, Tip Toe, also somewhat older Hawaiian songs, Ku'uipo ika he'e pu'eone, Mapuana, etc.

I missed most of the 60's while attending and enjoying Bible School :) I mean, I recognize some singers' names,
but I don't know their music. It's a joke here in Seattle, as many players who know me and my history, kid me
whenever they want to do a Beatle's song, etc. It's OK by me :)

keep uke'in',
 
I've been playing for only half a year, and I really enjoy playing some classical solos arranged by Wilfried Welti.
 
Hawaiian. I guess I really can't think of any songs I play (which isn't many) that aren't. Now, we hardly ever play any Hawaiian at ukulele club, so I like to throw Tiny Bubbles into the mix. Which isn't the kind of Hawaiian songs I play, but it's something :- D
 
Uncle Rod, I like those kinds of songs too. I was a young man back then, and they bring back lots of good memories. :eek:ld:
 
Yes . . . (the affirmation, not the band . . love 'em, but not on Uke...)
 
I play primarily traditional Hawaiian music, which I enjoy very much.
I also like to play stuff that seems like you should not play it on ukulele, like Queen or Oingo Boingo or David Bowie.
Beatles and Grateful Dead round out the rest.
 
I got a ukulele to accompany myself singing folk songs - both traditional and contemporary but have subsequently branched out, rediscovering the music of my youth; 50s and early 60s rock but also a variety of other stuff. I have recently been working on Brain Damage from Dark Side of the Moon. Not the most obvious thing to play on a uke but I have had some pretty good feedback. As a friend said, it was unexpected but it worked. Overall though it's traditional folk that's my main interest but also a lot of contemporary folk. I do quite a lot of Tom Paxton, particularly some of his early stuff.

I have other musical interests which I play on other instruments. I play in a Ceilidh band (folk dancing) where I mainly play harmonica and I play classical music on recorder and particularly enjoy renaissance and medieval music. I've just bought "From Lute To Uke" and have just started working on the first tune in that so I guess I'm starting to branch out a bit on the ukulele.
 
I've been working my way through Wilfried Welti's free ebook "Erste Ubungsstucke fur Solo Ukulele" so I've been playing a lot of German folk songs, childrens's songs, some classical pieces, and a few American folk and Irish tunes thrown in for good measure. The style is mostly chord melodies with some fingerpicking mixed in. So far, I'm really enjoying it and learning quite a bit about this little stringed wonder we call the ukulele!
 
I play classical such the the Welti pdf mentioned here, old movie songs like As Time Goes By, and the songs I listened that came out when I was a teen/early twenties - Killing Me Softly, Teach your Children, Stairway to Heaven etc.
 
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Great question!
I enjoy playing 'happy' songs and arrangements, mostly on a soprano.
Somehow I find sad songs more enjoyable when played on a guitar and difficult technical stuf more interesting when played on a piano.
 
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