Helpful Hints

If you ever want to learn/practice but don't wanna make noise, here's a way to do it. Cut a medium heavy piece of cardboard about 1" by 1.25"
and hold it between your index finger and thumb of your left hand. Then you can strum it with your right strumming finger without making much noise at all. You can do it while watching TV or late at night ot whatever

If you happen to be learning/practicing to use a flat pick, you hold the cardboard in your right index finger and thumb and pick/strum against you left hand. I use it to learn to pick Irish Jigs correctly.

Anybody else got any handy-dandy helpful hints for us learners? ld:

Hi, Dick. Thank you for your tip. I try to practice arpeggio in such case.

Thanks. Can you figure out something for other instruments?

Q. What sounds worse than a beginner violinist?

A. Two beginner violinists.

Ugh, so you basically make a pick out of cardboard? Thats still gonna make a sound. Or am I missing something...?

Practice changing strings before you have to do it for real.

LarryS said:

Ugh, so you basically make a pick out of cardboard? Thats still gonna make a sound. Or am I missing something...?

Click to expand...

I didn't understand it either. Hold it like a pick in your left hand and strum it with your right hand?

LarryS said:

Ugh, so you basically make a pick out of cardboard? Thats still gonna make a sound. Or am I missing something...?

Click to expand...

No, you don't make a cardboard pick. Read my post again. ld:

Down Up Dick said:

No, you don't make a cardboard pick. Read my post again. ld:

Click to expand...

Can you explain it differently? I'm having trouble understanding it also.

You must be putting me on. HA HA HA, good one! ld:

No I'm really not understanding. The whole hold the cardboard in your left hand and strum it with your right hand is confusing me. Are you holding the cardboard against the strings, between the Uke neck and fingers?

Here´s a tip from guitar player David Russel that can also be practised with the ukulele. It is also simple. He turns the guitar backwards, the top facing the stomach then he plays on the backside of the neck.

A while back, I promised another UUer I'd post a thread about structuring lesson plans and practice sessions, a promise I intend to soon make good on. However, in the meantime, here's a tip:

Keep a practice journal. Write down long-term (seasonal, annual) and short-term (monthly, weekly) goals, dedicate a small amount of your practice time to the pursuit of these goals, and note your progress (and obstacles) in your journal. Ex.:

Long-term goal: perform roll on strings 3-2-4-1-4-2-3-2-4-1-4-2-3 as a i-m-p-a-p-m-i-m-p-a-m-i roll in sixteenth notes at 180 bpm. (time: 6 months)
Short-term goal: perform a straight "Salty Dog Blues" in the key of G using the 7-8-7-7 E7 chord as the starting position. (time: 2 weeks)

"3/28 (30-min practice):
Roll (month 2, day 1, 5 minutes devoted):
-80 bpm achieved without any wrong note error. increase tempo slightly
-Thumb is still "thunky". focus on evenness
-Slight rub between joints on m and a fingers. eliminate unnecessary friction
-distal joint on i finger is not relaxing enough. practice open-handed clapping
Salty Dog Blues (day 6, 10 minutes devoted):
-Memorized appropriate E7aug and A9 inversions from Sakuma book. all necessary chords inversions now memorized
-The D-D7-D6 transition using D(11-9-10-9, 9 barre) and modifications feels awkward. practice squeeze and release for each chord, then focus on transitioning
-Kept pace with metronome at 60 bpm using simplified chord progression. incorporate full progression before increasing tempo"

That's just an example. As you can see, I also prescribe myself future exercises to address any issues. I review the previous few days' notes before each practice session to know what to focus on for that day.

And don't schedule out your entire practice like this unless you want your practice to feel like work. Just do a few minutes a day of this sort of structured activity for a couple of weeks before deciding if more or less of it is appropriate for you.

Down Up Dick said:

No, you don't make a cardboard pick. Read my post again. ld:

Click to expand...

I don't get it either. You're holding the cardboard between your index and thumb of left hand, and hitting that with your index of right hand? You're not even holding a uke? Are you just practicing strumming patterns? Maybe I'm not understanding, but this doesn't seem useful.

blodzoom, you got it! It's just for quiet practice while watching TV, etc. If you don't need it, don't use it. ld:

Arr!

It be called th' paper strum 'n has be mentioned many times 'tis past week or a pair.

~gettin me pirate on~

Pirate Al's linked vid clears this up for me but he's really just keeping time. When I'm trying to play a new song, I often struggle to get the strum pattern to sound right.

If anyone has any suggestions specific for helping a noob hear/copy a strum pattern, I'd love to hear it. As an example... I decided that I wanted to play Counting Crows - "Mr. Jones" (don't judge me, I still like it). Simple enough, I look up the chords, pretty standard Am, F, Dm, G. I start playing that progression and it doesn't sound bad, but doesn't sound like Mr. Jones either. It's the odd strum pattern that makes it. I wanted to do it by ear but gave up and found a youtube tutorial. Pretty simple once somebody demonstrates it for me.