itsmemattchung
Active member
3 months ago, I started taking weekly, in person private (i.e. 1 on 1) ukulele lessons from a local instructor. At our first lesson, I shared my two (current) goals: jamming with other folks and learning how to improvise.
So far, I've learned quite a few things. From the playing pentatonic scale to memorizing the movable chords. However, despite diligently practicing these areas—and supplementing lessons with the vast collection of music theory books I've accumulated over the past few months—I've been really unable to put the lessons into practice when it comes to my goals in mind. In short, I'm having a difficult time applying the lessons I've learned.
I gave some feedback to the instructor, explaining that I learn best when I have context and can directly apply what I'm learning. His suggestion was two-fold: continue to just practice the movable shapes and just play around on the ukulele and discover the music. The latter is to help (presumably) build intuition and train the ear. However, this style of learning vastly differs than how I normally approach learning: taking a structured approach.
Basically, I like to know why I am doing something and I like to apply what I'm learning to solidify the material. So, I thought perhaps I could suggest the following to my instructor in our next lesson:
- Working through a music book together
- Selecting a song and practicing
- Jamming more in our sessions
But I'm wondering if maybe I should just allow myself to follow his lead, given he's the instructor. And that taking a less structured approach might be the right approach, albeit very different than the way I normally learn. In contrast, I find my singing lessons with another instructor very aligned with what I'm looking for: we practice during the session and the she gives me exercises to work on throughout the week.
In other words, I'm wondering if I should just continue with the less structured approach on the ukulele or suggest to him that I'd like to take a more structured approach (but this doesn't seem like it is his style). Please bare in mind that I have little (to no) background in music and pretty wet behind the ears when it comes to taking music lessons.
[1] At Dusty Strings in Fremont, I picked up the following book: Fretboard Roadmaps Ukulele Bk/CD
So far, I've learned quite a few things. From the playing pentatonic scale to memorizing the movable chords. However, despite diligently practicing these areas—and supplementing lessons with the vast collection of music theory books I've accumulated over the past few months—I've been really unable to put the lessons into practice when it comes to my goals in mind. In short, I'm having a difficult time applying the lessons I've learned.
I gave some feedback to the instructor, explaining that I learn best when I have context and can directly apply what I'm learning. His suggestion was two-fold: continue to just practice the movable shapes and just play around on the ukulele and discover the music. The latter is to help (presumably) build intuition and train the ear. However, this style of learning vastly differs than how I normally approach learning: taking a structured approach.
Basically, I like to know why I am doing something and I like to apply what I'm learning to solidify the material. So, I thought perhaps I could suggest the following to my instructor in our next lesson:
- Working through a music book together
- Selecting a song and practicing
- Jamming more in our sessions
But I'm wondering if maybe I should just allow myself to follow his lead, given he's the instructor. And that taking a less structured approach might be the right approach, albeit very different than the way I normally learn. In contrast, I find my singing lessons with another instructor very aligned with what I'm looking for: we practice during the session and the she gives me exercises to work on throughout the week.
In other words, I'm wondering if I should just continue with the less structured approach on the ukulele or suggest to him that I'd like to take a more structured approach (but this doesn't seem like it is his style). Please bare in mind that I have little (to no) background in music and pretty wet behind the ears when it comes to taking music lessons.
[1] At Dusty Strings in Fremont, I picked up the following book: Fretboard Roadmaps Ukulele Bk/CD