What are your top two areas of frustration?

mitchchang

mitchchang

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Hi all,

I was wondering if you could help me out? I wanted to find out from y'all what are the top two areas of frustration for you as....

1) An ukulele player just getting started?

2) Someone who's been playing ukulele for two or more years?

I'm working on some new content to help answer these kinds of questions. Thanks for your help!

Mitch Chang
http://www.ukulelewebsite.com/
 
As a beginner, I didn't run into much frustration at all.

Having played a few years, now, though... I get frustrated with myself when i try to write songs. I also become frustrated when i don't pull of a 5-finger roll. I don't pull those off very much, either, so I get frustrated by that alot ;)
 
Good to see you're sharing the ukulele love........ at a price. So I'll tell you my two frustrations at only $4.95 each.
 
I find the premise of this thread frustrating. ;) I've played guitar for 20 years, and ukulele for about 9 months. It wouldn't be fair for me to identify myself as a beginner, but in some ways I am. I suppose I'm suffering from some sort of experiential/skills-based dichotomous fracture of self-identity.

Does that count???
 
Pulelehua, I recently sent out a poll where more respondents said they had a harder time knowing WHAT to practice than "finding the time" to practice. Does this describe your situation?
 
Yup. The five-finger roll is where you up-stroke with your thumb and flick your four fingers down, creating a 5-strum (one up, four down).

And the songwriting is the chord progressions and strum patterns. Just can't ever seem to get the right mood. But, I don't imagine that's something that anyone can "teach" you. You just have to know the right progressions.
 
My top two areas of frustration are:
1) Finding other players to play with (I find I learn and improve a lot when I play uke with others)
2) Having a mother in law who hates me.....(I am open to suggestions on this one) :)
 
RyanMFT said:
My top two areas of frustration are:
1) Finding other players to play with (I find I learn and improve a lot when I play uke with others)
2) Having a mother in law who hates me.....(I am open to suggestions on this one) :)
Click to expand...

For 1) I find that when there are no actual people around to play with, YouTube and the like is full of "virtual" player at all skill levels. The only problem is you can't talk directly to them, but on the other hand, they can repeat over and over and over without getting mad at you!

For 2) Teach her how to play and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak!
 
Last edited:
I've always had the same top two.

1) Having a dreadful, atonal singing voice (I'm tone-dumb; I can hear the distinction between notes just fine, but I can't reproduce them with my voice)
2) Trying to run before I learn to crawl (attempting difficult stuff because I'm too lazy to learn the basics, thus playing sloppy and unimpressive renditions of complex pieces)

I'm not half-bad at strumming, so I kinda wish I could sing and make pleasant music. It seems as though most folks don't care for instrumentals unless they're played really, really well, but even an average singer/chord strummer will attract lots of interest.
 
1) Performance nerves make me mess up whenever I want to shoot a video, or play solo for other people.
2) Having a great desire for many ukes, I have trouble with storage in a small apartment space. I like to keep them safe in their cases.

–Lori
 
mitchchang said:
Pulelehua, I recently sent out a poll where more respondents said they had a harder time knowing WHAT to practice than "finding the time" to practice. Does this describe your situation?
Click to expand...

I'm a music teacher, so I spend lots of time telling people what to practice. I don't worry about that. I work full-time, and have a 2 1/2 year-old son and a 10 week-old daughter, and the nearest relative is an hour away. So, finding time is definitely a big issue.

In terms of actual playing, I'd say right-hand technique. I'm left-handed, but play right-handed (have done so on guitar for 20 years, and am not about to change). Some of the more advanced techniques just don't quite flow like I'd like them to: fan stroke, 8/10-finger roll. I know if I had a few hours to sit and really get on top of them, and start to build some muscle memory, it would be better. So I suppose, not enough time really is the killer.

I'd also like to learn how to do golpes on the ukulele, but the narrow size makes it tricky.

And ordering my next ukulele is slowly making me insane. I've got it narrowed to 3 choices, all of which are good. It's a win-win-win, but I just can't decide.

Ok. I seem to have a number of frustrations when it comes right down to it. :)
 
- Not having any uke-buddies to jam with. Our local uke group is usually 15 - 20 people of different skill levels, always bashing out the same song in unison. It's fun in it's own way, but I don't feel I learn much. Many don't play well, many don't sing well, several play banjo ukes....it seldom sounds good. I'd learn better with two or three folks who I could ask questions of, have them show me stuff, really learn a few songs with.

- Right hand technique. I'm apparently stuck thumb-strumming, and can't seem to get away from it. I have no desire to finger-pick or play lead riffs at this point, but I'd like to learn a nice, comfortable right hand strum....maybe like krabbers or unclejeff, for example.
 
1. Never enough time to practice.
2. When I do get a little time, I seem to practice/ play the same things.
 
Having played piano for 64 years, I am note/score reader and do not do well with tabs. So learning the fretboard on a note level that my fingers just "Know" where they belong is my frustration. I am getting much better at it, but it takes a lot of practice.

My second frustration would be smooth moves from easy chords to more difficult chords. Lozark
 
mitchchang said:
Pulelehua, I recently sent out a poll where more respondents said they had a harder time knowing WHAT to practice than "finding the time" to practice. Does this describe your situation?
Click to expand...

1) +1 vote for the above. If I had some self-directed training material where I could measure my progress against some goals, that'd be fantastic I think. As an IT Professional I routinely have technical books on my desk which teach in this style i.e 2-6 skills per chapter are taught, at the end of the chapter is a quick test and checklist of skills covered that you can self grade and mark off as complete. Putting self-learning into digestable chunks makes it more achievable, in my opinion.

2) The split stroke. It continues to evade me.
 
ukecantdothat said:
For 1) I find that when there are no actual people around to play with, YouTube and the like is full of "virtual" player at all skill levels. The only problem is you can't talk directly to them, but on the other hand, they can repeat over and over and over without getting mad at you!

For 2) Teach her how to play and kill two birds with stone, so to speak!
Click to expand...

Great suggestions.
I too WISH I had more folks to play uke and sing with more often, as it is I drive hundreds of miles to get to uke jams & ukefests - why, I even took 3 flights from Sydney to LA to Denver to Indianapolis to get to a weekend Uke Love-in called the Ukulele World Congress in Needmore Indiana :)
In absence of uke folks I too make use of YouTube every day, like you say you can replay etc.
Re the mother-in-law ... not quite so easy. But as they say - it takes two to tango - what can you do to win her over, little by little. Getting her into uke, if she was half way inclined would be an amazing achievement, a triumph, on your part. Everyone would win - one more happy uker on the planet, & you'd have another person to jam with. I wonder if that seems inconceivable ?
 
Now, my top 2 areas of frustration ...
1. I don't have a Fairy Godmother to take care of the rest of my life while I do nothing but play ukulele.
2. I have yet to figure how to earn a fantastic income from doing nothing but play ukulele.

Please help solve these problems. I don't want to do anything but play ukulele.
Ukulele playing does not put dinner on the table. Ukulele playing does not walk the dogs. Ukulele playing does make me extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemely happy :)
 
My two frustrations...

1) I used to sing pretty good, now I have a really tough time, so I usually don't.

2) I used to retain songs, 30 plus years ago I could play guitar for 2-1/2 hours and not repeat a song. Now I forget them almost as fast as I learn them.

I have been trying to market myself as a poor singer who can't remember the songs.

That way if I ever get a gig, I can't possibly fail.

John
 
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