Lightening Your Touch...And Loving It

luvdat

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 24, 2009
Messages
1,158
Reaction score
2
Location
USA
Anyone else out there even in the midst of a definite level of mastery, not just a beginner, ever have a moment of realization: I could get by with less...and then started lightening your touch...FINALLY relaxing that right hand (or left if you're a lefty)...that you thought was relaxed enough but still quite tense, even slightly ham-handed?
 
Last edited:
yes - about two months ago, everything started coming together and my strumming just became 'right'. It's a good feeling when you suddenly think - ooh I can play :)
 
yes - about two months ago, everything started coming together and my strumming just became 'right'. It's a good feeling when you suddenly think - ooh I can play :)

Related to this topic: I think I had to give up my own obsession with "volume."
 
Not only with the left but with the right too and feeling the flow of the rhythm and timing..
 
I played classical guitar for years before uke, so I was pretty well versed in the concept of "don't apply any more pressure than you have to to get the job done." A lot of beginners go for a death grip with their fretting hand or strum too hard with their right.

It's just like typing... use only enough pressure to depress the keys. Duh! Whenever I see someone pounding a keyboard, I just want to scream. With carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis and arthritis, I try to type as gently as I can. Pounding doesn't make anything work better or faster.
 
My husband has been working on this a lot lately, which makes me very, very happy.

He's a somewhat heavy-handed tenor strummer, while I am a delicate-fingered concert picker. It's nice to not have to beat the crap out of my fingers to keep him from stepping on my leads or wear out my throat trying to sing over his uke.
 
I am sometimes kind of heavy-handed with my right-hand attack. I think that comes from playing bass for 30 years. I am not particularly heavy-handed as a bass player, but I sometimes forget to adjust my attack for the poor little ukulele. Sometimes, however, I MEAN to have a hard attack. Like if I want a sort of flamenco style effect. But, yeah, in general, I could definitely lighten my touch.
 
Not only with the left but with the right too and feeling the flow of the rhythm and timing..
The way I was taught first was to press hard on the fret and chords and to keep a curl or steep
angle on your fingers to the fretboard. Now I feel I can get away with less pressure and less
of an angle...you figure things out as you improve.....
 
I think trying out low g with a wound string also helped because I was forced to balance things out more. Coming back to a tenor with high g again, it feels like I'm rediscovering reeentrant tuning, not just with vocals but with instrumentals. I even restrung the LU-21TE with Nylguts in high g (after bashing these strings how many times). I really think in my case I was trying to get too much volume overall from ukuleles. I had less room for dynamics. Sure there's a time you love to crank it out, banjo or flamenco style...but too much force even then can make it sound kind of pathetic. I think each uke has a certain headroom like amps. Also, I ended up playing a soprano again last for a couple of hours...
 
I too go through phases too, when at the time I think this is good and this is the way to go....then it changes for whatever reasons....
realization or boredom...I play all the sizes of my ukes too, I simply enjoy them all, with all their differences.....MM Stan..
 
yes - about two months ago, everything started coming together and my strumming just became 'right'. It's a good feeling when you suddenly think - ooh I can play :)

This is all really interesting, because I think many of us, especially those new to ukulele, put so much emphasis on the strum pattern or learning a strum and we do the process as opposed to feeling it - but once you feel it, you never, EVER have to think about it again. It's that moment when you are up on two wheels and you know you will never forget to ride! I experienced this many, many years ago playing drums, but it is the one thing I want to share with every one new to this - forget the strum patterns and the how to - listen to it, think about it, loosen up and do it. And don't get me started on how much I despise what tabs do to us - rob from us, if you will - as musicians (hey, maybe I'll post on that). Not that they are bad, not that they aren't helpful, but I know so many people who try to play note for note and note by note and it takes away the flow - all of this is related. You just got to "be" in the music. That's when it begins to work. Mike
 
I used to get on myself when touching adjacent strings while forming a given chord. Now I adjust on the fly and have come to recognize that the flow is as important to a piece of music as any other part. AND most folks listening don't know the difference anyway. Once I learned to cut myself some slack, my playing got better and much more relaxed.
 
Can't speak for others (or maybe I will, LOL) but I think even a lot of instrument, string and even size of uke choices are "off" until touch gets established, especially lightened. Yeah, I know about tonewoods, uke sizes, string variations etc...but if the overall temperament of my play, my overall playing style is too heavy...a lot of my own talk was nonsense.

I really think recording and listening to yourself is key...whether evaluating instruments or your playing.
 
Last edited:
Talking about Eureka strumming moments, I had one a couple of days ago. Not with the intensity of the strumming, but where I was strumming. Being primarily a guitar guy over the years, I was used to strumming where you're supposed to --- over the sound hole. I had seen so many strumming the uke "where the neck meets the body" and had read about it, but for some reason it never really registered. Finally I discovered it. The volume increased at least 25% and I was getting tones and harmonics I had not heard in my uke. It's like a whole new instrument.
 
Top Bottom