The Great Ukulele Instrumental CHALLENGE!!!

The Great Ukulele Instrumental CHALLENGE!!! Song suggestions now end MARCH 2ND!

Hello Everyone!

So a group of us were on the UU Minijams tonight, and had the super awesome idea to pose a fun challenge to the ukulele community. A lot of us around here like to do instrumentals, but maybe need a little motivation to get it done. We are therefore creating The Great Ukulele Instrumental CHALLENGE!!!

GOALS:

--Learn from others and how they approach figuring out songs
--Hear and see everyone´s individual takes on the same song
--Learn to figure out songs by ear and through repetition
--Share tips, tricks, and techniques for arranging instrumentals
--Expand our musical horizons, improve, and have fun doing it

RULES:

--No singing allowed!
--All experience levels most welcome!

The idea is that for the first week, everyone can suggest songs by responding to this thread. At the end of the week, we will hold a poll, and popular demand will dictate the song that we all have to turn into a ukulele instrumental.

Then, everyone will have a full month to figure out the song. We can use the poll thread to help each other out and give advice and encouragement. Since everyone will be doing the same song, if you´re having trouble with one part, chances are, someone else can help. HOWEVER, individuality reigns, and if there are twenty people taking part in the challenge, we can expect to see twenty different versions!

At the end of the month, everyone uploads their respective versions to Youtube (and to the poll thread). Everyone (not just the participants) can view, comment, and critique. And then the cycle begins again!

That´s about it! Hit us up with comments, questions, and ideas, and...

THE GREAT UKULELE INSTRUMENTAL CHALLENGE IS NOW IN SESSION.

Start posting your song ideas! We´ll hold the vote on MARCH 2ND.

EDIT: Colin and I have been somewhat blown away by the amount of suggestions we´ve received so quickly. So we´ve shortened the suggestion time, so we can get this thing started. Song suggesting ends tomorrow, March 2nd, at 11:59 PM EST. After that, we vote!

I like this idea. We should try Yesterday by The Beatles.

We rock tina, like this is aweeessssooomme.

I know we've talked about this before. We have this problem where we find a song we want to figure out, and we get it started and get progressed on it. Eventually getting some parts, skipping out on others, and then we just kinda let it sit. Hopefully this will help me as well as others motivate themselves to finish a song. I know right now I have a about 3 or 4 sitting in limbo.

Really excited about this.. I wanna try to keep this first month in a little bit simple.. hmmmm i gotta think about this one

Cool idea! I'll cast a vote for Mason Williams' "Classical Gas"




And another vote for Barry White's "Love's Theme"




And, finally, a third vote for Apollo 100's "Joy" (which is basically Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring")




Ah, that was back in the day when an instrumental could be a radio hit. When's the last time that happened?

JJ

I´m going to throw Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver out there as a possible idea.



HAH! And Firework, by Katy Perry. Just for fun.

This is my vote.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRC0rdFokKM

Through The Fire and Flames




Intensity In Ten Cities




GREAT songs, both would make super awesome instrumentals.

Great idea! Gotta get in on this. I haven't been all that motivated to finish songs I'm learning, and there's still a bunch of videos I never got around to posting because I just wasn't proud of them. This might be exactly what I need to get back into it. :B

Also, everyone should take a stab at Tiptoe Thru The Tulips. It's a nice melody and will lend itself to some neat instrumental arrangements!

wow I did not expect this many suggestions this early. This is going to be awesome!

I've decided that however the votes go, I'm learning Intensity In Ten Cities anyway, its too beautiful not to learn ^.^ I already got the intro down this seems like a really cool idea!! Cant wait to see what gets picked!

philpot said:

I've decided that however the votes go, I'm learning Intensity In Ten Cities anyway, its too beautiful not to learn ^.^ I already got the intro down this seems like a really cool idea!! Cant wait to see what gets picked!

Click to expand...

I agree I played only the first few seconds but wow! Maybe we will need to go in cahoots and vote for it

Hmmm. All the suggestions so far would suggest a pretty high proficiency level and a lot of experience. I know you said all experience levels most welcome.

How about a beginner's section then with some pretty easy instrumental work.

I can do a flamenco-ish backing strum for Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps. I could jazz it up a little, it might be able to stand alone. Would that fit with what you want to see, or are you looking for a worked up instrumental performance piece?

This seems like a great challenge. I think I'll be game.

brucemoffatt said:

Hmmm. All the suggestions so far would suggest a pretty high proficiency level and a lot of experience. I know you said all experience levels most welcome.

How about a beginner's section then with some pretty easy instrumental work.

I can do a flamenco-ish backing strum for Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps. I could jazz it up a little, it might be able to stand alone. Would that fit with what you want to see, or are you looking for a worked up instrumental performance piece?

Click to expand...

When I said all experience levels welcome, I meant it. I believe that any song can be turned into an instrumental, regardless of your experience level. If all you can do is pick out a simple version of the melody, then that´s perfect! If you can only manage one verse and the chorus, then that´s perfect! And you should post it!

Everyone´s takes are going to be different. We´re all at different stages in our ukulele playing, and we all hear something different in the song. The beauty is in seeing how the song changes from person to person. Some people may edit some parts of the song out, others may add solos that don´t exist in the original, others may change the arrangement of the song completely.

I guess what I´m trying to say is figure out the song to the best of your abilities! We can all learn from each other, and all complicated ukulele instrumentals start with a simple melody. Do what you can, and we can help each other along the way. And after all, this is a ukulele challenge! There wouldn´t be any fun in it if it weren´t challenging!

Great Idea
Heres a good choon that's suitable for beginners and can be dressed up alot by the more experienced of you.

much love

OK just so we have a common understanding of what 'beginner' means, here's what I can do now, and what I would work on jazzing up if this song is selected. This one has a couple of bonuses thrown in for free - a Columbian drug lord's hat, a long black cat, and a surprise cup of tea thrown in at the end for a giggle.

I nominate Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps

i nominate

'till there was you' from the music man, but most famously by the beatles

and also

' memories are made of this ' dean martin.


both have simplicity that can be worked up into complexity

brucemoffatt said:

OK just so we have a common understanding of what 'beginner' means, here's what I can do now, and what I would work on jazzing up if this song is selected. This one has a couple of bonuses thrown in for free - a Columbian drug lord's hat, a long black cat, and a surprise cup of tea thrown in at the end for a giggle.

Click to expand...

Sounds great! We´ll add it to the list for sure. Who sings that song originally?

I've been waiting for a thread like this my whole life. And I've only been playing uke a year or so. At least in Low G, my arrangement process is relatively straightforward - 1) find a key that allows all the melody notes to be played, preferably on the higher strings, 2) at the very least put a bass or harmony note below the melody to suggest chord changes 3) add other embellishments that are in reach. This often works well on guitar but doesn't always produce interesting results on ukulele. So I'd love to learn some new approaches.

In High G tuning I'm pretty much lost. But I haven't really tried that tuning much. I'll try it for this challenge though, if that's what others are doing.

Song suggestion: Jeopardy Theme?