Uke goals for 2012?

Lalz

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 30, 2011
Messages
1,401
Reaction score
3
Location
UK
There was a couple of nice threads last year about what uke goals people had set for themselves for the coming year. I'm curious to hear what goals people have this year and what their ultimate goals are. Here are some of mine in no particular order. Some of them I'm almost there, some of them still a long way to go:

2012:
- Not buy another uke
- Know how to play completely by ear
- Play more complex stuff
- Improvise based on what notes I want to play rather than wherever my fingers happen to land, and add nice little variations to songs
- Do the clawhammer properly and play old-time american folk songs well
- Learn more Jazz chords and finally manage to play that finger-twisting E-chord in time
- Sing and play at the same time
- Vary my default strumming patterns a bit more
- Play with other people with similar music taste on a regular basis (maybe even have BBQ jam sessions in my backyard in the summer?)
- Get a small amp for my Peanut
- Be fluent in fingerpicking, in particular African two-finger picking (bass line with thumb, melody with left-hand hammer-ons and index finger picking)
- Build a little programmable one-armed drumming robot to have some rhythm playing in the background when I play the uke by myself
- Randomly start playing a ragtime tune on the street and have people pop up out of nowhere to dance Lindy Hop and Charleston to it :)

Longer term goals, but starting now:
- Learn how to play various musical styles on the uke (in particular Hawaiian Slack Key, Flamenco, Brazilian styles, West African ones and Jazz), some of them based how people already play them on the banjo, cavaqinho, guitar, ngoni, etc
- Develop my own personal playing style
- Record some of my own songs instead of forgetting them the next day. Then post them on Youtube. Play them live in front of other people.
- Go to Hawaii some day and buy a koa uke from MGM
- Jam with West African folk musicians

Other musical goals:
- Get a vintage Korg Electribe, be better at drumming and add live drums to my DJ sets
- Learn buck-dancing and dance more flamenco and lindy hop
- Get more samba bateria gigs + add a brazilian cavaquinho
- Have my step-dad teach me how to play the ngoni a little bit
- Buy a vintage tenor guitar from Jake Wildwood some day

What about you guys?
 
Not to buy a new uke for this year is really hard to achieve lol.

I know... I already failed that one lol. Got myself a Peanut.
But NO MORE FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR! :)
 
Wow, what a great list. You must be retired.
I met my goal of learning to play and sing (well, so what if it's not great?) in 2011. Then I performed in a Christmas pageant at my church.
My 2012 goals are:
Figure out how to retire, so I can play more.
Form a ukulele band. (Doin it now)
Perform at nursing homes and ALFs, when we're tight enough.
Pay off my new Willie Wixom ukulele when it's done.
Visit my fam out West and show off what I've learned.
 
I've been putting off recording. I don't plan a youtube channel, but I think I've resolved to get something out there.
 
Wow, what a great list. You must be retired.

Thanks! No I'm in my early thirties with a full-time job and other hobbies lol, but no kids yet so that gives me a bit of free time. My list just appears long because it's quite detailed but overall it boils down to: play better, learn more stuff, play with or for others. For my longer term goals I'm giving myself about 20-30 years to get there, I'm in no hurry :)

I met my goal of learning to play and sing (well, so what if it's not great?) in 2011. Then I performed in a Christmas pageant at my church.
My 2012 goals are:
Figure out how to retire, so I can play more.
Form a ukulele band. (Doin it now)
Perform at nursing homes and ALFs, when we're tight enough.
Pay off my new Willie Wixom ukulele when it's done.
Visit my fam out West and show off what I've learned.

This is great! You're going to have a lot of fun in 2012!
 
Stop calling an G chord a D, and a Bb an F. :rolleyes:
 
Great list of goals!! Mine would be as follows, also in no particular order
1. Acquire a 'moore bettah' Ukulele somehow, preferably a tenor.
2.Get generally better on the Ukulele (already achieving this since I put my guitars down completely since falling head over heels in love with the 'Jumping flea'
3.Find people with a similar love for the uke to jam with (bbq's in the summer with jams sounds fantastic!!)
4.Perfect my rendition of 'Lets dance' by Jake Shimabukuro so its flawless (may take a while)
5.Write my first song on the Ukulele
6.Broaden my musical horizons both in regards to instruments and styles of music I play and listen to.
7.Spread the word!!! lol
 
Continue to improve my playing.
Start finger-picking.
Play "out" more (open-mikes, etc)
Start a ukulele Band
 
my goals for myself this year include, becoming a better player, making a success of the new ukulele club that i have helped to start up in my city, post my first you tube vid, and hopefully play my first live gig with some or all of the members of the new club that i have helped to set up
 
I have a year to:
Learn all the notes on the fretboard.
Play chords up the neck - learn the root notes of standard chord shapes (G, B, D for chords up the neck) - learn how to flat the fifth, 7th, 9th, find the 11th, 13th, sharp the 5th, 7th, 9th, etc. on the fly).
More chord/melody arranging - hit the melody note when playing jazz standards.

Long term:
Be able to open the jazz real-book and play almost any song in any key in chord/melody form.
 
My four goals:

1) Write a song on the uke.
2) Play as many ukes that I don't own as I can to see if I like concert or tenor better than Soprano.
3) Save up enough to buy a Koaloha Pineapple Soprano uke (or other size, see Goal 2)
4) Restrain myself from buying additional ukes in order to achieve Goal 3
 
Thanks for replying, everyone's goals are very inspiring!
 
I would wager that I may only reach one or two of my goals for this year, but such as they are, here they are (in no particularl order):

1. Learn to fingerpick
2. Integrate fingerpicking into strumming
3. Learn the fretboard, and how chord shapes relate to one another as one moves up the neck
4. Get at least a novice's understanding of music theory (circle of fifths? diatonic vs pentatonic? WTF?)
5. Learn to read music
6. Manage to play a &$^@#! E chord!
 
To play something competently by Troy Fernandez. Certainly not as fast as him, but at least accurately, note-wise.

Kawika sound like a good one to tackle first.
 
1. Find good places to play, now that the open mike I was a regular at for three years shut down in early December.

2. Get back to working on my original songs. I haven't been motivated about this since the open mike ended, and I no longer have a regular audience. I've got lots of songs that have been sitting half-written for 20 or more years, and my mid-life crisis has been to finish as many as possible, and perform them for people.

3. In terms of cover songs, I'm learning some Yes and Steely Dan songs right now. On the back burner are Zappa's "Peaches en Regalia" and Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse".
 
I'm not big on setting goals/New Year's resolutions type stuff. I play uke just for fun, for me.

That said, I'd like to improve, maybe to where I could play Jake's Pianoforte or Bohemian Rhapsody from the new book. :)

I would also like to get the the point I have a decent repertoire and maybe play some nursing homes. My husband's grandfather died some years ago and his second wife was always part of the family. She had voluntarily moved herself into an assisted living facility a couple years ago, but we never made it to visit her, and she passed away just before Christmas. I would like to play at her home in her honor.

Last year I worked up some Christmas tunes but never played them in front of anyone but my husband, so I'd like to do that this year.
 
Top Bottom