How to continue to improve my skills?

beginnerukeman143

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I've been playing for about.... 8 months now, and I'm at the point where just playing the chords and singing is getting pretty old....

I want to continue to play, I just don't know what would be more challenging for me right now....

So does anyone have suggestions?


-Nathan
 
Find a group and play with others. The most sure fire way of improving. You can bounce ideas off each other, find songs they can play but challenge you. Consider performing too. Baptism of fire!
 
Listen to every kind of music you can and love as much of it as you can.
 
Find a group and play with others. The most sure fire way of improving. You can bounce ideas off each other, find songs they can play but challenge you.........

I concur! Helps to renew enthusiasm as well.
 
Along with all the other great suggestions already made, how about taking a small step back and re-assessing your situation.

I mean, if playing the uke gives you joy, then even simple songs and strumming should never get old. I think that somewhere along the way there was a small shift from having fun to work.

That isn't to say you shouldn't try to get as good as possible. Absolutely you should. And the ideas already here are great to help you along that path. Of course, as with anything, there seems to be a definite multiple sigmoid curve to learning the uke. At first, progress is a bit slow as you grow accustomed to the instrument and the basic mechanics of it. Then, there is a sharp increase in progress as the fingering for basic chords becomes easier and the transitions smoother. This is followed by yet another reduction in rate of progress as you incorporate more difficult chords and begin to work up the neck as well, only to again reach another rapid increase in progress as those click. It seems you've just finished that third stage of the curve are at the beginning of another flatter part.

But your post does really seem to me to have a level of frustration in it, which should never be associated with the 'ukulele. Get back to where you pick up a uke to primarily have a good time and I bet you soon find yourself acquiring more skills.

Just a thought.
 
I am transitioning from basic chord strumming to chord/melody arrangements. To make this transition I use music books with chord and melody lines (lead sheets) (well, OK, some will tell you that they just figure out the melody note as they hear the song and incorporate the melody into the chord - but this isn't me...). Reasonably good arrangements can be found in tab form here:
Lyle Lite: 16 Easy Chord Solos Arranged by Ukulele Jazz Master (Jumpin' Jim's Ukulele Masters) but my goal is to pick up something like "The Real Book" and play chord/melody arrangements on the fly without tab.

Of course, as others have noted - your path depends on your interest - there are many place to go beyond basic strumming. Some options include clawhammer techniques, campanella, pull-ons and pull-offs, interesting strums, etc. I like the chord/melody option because, well, I can't sing, and playing a musical composition suddenly becomes a whole puzzle that must be solved...
 
I've been playing for about.... 8 months now, and I'm at the point where just playing the chords and singing is getting pretty old....

I want to continue to play, I just don't know what would be more challenging for me right now....

So does anyone have suggestions?


-Nathan

mini jams, and I'm not just saying that because I miss you, although that IS 90% of it.
 
I suggest:

1. Seek out some intermediate to advanced ukulele technique videos (I recommend Roy Sakuma's videos) and learn new techniques.
2. Listen to a bunch of ukulele instrumental players such as Jake Shimabukuro, Kalei Gamiao, Brittny Paiva, etc. and decide what type of music you are most interested in learning.
3. Go to Dominator's website and pick out tabs you're interested in learning.

That's basically what I did. X number of months into taking up the ukulele, I got a little bored with simple strumming and singing and developed an intense desire to learn Jake Shimabukuro arrangements. With Dominator's help I got started learning instrumental and I've been hooked ever since.
 
I suggest:

1. Seek out some intermediate to advanced ukulele technique videos (I recommend Roy Sakuma's videos) and learn new techniques.
2. Listen to a bunch of ukulele instrumental players such as Jake Shimabukuro, Kalei Gamiao, Brittny Paiva, etc. and decide what type of music you are most interested in learning.
3. Go to Dominator's website and pick out tabs you're interested in learning.

That's basically what I did. X number of months into taking up the ukulele, I got a little bored with simple strumming and singing and developed an intense desire to learn Jake Shimabukuro arrangements. With Dominator's help I got started learning instrumental and I've been hooked ever since.

And GX990 is now a solid and good player, much better than me or most, for that matter, so I think what he said must work.

On top of that, he has the most blingy upscale herd of custom ukuleles of anyone on UU. lol
 
If you can find someone who used to play ... just about anything, get with that person. Sometimes you need a kick in the butt, so find someone else who wrote some words but needs a song. Now you both have a problem to solve, you have to work together to come up with this song. My husband never plays anymore, and when he does, it's certainly not guitar. So I came up with a rough sketch of some chords for some lyrics Joeybug wrote.. and we banged it out on uke and bass for a while, but it wasn't done yet. He HAD to pick up the guitar so that we both had something that made chords. About 30 minutes later, we had the song.

We'd been married over 10 years, and I can count on one hand the number of times we've played together. And when we do usually play, it can be frustrating because our styles of playing in a group are so different.

Not this time though, we had a problem to work through, and so we did. The big payoff was that big rush you get when you freaking nailed a song. That feeling that you just wrote a number 1... even if no one ever hears it and even if no one else agrees. :)

You don't have to write a song to get that big rush, but sometimes it's easy for other musicians to put it off or to not be motivated and it's easy to come up with all sorts of excused to not play. But if you have a problem to solve, maybe it's the motivation you need to plug in.
 
I was also given the advice to play with others (perhaps in a "band") - and more than one person suggested that this was THE way to improve - because, according to these folks, nobody wants to be the person who doesn't know a song in a practice session (then again, they might be perfectionists...). I still don't know how valid it is to say THE way to improve is by playing in a group - there are plenty of musicians who play on their own. But I suppose it is a way to get together with those with more experience, or with less experience and work things out. I still mostly play on my own but I take group lessons. The lessons are more song-oriented than method/theory oriented so given my direction of chord/melody and ultimately improvisation I don't know how much the lessons help (maybe in some common musical vocabulary kind of way the lessons help)...
 
Get UU+ for one month. Those master workshops and theory lessons will kick you in the rear and get you going.

I just signed up for that I think. Vip? Or is it a different thing?
 
wow thank you for all of your quick responses guys :p

I think that part of the problem is maybe that all the songs i thought would sound great on the ukulele seem to have just gone away, like I've learned them all....

also when i said that just strumming chords is getting old, I meant that just strumming like, D, A, Bm, G, and (classic) C, G, Am, F for pretty much every single song is getting pretty old... I think if i do want some challenge it would be still strumming chords and singing, just more difficult and better sounding chords :)

also a lot of you suggested that I could join a band, and I wouldn't say I have joined one, but I have jammed with other people before, but even then I got extremely frustrated because they wouldn't tell me the chords to the songs we were playing XD

not to mention I'm only 14, and I'm home schooled so there is not a lot of opportunity for that sort of thing.


-Nathan
 
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