Your best accomplishment(s) as a player in 2012?

TheOnlyUkeThatMatters

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As 2013 begins, it's a perfect time to look back on our progress as players in 2012.

What was your best accomplishment as a player this past year? (Feel free to share more than one, of course.)
 
I'll start.

I played a really hard song on stage at UWC. Not a duet, but a solo song with my friend, Ukesterbrown, playing backup chords. I was a nervous wreck and could barely breathe. I'm still alive and look back at it as a tremendous accomplishment. Can't wait to play again this year. I am already working on my song.
 
Picking up a uke for the first time a year ago. It's been a blast so far and a big thank you to all UU'ers for everything I've learned here.

Jim B
 
Getting over my fear of singing in front of other people. It was a real challenge for me, because I have little confidence in my singing voice. But as the song says, if you're going to sing, sing out... so at my various jams (and on a few Seasons videos), I now sing loudly and confidently, if not particularly well. And the whole music thing is SO much better when you sing...
 
mine has got to be getting a uke, and learning to play,
something i have always wanted to do, then getting another uke for xmas from wife, and making first vid on YT with new uke, never thought in a million years i would do anything like this,
 
I participated in 25 of the ukulele seasons contests, each challenging in its own way, but I think the most challenging so far was this one. It's my own arrangement, I sang it in Portuguese, and I counted 40 different chord positions, not counting the intro.

Chega De Saudade
 
Oops, I forgot to tell y'all mine. (I've got two.)

* I participated in every week of the Seasons of the Ukulele. I don't think I could list everything I learned from the weekly challenges. Also, the Seasons community is a terrific, supportive group. (Come and play with us!)

* Learning a new song each week, I finally figured out to transpose songs into keys which are friendly to my voice. One tip I can pass on is how to easily find a friendly key:
(1) Figure out which note in the vocal melody is the root---it's often the last note---that's the original song's key.
(2) Sing the song a capella a few times to find a more comfortable range for the notes.
(3) Sing the song a capella into a chromatic tuner with a mic, and sing out that root note---the tuner gives the root note's name (or at least the name of the nearest note). That's the friendly key!

I learned that my voice likes some keys that are uncommon for uke arrangements, like B, A flat, and E flat. Weird. Fun.
 
I got married in July and wrote a song for my wife. She said she wanted to walk down the isle to it! My greatest accomplishment was managing to record it (never been so nervous to record something in my life!) so it could play it as she walked.
 
My greatest accomplishment was posting my first video, which was in the 23rd Season of the Ukulele challenge. I had been feeling very low and made myself do something I was afraid to do. The simple song was shortest I could find. No one laughed and it didn't kill me. Instead, the achievement raised my spirits a lot and made me set higher goals as a player.
 
Wow... let's see...

1) I wrote new lyrics to "The Garden Song", called "The Knitting Song", asked the local knitting group to sing it with me and let me record it for YouTube - and they did!
With over 600 views, it is currently my most viewed video on YouTube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BisE8UH-V0g

2) I was asked to take over the local Uke Night one evening when the regular leader couldn't make it, and was complimented by a number of people on the session. (When I was asked to do it again, I had to say no, because we had tickets for Mannheim Steamroller)

3) I actually won Season 38 of the Ukulele! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMeUyJp5M-U

4) I recorded a video with TCK and TCW (Dave and Melissa) at a yarn shop in Sunnyvale, CA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht0YocPi-eg

5) Got on stage at a local music festival (Old Songs, Altamont NY) and played with the Old Songs Jug Band along with a lot of very talented folks, young and old (First Time on stage with an instrument in almost 30 years)

and finally:

6) Rick Turner let me play TWO of his personal ukuleles (The Cherry and the Koa) and neither snatched them away from me, nor did he order me to leave and never return without cash in hand.

There have been some pretty rude awakenings this past year, but as far as Uke and Yarn went, the year rocked.


-Kurt​
 
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Recording myself playing and singing my own arrangements for James Hill to grade me. It wasn't perfect but I received 90 out of 100.
 
Learned to play and sing "From Four until Late" on my Mya Moe resonator, thereby meeting one of my bucket list items.
 
Great accomplishments, everyone!

My greatest ukulele accomplishment in 2012 was playing with the J-Town Hui (my Wednesday evening ukulele class at the Japantown Cultural and Community Center in San Francisco) at the 2012 Aloha Festival in San Mateo and then the 2012 Maui Ukulele Festival in Kahului. To play at the Maui Ukulele Festival, we were asked by our instructor to memorize all the songs we were going to be performing. Performing in front of people, many of whom were themselves accomplished ukulele players, and without music or lyrics sheets, was one of the most frightening and exhilarating ukulele-related things I've done.
 
Got myself a ukulele...and began.
 
2012 was a great year in many ways.

1. I feel I became much smoother and efficient with finger picking and chord transitions. became more free-flowing when using all fingers on the right hand

2. Made a lot of new arrangements for some old jazz tunes and standards

3. took the uke in to the local market everytime we went and had so many awesome conversations with curious folks, some whose father or grandfather had played, some of course thought it was a banjo..he he

4. more than my own progress, it's actually been a total delight to watch the progress of others....which is often much easier to quantify than our own I find. Folks like dr bekken and John Bianchi continue to amaze. 23skidoo and Alan started a band. All the seasonistas gang are just such wonderful people and some have just developed as players quite substantially these past 12 months...guys like the Ukelites, wetigers, TCK, ukuleledaveey, ukuleledaddy, myrna, 29moons, GT3T11, barefootgypsy etc etc....we have all grown in confidence through taking part in that weekly challenge. It continues to be a great outlet for us and an ongoing blessing

(oh and I'm with you Ralf....Ab, Bb, F, F# and Eb are the keys of choice :p )
 
The Seasons have definitely been a highlight for me (I've done 40 or so of them), and winning the Ukulele Ike challenge was probably the pinnacle for me over there. As a few have mentioned already, the diligence of the weekly challenge has really stepped up my confidence and skills as a player and singer. And the cameraderie over there has been wonderful - a fun place to hang out, listen to great music, and learn a thing or two.

That said, I also started being known as the ukulele playing actor round these parts, which meant that my skills were in demand. I arranged three songs to be played live, onstage, memorized (I played them). One from a totally unfamiliar melody line only, to be turned into a fingerstyle soundtrack, one to accompany an original song, from chords and melody, and one taking an old standard and creating a chord melody arrangement. These tasks all really stretched me, I made lots of mistakes along the way, and I feel pretty awesome about how it all turned out.

It looks like 2013 might see me putting together a set list and taking it out and about. Yet another step.
 
I finally was able to barre chords for the first time, and pretty consistantly at that. Unfortunetly, it does just simply take practice, practice and more practice.
 
Joining the Seasons is high up there for me. I have written a fair few songs especially for them and revived some of my old songs. The Seasons gave me the impetus to record some material for youtube, finally! It is fabulous having an English speaking (or at least English comprehending) audience for my work. A luxury I don't generally have in Catalunya where I live.

Winning a season was a high, but winning Eugene's home decorated Baritone for one of my Christmas songs in the Xmas Song Competition was probably the star on the Christmas tree! Getting recognition from a "colleague" you admire is an incredible boost to the old confidence.

Other highlights have been the series of Acoustic Beatles duo concerts me and another Liverpudlian exile here in Catalunya have been showcasing to commemorate 50 years since "Love me Do". They've gone down a storm wherever we have played. I have also enjoyed every one of my solo shows in local bars where I have introduced more and more Uke as the year went by.

I also joined the freelance staff on a local newspaper paper here and my first published article was about the boom in Ukuleles!

2012 was generally very good to me!
 
For me it would be playing with some classmates at the Folk School of St. Louis Student Showcase in October. We have another showcase coming up in March, and I am eagerly anticipating this (as opposed to wildly dreading it, as I did in the fall).
 
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