Lurking in the Seasons

pootsie

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Hola, Seasonistas!

I wanted to share this, because I bet I am not the only one. Over the past many Seasons, I have picked out songs and tried to learn them (still a noob) and just never managed to record and post in time.

So I have prepared to enter quite a few but just haven't gotten in under the wire. I was SOOO ready for the opposites in Seasons 94!!! Seriously, I would have blown you away if I had two more weeks to get it together :)

It also looks like I may get "frozen out" of this current Season, 101. (Get it?, that's a joke.)

So, who else out there has been lurking in the Seasons?
 
I too am a Seasons lurker.

My wife's due in a few weeks with our second, so I plan on participating in earnest in, oh, say five years.
 
Hi Pootsie, I personally use the Seasons for practice and a bit of fun and never aim for any sort of perfection of a song......
If I did it would take me much longer too!!

Find simpler chord alternatives that you are comfortable with to the songs you wanna play and don't knock yourself out spending hours on end on it !! (I actually get worse the more time I put in) !! Lol
Just press that red button and start recording what you've got ........It'll be cool to hear ya !!
 
I too am a Seasons lurker.

My wife's due in a few weeks with our second, so I plan on participating in earnest in, oh, say five years.

Connor,

When my son was born last year I missed quite a few seasons. But I got right back to it whenever I could sneak in a half an hour here and there. It's hard to find time though, I have two kids as well. I sometimes end up recording late at night when they're asleep.

Congrats on your second!
 
Hi Pootsie, I participate as much as I can, and am always sorry when I can't. I look forward to the Saturday announcement of the new theme each week, and then try and find a song...but alas, much of the time other things get in the way and I can't quite carve out the time... But I do love to see what everyone else is doing, and I love the fact the when I am able to enter, it "forces" me to learn a song start to finish, which is a wonderful challenge for me. The seasons helps me grow every time....
 
I'm in the same boat. Every week I play along at home but don't always have the dedicated window of time it takes to get the song up to performance standard, plus do the inevitable 30 takes before coming up with an acceptable one.
 
This is me pretty much every week. Sometimes I do manage to make a video though. I really wish life did not get in the way so often!
 
I do have to say, though, it is nice to strum along at home! I still feel like part of the group. And it helps push me, since I don't really devote the time I should to actually learning to play :(

And to those who say not to worry about how bad I suck (but say it more politely):
1) thanks and
2) please trust that I am willing to share my suckage with the world. Say it loud--I suck and I'm proud!
 
nice thread pootsie. thanks.
i'm glad folks bought up the playing along thing.
that encourages me to want to put the chords and lyrics I'm using in the post. of course, a lot of the time i'm making things up so...
would love to have all of you jump in any time. and, if you want chords to a song (in the key it was performed in because lots of us transpose to get things into our vocal range or just to make things easier to play) i'd say just PM the person you want to strum along with or post in the comments.

ps: you can always post ANY video on the Island of Misfit Seasonistas, I started it and folks come there to share songs and goof off when we have finished all of the songs we're allowed to in a particular season or whatever. SO, it's not a contest, it's just a clubhouse.

Link's in my signature below if you want to have a low pressure place to hang out.
 
Connor,

When my son was born last year I missed quite a few seasons. But I got right back to it whenever I could sneak in a half an hour here and there. It's hard to find time though, I have two kids as well. I sometimes end up recording late at night when they're asleep.

Congrats on your second!

Thanks, Eric.

Glad you got back to it -- I like your style.
 
Long time lurker here too, Pootsie. I don't have the gear or time to polish a tune to post but I love watching each week to see new songs (relearn old songs) done on the uke.

PhilUSAFRet recently posted about uke vids on YouTube. I couldn't help wonder how many vids were added thanks to the seasons.

Keep 'em comin' and thanks all
 
Long time lurker here too, Pootsie. I don't have the gear or time to polish a tune to post but I love watching each week to see new songs (relearn old songs) done on the uke.

PhilUSAFRet recently posted about uke vids on YouTube. I couldn't help wonder how many vids were added thanks to the seasons.

Keep 'em comin' and thanks all

If you have a computer and a phone that takes video thats all you need:)

I do have to say, though, it is nice to strum along at home! I still feel like part of the group. And it helps push me, since I don't really devote the time I should to actually learning to play :(

And to those who say not to worry about how bad I suck (but say it more politely):
1) thanks and
2) please trust that I am willing to share my suckage with the world. Say it loud--I suck and I'm proud!

But we don't feel your a part of the group yet cuz we don't get to see you:)

I just want to jump in here and encourage you to stop waiting and jump in. I was thinking about taking lessons and spent about a year learning what I could from youtube and found myself so sidetracked because there is so much info there. I saw a mention of the seasons by pabrizzer and watched a few times and decided that it would be the thing I needed to keep me practicing consistently and that if it didn't help I would go take some lessons. I can tell you that it is free lessons. You get motivation, encouragement, skill, and everyone is very generous with their knowledge and will help you. I started in Oct. and have sense made nearly 60 vids by choice. The first video I made literally took me 2 days of one song over and over and over. Not because I wanted it to be perfect. I just couldn't get all the way through a song without messing it up so bad I couldn't use it. I really try hard to get it done in under 20 takes. There are those that have a personal one take rule but they are really great musicians and have probably been playing an instrument their whole lives.

Anyhoo there is no time like the present!

Here is my first video. Look how exhausted, frustrated and stressed I look. I have a personality to stick with it till its done. If you look at any of my recent vids you can see the major improvement in just a few short months. I did know the seasons like humor so I included outtakes of my frustrating two days. Im sharing this vid to encourage and not discourage. Don't do what I did and spend this much time cuz nobody cares about perfection. We just care about fun:)

 
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i totally agree with everything linda says. i do that anyway, all the time ;) but i also agree with her post here too!

i'd played uke for nearly a year and half before i started with the seasons. i was having a lot of fun with the uke on my own, mostly writing little songlets of my own, little punky things, very simple. i started with the seasons purely because i wanted to win the uke krabbers was putting up as a prize! i knew i'd never win on merit but he said he might pull names out of a hat - and if he did i wanted to be in that hat! for that first season that i entered, i did what i always did - wrote a couple of mini micro song-type things.

but the seasons are addictive, as everyone here will attest to i'm sure, and i started to do covers for the contests and i think that's what really helped me the most with my playing - when i write my own little songs i have my fave chords i go to time after time, that suit my voice, or are easy to play! or that suit the punky style of what i do - but with the covers i was starting to do for the seasons, i had to grapple with things like C#m and F#m and all manner of things i wouldn't touch with a bargepole left to my own devices! plus - even if your main thing is writing your own stuff - or if you wanna start writing your own stuff - you learn SO MUCH from looking at how REAL songs are put together. i used to think "oh all i do is put together 2 or 3 or maybe on a good day, 4, chords and just loop that pattern round and round and round". and then i started the seasons and i realised a lot of real and very fabulous songs just have a repeating pattern of 3 or 4 chords. only sometimes one of them was C#m or F#m!

the big thing is practice - and i just know i'm playing more, and i'm playing a wider variety of chords, and trying a much wider variety of styles of song, than i would if i was just only doing my own musical thing, and that is because of the seasons.

god bless the seasons, and all who sail in them
 
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But we don't feel your a part of the group yet cuz we don't get to see you

Hey, I didn't lose my status as Seasonista just because I haven't posted in a while!

I even won one season! Though, I think everyone admits, it was my misplaced enthusiasm and not my talent that got me there ;)
 
I got the wrong Impression and thought you hadn't posted a vid before Pootsie .............Just checked out Season 47 which way pre-dates my time here ...........excellent mate !! Lol
 
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Hey Pootsie,

After I posted yesterday I said to myself, Hey wait a minute, you know pootsie from the seasons, what have you done? I apologize. I realized too late that I must have been reading comments from previous years. Kindly forgive a doddery old dude and accept my apologies. The thread did have other names that I hadn't run across before, too, in my defense.

Best always,
alan
 
And, as usual, I agree with both of you:

but the seasons are addictive, as everyone here will attest to i'm sure, and i started to do covers for the contests and i think that's what really helped me the most with my playing - when i write my own little songs i have my fave chords i go to time after time, that suit my voice, or are easy to play! or that suit the punky style of what i do - but with the covers i was starting to do for the seasons, i had to grapple with things like C#m and F#m and all manner of things i wouldn't touch with a bargepole left to my own devices! plus - even if your main thing is writing your own stuff - or if you wanna start writing your own stuff - you learn SO MUCH from looking at how REAL songs are put together. i used to think "oh all i do is put together 2 or 3 or maybe on a good day, 4, chords and just loop that pattern round and round and round". and then i started the seasons and i realised a lot of real and very fabulous songs just have a repeating pattern of 3 or 4 chords. only sometimes one of them was C#m or F#m!

This is a brilliant assessment. I'd only add that learning to play as much variety within a 3 or 4 chord song is also a skill worth working on. In the band we cover a lot of older country/spiritual/americana/barn dance sorts of songs and the only musical notation on a sheet might be "F" or "G" and we start with that and it's I IV V with a few 7ths and some grace notes and a couple of lead breaks unless someone has a better idea. These songs start off as improvs and end up settling down into a groove we can repeat that speaks to our individual abilities and group communication and our love of the song and of playing music together. That's what keeps me coming back to trying to play solo, too. I love to try to replicate all of that stuff with just one or two instruments and a voice.


the big thing is practice - and i just know i'm playing more, and i'm playing a wider variety of chords, and trying a much wider variety of styles of song, than i would if i was just only doing my own musical thing, and that is because of the seasons.

god bless the seasons, and all who sail in them[/QUOTE]

Word.
 
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