uke terminolagy

[mal-c]

I have just been watching a great tutorial on you tube made by a young lady. The piece she is teaching is Grenadie,she shows you the strum patter as follows, D-U-Chuck .U-U-U- Chuck,U-D-U.What does chuck meen.
Mal(UK)

 

[AnnaUK]

Hello Mal

I suspect she probably means "chunking" which is a sort of percussive right hand mute effect. Or maybe "chucking" is her word for it?

Aldrine did a Uke Minutes on this:
http://ukuleleunderground.com/2008/08/uke-minutes-23-chunking/

And if you search the forums for "chunking" you'll see there are quite a few discussions on it.

GOOD LUCK WITH IT

 

[PoiDog]

D = downstrum
U = upstrum
Chunk = Ending a strum by muting the strings with the heel of your hand to produce a percussive sound

So the pattern would be:

Down - Up - Chunk (a down with a mute) - Up - Up - Up - Chunk - Up - Down - Up

 

[bornagainjeeper]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrJvuzhMxGs this will likely help you as much as anything... Chunking is an important part of playing quite a few styles of music, or adding a little bit of personality to any song. Then you don't have a percussionist chunking can really help you set the beat. generally speaking if you are playing in 4/4 time (counting to four) you will chunk when you say 2 and 4 so you'll get 1 chunk 3 chunk... From my experience and those of others, i can say....its not an easy thing to learn, but like riding a bicycle...once you get it you don't have to think about it any more. rather than trying to learn it with the pattern you posted...start with somthing simple, a pattern that you already use frequently...and add the chunks on 2 and 4... trying playing along with one of the UU videos liek this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcCmi59YwJA&feature=relmfu at the very least that one might get you used to hearing how the chunk is usually used. One last note, the chunk is very common when playing reggae music as well. In that case you'd count 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & hope that helps