Seasonistas general thread: yakking, joshing, news and pictures

Nowt wrong with The Man In Black...... ;)

I like Johnny Cash's music and he sang low enough for me to be able to try sing with him, almost. Most of his songs are 3-4 chords, from what I've found, unlike Willy Nelson and Paul Simon, who are my favorites. I have tried to sing a little and I realized that it takes more practice than playing the uke. I've put in a lot of Uke time in the last ~18 months, but very little singing. Now that I don't feel as embarrassed from my singing I want to try to stretch out to a whole octave! ;-)
 
Why did I say that? - Because I have finally had the courage to sing a song on here! :shaka:

Woooooooo Hoooooooo! Good on you Keith. Just about to go through recent uploads and have a listen, so will keep an eye (an ear?) out for it.
 
I'm working on an Amazonian Dance which I'll put on the island soon. I had it recorded before I was in the hospital but thought the tempo was off, I did a couple of cuts of it to test out some new strings I put on the Loud One to compare the Browns Fats to the D'Addrrio Carbons and I realized the the tempo was just about right in my pre-hospital recording, which I had forgotten about. Now I'm working on being able to play it the same way twice, or close anyway. I need some lyrics to remind me how to replicate the 'good parts'. Part of the problem is that I am using it to demonstrate different strum patterns in the same chords pattern, while keeping the beat uniform. I had a good cut going last night but choked on the last two bars. :mad:

The problem with my Dances is that they can go on, and on, and on, as I develop new strums and rhythms. There is no way to write this down so I'm just recording it over and over to try to memorize what works. Then I also am rotating thru all my Zebras just to keep it interesting and that switches it from Em to Am, and I just can't seem to get satisfied. Heck I even played it on my Little Filly soprano and it has a whole different vibe from my linear tuned Concert and my dGBE Bari-Tenors.

I'm almost there with it but then I'm going to practice my singing and get all Johnny Cash on you folks. You've been warned. (LOL)

I had a (disastrous) attempt at joining the 98% of a song that worked with the 2% I had to re-record. You could really hear the cut...but if you took a bit more time than me with editing...you can just keep the good bits. I still uploaded it though...!

Looking forward to hearing some your Amazonian Dance and Cash too (also if there are any millionaires reading this, I'd love to just get some cash in general!! $ £ € ho! ho! ;)) All I'll say as a relatively new seasonista is not to overthink the singing. I don't think anyone is expecting vocal perfection, except maybe you expecting it of yourself. And my singing's got better from using my voice more each week, so practice definitely helps. Also few famous singers who I always considered not great singers have done rather well for themselves. Neil Tennant of The Pet Shop Boys and Madonna as two people off the top of my head...(Some may disagree with my assessment of course!)
 
Im looking forward to what ever you bring Jack. Don't overthink it and don't be too critical of yourself. You will find that we will boost you up and help you forget all your worries :)
 
Yep! No one here is perfect, some are darn good, some mediocre, (you know where I fit ;) ), you just have to want to do it. :D

Edit: I only started playing(?) uke last December, but I was encouraged to just give it a go, & with a great big leap of faith, posted my first ever video of me online in Season 200 - missed a few since then, but try to join in with something each time, it helped me get from nowhere to where I am now. :)
 
Last edited:
Just wondering - I've just been reading a comment on another thread that classifies,

Basics = ....... becoming familiar with the chords of 5 popular keys (C, F, G, A, D) to prepare
students to become members of local song circle groups.

Intermediate = delving into Transposing and Beginning Fingerpicking (TAB, etc)

is this how everyone here feels?
 
Just wondering - I've just been reading a comment on another thread that classifies,
is this how everyone here feels?

No, not really. My mother was a guitar teacher for years and she always started her students out with scales and picking/reading tab and notes along with chords.

I think its a matter of how you teach. He is talking about uke groups thought and that would be a way to start with a group. They always play and sing in chords. The more advance might add some picking.

IMO his basic is how most start and his Intermediate is the next step. Ive been playing for 4 years now and I still look at the cheat sheet for chords within the chord family. Transposing would be very intermediate for me and beginning for others.
 
I teach Beginners' Ukulele every other Tuesday at a local library. I do it with a friend of mine, a certified music teacher. I take absolute beginners, he takes the slightly more advanced. I usually have 4-6 beginners each session.

I made this booklet/songbook to give to each beginner. It's on my use group's website. My goal is to get them familiar with C, F, G and Am. If they're doing well, I'll also roll out D7 (Hawaiian version) and G7, which is easier than G for many newbies. I also show them a couple very basic strums. A very minimum of theory.

Most sessions, the beginners play their way through almost all of the songbook in their first 2-hour session. Music theory and more intricate strumming patters come later.
 
Lol I was composing an agreement to Harry's post above and suddenly my monitor went black!:p

I had knocked the video cable just a little but enough to loose the connection. Whew, I was afraid my video card had failed! :rolleyes:

I had to go by the vampire booth today and decided that since I was up early to go by my Local Uke Shop to feed my SAS addiction. I like to go by there every so often and see what new toys they have on their wall of Ukes. They just moved from a strip mall to a shop in downtown Roseville, a quaint old railroad town. They don't have as many ukes out as they did in the old store but they have a lot better teaching facilities. Anyway I was checking out their Tenors and Baritones as I'm try to convince myself that I deserve a really cool uke now that I'm addicted.

They've had a Nalu Baritone in for a few weeks. I'd seen it before and was surprised by how light and responsive it was. But ~ $750 it's right at the top of my ability to delude myself. It's a really pretty uke, mother of pearl, and feels like a silk, very responsive. Cool head stock shape just beautiful. But aside from the pretty it isn't more that 50% better than my Big Zebra which didn't cost 1/7th the price of the Nalu. If I was still rich, it wouldn't even be a contest, but I'm baroque. I guess I'll just be humble for a while longer.

I better get back to "The Wine Dark Sea," or I'll never get to my singing. I've only put in a hours practice today.
 
Just wondering - I've just been reading a comment on another thread that classifies, "Basics = ....... becoming familiar with the chords of 5 popular keys (C, F, G, A, D) to prepare
students to become members of local song circle groups. Intermediate = delving into Transposing and Beginning Fingerpicking (TAB, etc)"
is this how everyone here feels?

No, I think the terms "Beginner", "Intermediate" and "Advanced" should be qualified with what technique they refer to, for example "Intermediate chord-melody", "Advanced picking with standard notation", "Beginner TAB" etc,.
 
The beginner, intermediate and advanced levels are all so relative. What if you've been strumming a uke for many years but are just a strummer yet know many right hand techniques and are happy with, say, first and second position chords. Are you still a beginner. I think not. Some might say, yes. Say you mostly strum but know one song, like "Freight Train", that you can do a chorded melody with...are you now an intermediate? It's just not that easy to judge.

I consider myself intermediate but what do other consider me? I would consider Jon advanced for he has also had many years of guitar. I have no experience other than 8 years of uke. Another example is, at the festival I was just at in NJ they had a workshop that was teaching finger exercises that was considered an advanced class. As well as another workshop by James Hill that was called something fancy (i don't remember what) but was just chorded melody. Imagine walking out of a James Hill class! IMO there were NO advanced classes and my money was wasted as far as the workshops anyway ): I learned 2 things. How to properly do a slide (brass/glass etc) from Manitoba Hal (what a nice guy!). Then learned about super cool peddles and effects they can produce from Cousin Earth. Also learned how to better do 'tapping' from Joe of Cousin Earth. Also learned that Cousin Earth LOVES puppets!!

I had brought some along thinking I could get some to join me in a video for the Season. No go there.

But Cousin Earth loved the idea of the puppets for their concert. They had me pass out my puppets to the audience and have them 'play' with them during their 'ode to rainbows medley'. I had forgotten to keep a puppet for myself and could have better instigated the play during the song if I had kept one. One puppet I passed out sat sadly slumped in it's chair as the 'puppeteer' had disappeared. I don't know how it turned out as I don't have any video of the event and I was in the front row. All the performers at the event were great BTW.

Joe of Cousin E. did say he noticed the puppets and thanked me. He told me they are having some vegetable puppets made for an upcoming kids event. They were cool to see in concert. I really enjoyed the concert. Though it's not music I would listen to on my own. The bass player (on a uke bass) was awesome and the energy put out by them all....WOW! Joe really makes that semihollow electric uke JAM like crazy! Incredible!

All in all it was a nice weekend but I don't think I'd ever make that 4 1/2 hour drive again by myself. On my way home I got to visit Tommy! We played a couple of songs and just talked and talked. Met his wife Susan, what a nice lady. They live in a beautiful part of the country too, in the mountains. Great visit and Tommy looks well :)
 
.... IMO there were NO advanced classes and my money was wasted as far as the workshops anyway ): I learned 2 things....

This struck a chord with me (ho ho!) and I felt a little the same about that last uke festival I was at. I did indeed learn some stuff at the workshops, and somehow being in the room with someone and seeing techniques done in reality makes them stick in my head. But it was like one tiny new thing, while I'd already covered the rest teaching myself. I realised there and then "I am at an intermediate level now" when the intermediate classes were stuff I'd already taught myself.

IMO once you hit some kind of intermediate level, be it strumming, picking, chord-melody, or instrumentals, or indeed all, one probably thereafter needs one-on-one lessons. I found it difficult to find intermediate lessons online - but then realised to not search for 'intermediate ukulele' and look up how to do jazz uke, blues, riffs, etc. and then to look at the youtube suggestions from there to find others, along with music theory stuff. I've also bookmarked lots of tutorials. I also realised recently Facebook now offer a 'save post' option, so I now save any particularly interesting sounding players there too for later research (when I'll have for all this learning I'll supposedly be doing I know not...!)

Anyway, I too think I might save my pennies too on further tutorials at these festivals, as anything more I need to learn I think I'll have to do myself. The only thing is, teaching yourself kind of leaves weird gaps in knowledge and learning some complex things while knowing nothing about something else basic...which probably isn't the best way!!! There's always skype remote lessons I suppose as I doubt (for me anyway) there'd be someone near me with the advanced skills they'd need.
 
In 1957, the world’s foremost cellist, Pablo Casals, was 80 years old. He was asked one day why he continued to practice four and five hours every day. Casals answered, “Because I think I am making progress.”

Janet's right, the terms "beginner," "intermediate," and "advanced" are very fuzzy terms. I only consider ukulele players as "beginners" their first couple of times holding a uke. After that, I tend not to use a term at all.
 
I was reviewing the thread and had a thought. Yes! an actual thought!

How about a puppet Opera? For kids or even adults? I have no idea how to pull that off but it could be a real hoot to see a combination of Harry's T-Rex and Man Frogs b/w puppets as the dream scene, and Linda's bear interacting in maybe four scenes of a little story line. LOL the things I think of when needing coffee.

"Back the the Wine Dark Sea with you Jack!"

I'll be in my room.
 
I was reviewing the thread and had a thought. Yes! an actual thought!

How about a puppet Opera? For kids or even adults? I have no idea how to pull that off but it could be a real hoot to see a combination of Harry's T-Rex and Man Frogs b/w puppets as the dream scene, and Linda's bear interacting in maybe four scenes of a little story line. LOL the things I think of when needing coffee.

"Back the the Wine Dark Sea with you Jack!"

I'll be in my room.

A ukulele puppet opera? You are a genius. I'm in.
 
I thought this was worth a giggle concerning novice/beginners/Intermediate/Advanced.

Taken for my http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...ction&highlight=beginner+intermediate+student

Quote Originally Posted by ichadwick View Post
Having started on in my town about 16 months ago, our situation was more like this:

Novice: Just bought/borrowed a ukulele.
What's a chord? How do I strum? What do you mean, the second string - is that from the top or the bottom? How do I hold it? How do I press my fingers?
Wants to play My Darling Clementine.
Gets frustrated easily and asks a lot of questions.

Beginner: Knows A few basic chords by heart. Can strum up and down. Knows which string is which.
Wants to play Iz's Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
Is that a C chord? I thought a C chord looked like this...
Having more fun playing but still has to look up most chord patterns.

Intermediate: Knows some minor and seventh chords by heart. Knows a couple of strum patterns.
Can use a digital tuner.
Working on barre chords.
Wants to play Jason Mraz and pop songs.
Asks about different uke sizes and shapes.

Intermediate level two: Can play the Bb shape without hesitation and move it up and down the neck.
Learning ninths and diminished chords by heart.
Helps novices and beginners tune up before the music starts.
Starts to make chord substitutions on his/her own. I prefer a major here instead of a seventh...
Wants to play some jazz and blues tunes, too.
Comfortable playing with others.
Looking at buying another ukulele.

Expert: what everyone else thinks the group leader is and what some former guitarists who just got a uke think they are.
Pretends to know everything but still has to look up the diagram when he/she sees a notation like F#dim or Caug in the songbook.
Owns more than one ukulele.
Posts on forums and blogs about ukuleles.

and yet another links that I find funny. It shows that I am still a novice because I have no idea what Chalangalang means :)

http://liveukulele.com/lessons/a-breakdown-of-ukulele-playing-levels/
 
And then James Hill brings us back to my initial thoughts on this subject. His opinion is the one I would go with.

Quote taken from http://www.ukuleleyes.com/issues/vol9/no3/feature.htm#buildingblocks

Beginner: A student at this level is brand-new to the ukulele. He/she has perhaps learned one to three chords but stops in-between chord changes to move the fingers to the next location.

Advanced beginner (optional level): A student at this level knows a handful of chords and can move from one chord to another without pausing. Student may have trouble with, say, the B-flat chord shape (the C chord in D6 Tuning). Student has learned a strum or two and/or a finger pattern for picking.

Intermediate: A student at this level can hold a steady rhythm and is competent with a variety of basic chords. Understands simple chord progressions (such as I, IV, V chords), can sing and strum at the same time, and learns chords to simple tunes fairly quickly.

Advanced: A student at this level can hear I, IV, and V chords, has mastered some chord inversions, knows there is life above the fifth fret, and has been there with barre or 4-fingered closed chords. Plays lead and backup easily with others and keeps steady rhythm.

These definitions are, of course, just a starting point; use them as a template to develop your own system of levels. Keep in mind, however, that in a festival context level descriptions should be short and broadly defined.
 
Last edited:
I found out this:

chalangalang
verb.
1. an extreme state of g.
2. enough to make your head implode from the sheer magnitude of pimp.
3. a battle cry.
 
Could someone please explain to me why I have suddenly become a "Senior Member". I was feeling slightly aggrieved that everyone else (well, nearly everyone else) seemed to be defined as either a "senior" or "junior" member, whilst I was just a "member" .... but now I have absolutely no idea why I have been promoted.

And LIz (above) I simply haven't got the faintest idea what you are talking about!
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom