Music Opinions

I don't need to know lots of chords, just some that sound about right will do, for me.

I do this for fun.

I'm working on fingerstyle now, and, for the time being, I'm using only the key of G. Next, I'll move to the key of D. Most of the songs in my Baritone Ukulele Songbook (DGBE) are in G, D, C and A. These are the keys of much of the music that I already have, though I'm using DGBD. It's also the same as a lot of banjo music, and it'll work for slide music later.

I'm doin' pretty well, so far, though I'm not usta chords in standard music. My book doesn't have chords in the tabs, so I pencil them in the staff above. It takes time, but I'm gettin' better at it. I really hate to admit it, but chords are easier to read in the tabs.
Well, I'm really enjoying fingerstyle baritone and studying it keeps me off the streets. :cheers: ld:

I started this thread a long time ago, and now I wondered if anyone else would be interested in it. I like to post about music and not just instruments, instruments and instruments. I think there’s more to music than string types, wood types and stuff like that.

Anyway, I’m more interested in what music people are playing and listening to. I’m bored with the other stuff and I thought mebbe somebody else was too.

Anyway, here it is, have at it if you will. ld:

I used to try playing music from my teenage years, but never sing them, just the melody lines, this works for me, up to a point.

I'm considering concentrating my efforts on folk music now, to give me a new focus.

I'm still slowly learning to read the music & play the dots.

Wow! That’s great! You can strum and sing (yes you can), play fun or sad melodies, and folk music is fun to play on a harp. Folk music is a good choice, especially for a Brit! Good luck with it. I’ll help if I can.

I recently bought a Kala Tenor Guitar, and I really like it. It seems very easy to play. I can play most of my instruments by ear, but, alas, only the melodies. Chords are my weakness. I’ve been working on ‘em, but my memory is another weakness.

I can play the chords in the key of the tune, but when the “extra” ones are thrown in I get flummoxed. How many darned chords are we supposed to learn (and remember, of course) to play a tune?

Anyway, I’m just doin’ the main, ones for now. Good to hear from ya, write whenever ya feel like it. ld:

I don't have any reason, but I've been working on 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover. Anyway, working on it means that I'm not just making myself familiar with it so that I can play it off of paper, but it means that I'm committing it to memory and working on some nuances that go along with it. So that's what I'm doing right now.

Yeah, Rollie, that’s a great song. I really like Simon and Garfunkel. In fact I’m listening to “Mrs. Robinson” right now. Your post inspired me. I just came home from a walk around the neighborhood. I stopped at a friend’s who is overhauling an old truck. We talked guns and hunting. He’s a gun collector, and I love to shoot though not any more.

I had a good time with my Tenor Guitar today. Did you ever get yours fixed up? ld:

If you are talking about my wife's guitar, I got it out of the storage room in the basement and took a look at it. That's about all I've done with it. I also printed out Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits. I'm not going to put too much effort into that until I can see if I can even sing it. It also has some tricky runs and riffs that I would like to play, maybe not exactly, but at least something that sounds good. I'm messing around with it anyway. We will have to see if it gets added to the playlist. But for now, Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover is coming along pretty well.

Rllink said:

If you are talking about my wife's guitar, I got it out of the storage room in the basement and took a look at it. That's about all I've done with it. I also printed out Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits. I'm not going to put too much effort into that until I can see if I can even sing it. It also has some tricky runs and riffs that I would like to play, maybe not exactly, but at least something that sounds good. I'm messing around with it anyway. We will have to see if it gets added to the playlist. But for now, Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover is coming along pretty well.

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What kind of music do you like to play? Or do you just perform whatever pops into your head? Do you have books? ld:

Down Up Dick said:

What kind of music do you like to play? Or do you just perform whatever pops into your head? Do you have books? ld:

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I mostly play oldies. Just the songs that I hear on the radio that grab me and I think that I might like to learn to play them. I started out playing protest songs from the Viet Nam era. I missed out on those years because I was otherwise occupied, and I'm trying to relive them. One summer my neighbors got to having a fire out in their back yard every week and we would sit around drinking and singing songs. They were all in their sixties and seventies and they seemed to want to sing old protest songs. So I learned to play the ukulele because I thought that it would be fun if we had accompaniment. For that reason I have a ton of those songs in my head. But those are the really oldies now, so now I play whatever I like. I play a lot of kids songs. You never know when you might get called upon to sing songs to kids. A few country western songs.

No, I do not have very many books. I have a yellow book, just because a lot of group strum-a-longs play out of it. I've picked up a few method books early on, but no song books. I quit buying books after two or three. That's a whole topic in itself. As I've stated many time before, and as you well know, I spend a good amount of my time committing my songs to memory. So that's what I do.

In answer to your question about performing, which I do occasionally, but not as much as I make it sound sometimes, I generally have a playlist of fifteen or twenty songs that I want to do and then just go down the playlist. I might adjust it for the audience, but usually not. I don't really play for the audience. I figure the audience comes to hear me play what I play. But one thing that I do is bring along some file folders that have paper copies of fifty songs or so. They are in numbered pockets and I put that out with an index and encourage people to pull out the songs that they want to sing along with, then I'll do those if they want to. People seem to really like that. I like it if I can get people to sing along. If they don't, and if I'm at the bottom of my playlist, I just start pulling them out of the folders.

As you know, I play mostly American and Celtic folk music. I like American oldies pop too. Lately I’ve been gittin’ inta Classical on my banjos and also on my baritone uke. I really like playing with picks the best. I still clawhammer on my Aquila stringed A-scale, but my Deering still has steel strings so I’m learning to play it 2F/IL (Index Lead). My ol’ fingernails won’t do steel clawhammer any more.

I’d really like to include more chords into my fingerpicking, but I’m having a lotta trouble doing it. I had chord trouble on my keyboard too.

My musical life was easier before I got into stringed instruments. These ol’ fingers get mixed up with chords. ld:

Rllink said:

I generally have a playlist of fifteen or twenty songs that I want to do and then just go down the playlist. I might adjust it for the audience, but usually not. I don't really play for the audience. I figure the audience comes to hear me play what I play.

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I shouldn't say that I don't adjust what I'm playing for the audience. When I'm busking, which I do often in San Juan, I have a place on an old wall that used to be the defenses for Old San Juan during the 1600s. But my pitch is close to a sign that tells about the wall and people sometimes stop to read the sign. So most of the time I just play four or five songs that I'm working on over and over. I'm just sitting there practicing, and most people don't stick around long enough to hear a complete song, let alone four or five songs. But sometimes I start messing with people. Like maybe a man and a woman stop and the guy is reading the sign, but the woman looks bored, I'll sing Hey Good Lookin' to her, or Hello Mary Lou. Or sometimes some guy in his sixties or seventies with a pony tail and sandals comes by, or a woman is dressed hippy retro, and I might throw out some Janis Joplin, Tom Paxton, or Pete Seeger and see if I can get them to stop and listen. I just try to play a song that will get their attention. If I can get their attention, they will usually throw a dollar or two in my glass. So in that case, I do try to play to my audience and lure them in. It is just in fun though. I'm really not that good. I'm having a good time.

It certainly sounds like you’re having a good time. I think music at our level should be about having fun. ld:

Do ukers learn bunches of chords for future use or just the ones which come up in the tunes that they learning? ld:

The basics, C D A F G G7, then just what's needed.

Down Up Dick said:

Do ukers learn bunches of chords for future use or just the ones which come up in the tunes that they learning? ld:

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I have always just learned chords as they show up. Over the years I've learned a lot of chords, but I've never learned chords just for the sake of learning chords. I also don't spend a lot of time becoming familiar with keys that I don't sing in.

When I first started, I learned the C,D,F,G,A chords and some of X7s and a few others. With them I was semi-satisfied for awhile. Now, I’m interested in fingerpicking, and I’m finding scads of chords (many of them four finger), and I not only have to play them but also remember the darn things.

I just wondered how other ukers were dealing with finger style because I’m looking to solve my chord problems. Irish and Italian music is good so far and so is the little classical music that I’ve been playing around with.

I guess I shoulda stuck with my wind instruments. ld:

Yeah, the blowy ones are much easier in general, but chromatic harmonicas do take a bit of thinking.

Croaky Keith said:

Yeah, the blowy ones are much easier in general, but chromatic harmonicas do take a bit of thinking.

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Yeah, I don’t care for the chromatics, and I’ve already told you why in this thread. I had a lotta fun with the diatonics and the tremolos though.

How you doin’ on your flute and piccolo? Piccolos are fun.

My alto needs a tune up. The keys are making a lotta noise. I wonder how much that’ll be . . . ld:

I'm having some fun with a bunch of (tin) whistles at the moment - I got distracted, they're cheap - but I bought a delrin keyless low D flute that seems to be easier for me than the Boehm just now. My little keyless piccolo is fun to have a play on too.

Probably, I'll get around to the Boehm flute & piccolo again this winter, my embouchure seems to be improving, owing to the keyless.

Too many instruments, I know, but it's fun trying to learn to play them all.