my ukulele progress

Some sound might be nice in between all these words

I don't doubt that you're right, but aside from this old Linux computer I don't really have any equipment. I never got a cell phone...or are you supposed to call them smart phones now? I don't have a microphone or a camera. I'm afraid that going into the digital world would be quite a production for me and I don't even want to imagine the cost that would entail. If I started buying stuff, I should probably with a television. Anyway, if the person building my new bespoke ukulele sends any pictures, I will re-post them here. That's about as technical as I can get.
 
Whatcha gettin? And from whom? (apologies if you said elsewhere)

I am getting a long neck (19 frets) tenor with a cutaway from Rob Collins (Tinguitar). It is going to be my linear tuned ukulele. It is going to be 100% English: Plane tree harvested from a London park for the body, walnut for the neck, laburnum for the fretboard, and cherry for the bindings. I wanted all English woods because everyone is always emphatic about having Hawaiian woods like koa. This ukulele will be different. Rob says the plane tree has a unique tone. And since it is a dense wood it will serve my purpose for a warmer sound. I also got planentary tuners...just because they seem old-fashioned and not so popular. The only other thing I requested was no fret markers. I don't see why they're there. We can't see them when we're playing, so why have them at all? Since I can see them, I do have side markers on the pentatonic frets (3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 15, 17, 19).
 
I can't lie--things are pretty sweet right now. I'm working too much, drinking too many beers, reading too much, and not sleeping enough. All in all, not bad problems to have.

I still haven't worked through my ukulele fingerstyle workbook any. I'm still pretty much obsessed with my study in the key of E.

I am inadvertantly a "three notes per string" person. I say inadvertently because I came up with my system without looking at any resources; it just made sense to me and it wasn't until later that I learnt that the three note per string was even a thing. I mention this because I have been using the three notes of the modes found on the C string to make little songs. The goal of music is to learn and then unlearn the shapes so that you aren't restricted and wind up sounding more scaly than musical. I am using so many shapes that it obscures the shape. It is kind of like Copernican astronomy with all the circles within circles.

I have been getting kind of breezy with the shapes and I need to revert back to being more conscious about them so that I can learn my notes, one of my goals. So this week, I'll probably be a bit more into the scales.

I am kind of letting my modal chord harmonizations deteriorate in my memory, so I started playing progressions again. In the key of E, the F# is a requirement. And I've been practicing using the F-shaped barre chord to form it. It is good way to get all four strings for this and the Ab major chord. Currently I usually form both those chords using the G major shape and muting the 4th string.

Amidst all these types of things, I usually will use some easy blues progressions to play something easy. The ones I have been playing are semi-jazzy:

I7 | I 7 | IV9 | IV9
I7 | I7 | V9 | IV 9
I7 | #I° | IIm7 | V7#9

I7 | IV9 | I7 | III°
IV9 | IV9 | I7 | III°
IIm7 | V9 | I7 | V9
 
Reading all this thread has pushed home to me just HOW MUCH I still have to learn in order to try and get anywhere NEAR all you guys! Sigh! lol

Good luck with your goals ripock.
 
The question is why would you want to be near us, as you say. I used to work with this bloke who had been a musician since he had been a teenager. He didn't know any of this stuff. He knew what he called Cowboy Chords--which I inferred meant open chords. However during his life he earned his income by playing Cowboy Chords. Later in life he was starting to dabble in theory just to further his education.

so I just want to say as a public service announcement that theory isn't really necessary to make music. However, if you're a freak like me and theory is how your brain works, then welcome! Do you have any tips on what to do with the Lokrian mode? I've been trying to play some progressions, but the Lokrian doesn't seem to progress. The best thing I have found is a sort of call and response type of thing in which I strum a diminished E (I chord), and then play an F (bII chord) then return to Edim then go to C (bVI chord) and so on. That sounds good to my ear--although it is a bit endless.
 
I've been doing some thinking about one of my tragic flaws, the paralysis by analysis. I think about something and know how to do it, but I never actually do it. I assume that since I understand how, I can just wait until I need to do it and then just summon it up. However things are performative in nature. For example, although I am very well trained as a writer, I never wrote a novel because I want to write a narrative that also has something significant to say in terms of philosophy. I could never realize what that deeper meaning would be, so I never started. But if I had just written the narrative, the deeper meaning would have taken care of itself.

I do this with the ukulele quite a bit. I know what I am supposed to do to attain a great drone to accompany myself in the style of Justin Johnson or Reverend Peyton, but I just don't do it. In fact my Fingerstyle Ukulele workbook has been sittting on my music stand so long that it is creased. I need to just practice the thumb exercises and play a few of the songs...then all the minutiae would work itself out.

So I practiced that a bit with my metronome. Later on, I'll insert some pinched melody notes from the treble strings.

In anticipation of getting my linear tenor, I practiced the five pentatonic shapes for the linear tuning. With these, you start on the G string and finish on the A string, whereas with the re-entrant uke, you start on the C string and end on the A. Obviously, the linear tuning can play everything the re-entrant can, plus add some gloriously deeper-sounding shapes of its own.

In a sense there isn't anything new to learn; the linear shapes are just the re-entrant shapes preceded by a few notes on the G string. For example, the linear tonic shape is merely the re-entrant mediant shape with the 1st and flat 3rd played on the G string. The key will be to remember which re-entrant shape to combine with which notes from the G string.

In the E minor pentatonic I will be able to fit in 7 shapes which is the same number of shapes as the re-entrant has. It starts with the mediant shape at the 2nd fret and ends with the dominant shape in the 16th fret. Immediately it should be obvious that there is a lot of potential here. You have 3-stringed shapes and 4-stringed shapes and they all overlap. It will be easy to jump from one to the other. As a matter of fact, I could play a continuous flow of notes forever. The bigger challenge is finding phrasing to turn my pentatonic shapes into music. That however goes back to the theme of the day...I just have to do it and learn while I burn--as opposed to planning it out in my mind.
 
It is going to be an all-night party! I promised the wife that I would wax the floors in the library and the dining room, as well as mop the kitchen.

To renew my flesh I made some huevos rancheros with the additions of some shrimp and some gorgonzolla cheese...along with some of my Mad Dog hot sauce...which is crazy hot. Because of the Mad Dog, I will have some lime juice handy citric acid neutralizes the capaisin. I bought some beer from our local pub. So I will be doing floors and playing ukulele until sunrise.
 
I know that apologies are neither required or desired, but I am sorry to say that recently many thing have come between me and my ukulele. That seems to remind me of some lines of Yeats where he essentially says that many things tempt him from writing verse.

Anyway, I resolved a problem which had kept me in pain for the past year (a hip problem that rendered my legs different lengths). Now I am back into my competitive Olympic lifting as rehab.

With the passing of Philip Roth, whom I would argue is the greatest novelist of the 20th century, I have been revisiting his collected works.

It is a given, but work has been distracting me.

Nevertheless, I have found time for my music...although not as much as necessary. I have been making progress on my fingerstyle goals—moving from the mechanics of the thumb to pinching. It isn’t called pinching in my workbook, but it is essentially pinching: plucking a melody note with the “I” or “M” finger whilst plucking the thumb. I am pretty good at the linear tuning where the rhythm is outside/inside. However, the re-entrant and its inside/outside rhythm is still throwing me for a loop.

For the sake of variety I have been following the lead of every ukulele guru and have been thinking that chord melodies are where it is at. For some reason I had in my head the old tune “Bad to Me” which John Lennon wrote for Jerry Kramer and the Dakotas. I decided that I was going to just figure out the melody by myself without looking at any online resources. My assumption is that I might get the wrong key, but that I would figure out the the relationships of the notes regardless. So far the melody has alluded my efforts. However, it will come in time. My plan is to get the melody and then to embellish the melody with an arrangement of chords.

In between all this I of course have been noodling around with my pentatonics and I have been playing some simple progressions with 9 chords. I have been gravitating toward rootless 9 chords, as opposed to 9 chords with a suppressed dominant degree, because they are simpler to play.

Since my current obsession is the key of E, this has raised a particular problem. The problem is the I chord, the E. The problem is that the E chord and its IV chord, the A, are very similar and therefore not a lot of sonic movement occurs...at least, in the first positions of both these chords. And when I try a variety of E a little bit higher on the fretboard, the pitch is too high for what I am envisioning. I have been experimenting with different voicings for the E: the major triad, the 6, the maj7, the 9. They all sound good at times, and again bad at different times.

Lastly, I have been debating whether or not to bug the person who is making my custom uke. My uke was slotted for a July build. It is now September. However, it if was started late July, then it has only been a little more than a month, since this is early September. I don't know how long it takes to make a uke and I don't want to be a gadfly and say is it done, when he'll just say chill out; it takes time.
 
Education is all about learning and then unlearning. You have learn things in vacuo with some little device or another meant to aid in memorization or utilization. Then, once you’ve mastered that stage, the challenge is to drop the didactic structure and use the skill on its own.

With fingerpicking I am at that most galling, for me, stage wherein I feel like a charlatan; I’m not making music—I’m not playing something from within. I’m just doing what I am told and painting by number.

Thumb, thumb, thumb, pinch
thumb, thumb, thumb, pinch
thumb, thumb, thumb, triplet
thumb, thumb, thumb, note

And later on, I suppose the last element will be moved around.

I have to remember that this is just the process; it will become music later. I have to suffer through ‘Mary Had a little Lamb’ or ‘Amazing Grace’ or whatever piece of schlock I am supposed to practice...and I need to remember that eventually, I can drop the twee Americana and have the skill to improvise my own thumbs and pinches and notes to make something.

A good case in point is modes. When I was learning modes I developed finger patterns per string. Except for the Dorian mode, I use three patterns: either index finger/ring finger, or index/ring/pinky, or index/middle/pinky.

After I stopped identifying these patterns with the modes, I found they actually are the building blocks for songs. Whether it is Beethoven or Uli Roth from 70’s Scorpions...whenever I hear a riff and I noodle around to re-create it, those patterns are heavily utilized.

I also use these patterns when I improvise. I don’t know if it is cheating or at least an oxymoron, but when I improvise I fall back on these patterns. Even today, just messing around I executed a big old slide and at the end of it, instinctively did a pattern and bent a note, and I had a cool little ditty that I repeated a few times before returning to what I was doing.
 
I just heard from my luthier and he said my ukulele is done except for the strap buttons. I told him I was going on vacation and not to deliver it until October. It is noteworthy that he neither offered to send a picture,nor do I ask. He's a good old analog guy like me. Why would I need a picture of it when I'll be looking at it for the rest of my life? It brings to mind the silliness of the connected-generation. They're so busy filming life, they forget to participate in it. Nothing is more baffling to me than someone recording a crime or someone getting hurt, rather than helping that person. I think I would actually vote to make the video-taker criminally an accessory to the crime by his or her apathy.

Anyway, enough of the guy cranky guy without a tv or cell phone.

It is no secret that I have been focusing on the key of key to gain mastery of the fretboard. I have really fallen in love with the key. My instruments all have 19 frets, and what's the highest note on my ukulele...The E on the 19th fret of the A string. It is such a perfect key for the instrument. But I think eventually after I have exhausted the key of E, I want to further my studies with a key that is has flats. E has four sharps, and so when I play all the notes that aren't naturals, they are sharps. However, we know that they have enharmonic equivalents and I am not using them. I am drawn, of course, to Ab and its four flats simply because that would be the lowest note on my G string and who doesn't like low notes?

I toyed with the idea of Gb, but I rejected it for no good reason. The thing about Gb that is so interesting is that it is so ambiguous. Most keys have a clear path to their naming. For instance, Ab has four flats versus G#, its equivalent, which has 8 sharps. Thus, you always go for the Ab, unless you're being a jerk and you want to obfuscate rather than communicate.

But Gb has 6 flats and F# has 6 sharps. And they both have some unsavory, otiose elements. Gb uses Cb as its 4th, whereas F# has an E# (a.k.a. the F) as its 7th. I did some research and I found that for whatever reason, Gb is used a bit more than F#. When I was younger I would mix and match my key signatures and do things very inappropriately. I had a predilection for sharps, and I would use them for any unnatural note. I mean, to me Gb was never Gb; it was always F#. There must be some childish reason. E.g., the hashtag is easier to print than the bemolle.

So in short...even though it has rambled on long enough...eventually I will devote my studies to Ab and have to think of the fretboard in terms of flats versus the sharps that I currently use with E.
 
Today I was feeling like merely revisiting some old stuff. So I just played around with some progressions, festooned with a few different right-hand things like some faux flamenco and some sound board thumping.

I started with a Melodic Minor progression, the basis of which is just a i ii V. I really like the ii to V. In E that's going from a F#minor to a B. It almost sounds like a "big finish"...or rather the penultimate turnaround before the finish.

I also played some Phrygian (i iv bvii).


I tried a few things with the Phrygian. First of all, the V is diminished. So using it as a passing sequence to the root, I linked three different inversions of the B°--the one at the 7th fret, the 4th, and the 1st. It has a nice descending affect. Something similar I like to do is take the flatted sixth, the C, and play three descending versions of it before going to iv chord. I play 0007 (inversion of C), 0005 (C add9) and 0003 (C major). The only I really struggle with in the key of E is finding a role for the flatted third, which is a G. A lot of times it sounds like a clunker or at least a duck out of water.

Also, I am finding I need to go back and do some rote practicing of the G because the shape is difficult for me. And it is such an important shape, being what I use for G and Ab and F# (although I prefer the barre chord). I have just let it slip out of my muscle memory.

and also, I still am tendentious with the E minor, which is inexcusable since it is such a primary chord. If I have time tomorrow before I leave for my vacation, I will just practice those chords.
 
I saw an interview where in which someone met Randy Rhoads who was typified as a musical genius because he was playing harmonic minor and melodic minor scales. I thought, hell...I can do that. But I didn't sound very genius. I thought then maybe what the interviewee meant by "scales" was harmonization. So I played around with those for a while.

Harmonic

i iidim IIIb+ iv V VIb viidim


the melodic

i ii IIIb+ IV V vidim viidim

However I still didn't sound like a genius, although I do like the IV and the V of the Melodic, and of course I do like all the diminished chords which are freebies for us ukulele players.

Of course, I am just joking. I know it is what you do with the scale that makes you a genius.

As a matter of fact, it is one of my pet peeves when these 15 year old keyboard warriors attack musicians saying stuff like "all David Gilmour does is the Dorian" or "Matthias Jabs just does pentatonics." It is ridiculous. It is like saying that Robert Frost is a one-trick-pony; all he does is alternates vowels and consonants to write his poetry. That is true, but it is the ordering of the vowels and consonants that is legendary. It is a task of a lifetime to take one musical concept and plumb it to its depth. That's pretty much why I stick to pentatonics and why I am so focused on one key, E major. I feel that if I learn that one thing thoroughly I will be a musician. Of course, I do other things like finger picking and modal harmonizations, but I keep an eye on my main focus all the time.
 
Life is pretty much perfect. That’s a bit awkward for someone who primarily plays the blues, but I really have nothing to be blue about. I have a good woman, a new ukulele, and I just came back from my Friday night visit to the pub.

Yesterday, I was greatly chagrined because I missed the delivery of my ukulele even though I was napping in my study—well within earshot my of front door. Nonetheless, the UPS man knocked so lightly that I missed. Today, however, I stayed awake and awaited the delivery and received the ukulele.

It is fabulous; I’ve already posted pictures of it. The world of the ukulele keeps on astonishing me. Just when I have thought that I have reached the pinnacle of awesomeness, I am met with a new level of splendor.

I thought my start-up uke was as good as it gets. Then I got a good mid-range uke. Then I got a Kamaka. Now I have a custom uke which eclipses the Kamaka. I think I am finally at the pinnacle because the only place to go from here is getting something like a $5000 Lichty custom and I am absolutely not going there.

The new ukulele plays like a dream. I compulsively tuned it GCEA, but at that tension it felt like I was fretting razor blades. I tuned it down to CFAD and it was perfect. I could bend the strings and do long slides just like I like. The uke has a cutaway so that I can play all 19 frets without any undue contortions.

The CFAD tuning seems random, but I have my reasons. Aside from being floppy enough for my fingerstyle, a C-based tuning is the sub-dominant of a standard G-based tuning, so that I could harmonize with an ensemble playing standard.

But that does raise an issue for me. My Kamaka is tuned to cFAD. I don’t want to be repetitive. I will probably re-tune the Kamaka to the third fret. That will be different and hopefully still be floppy enough to do what I want. Perhaps it will even be better at strumming. That is the one issue with a CFAD tuning. It is great for what I want, but it makes strumming a bit buzzy. A slightly more taut tension would increase the volume and make strumming better.
 
I am actually very happy now. My Kamaka was serving two masters, attempting to be both a low G and a high G uke. Now that I have my Yorkshire uke, I can devote my ukes to their purposes.

I have my four-stringed cigar box tuned to open D7 so that I can go electric and play slide

I have my tenor guitar and baritone uke tuned in Chicago style. I use those when I want to get loud. The tenor guitar especially is loud with those steel strings, not to mention that it also can plug into my amp and received some overdrive and fuzz.

I have my Yorkshire uke tuned to CFAD, seven steps below the traditional tuning, so that it is loose enough to play all the adornments I want. It is my somber uke. The London plane wood is very warm and muted.

I have my Kamaka tuned to D# G# C F, four steps below tradition, so that it is as close to gCEA as possible without losing its ability to bend and glissando. The higher tension allows for a crisper strumming. And it also louder because of the tension. I special ordered a spruce sound board for the Kamaka so that it could be my jangly, loud, and sustained uke. Now it is able to fulfill that expectation.

My plans are now to brook no delays. I have no more excuses. I have all my ukuleles and I need to get playing. After all, it is rather embarrassing to have such exceptional instruments and not live up to them.

I plan to now practice my fingerstyle workbook which has low G and high G exercises. I will probably alternate between the two tunings--a day for one and then a day for the other.

I plan to start working on four-string pentatonic shapes to complement the three-string shapes I already use.


I returned to making playing a full-body experience by using my straps with my new uke. This way you can stand and sway and feel the rhythm. I improvised a groove in E minor harmonic:

E minor
B7
Aminor
F# dim7
E minor
G +
A minor
C# dim7
back to E minor

With the right hand, I used some highly latinized/flamenco-influenced cadences.
 
I am still waiting for the last purchase I made with my Yorkshire tenor to arrive. I had some money left over so I bought a stetson, a black Homburg, and a hard case for the ukulele. I am hoping the case arrives today. It has a tweed cover and supposedly rings for a shoulder strap which I will use to hang it when not in use. I got a baritone size because the tenor is long-necked and a little too long for a tenor case. I hope it will be a little extra spacious so that I can put the uke in its case with its strap on. I know it only takes a few seconds to put the strap on, but for some reason it can be a drag.

I need to talk myself through my low G pentatonics. I kind of know them, but I think committing them to writing will codify my knowledge a bit better.

The shapes themselves aren't a problem in theory; they are just the high G shapes I know augmented by two notes on the low G string:

low G tonic shape = 2 notes + high G subdominant shape
low G mediant = 2 notes + high G dominant
low G subdominant = 2 notes + leading tone
low G dominant = 2 notes + tonic
low G leading tone = 2 notes + mediant

Obviously I am not going to memorize the low G shapes in that fashion. That would be too difficult. I am just going to memorize the shapes as the shapes like I would any other scale or mode. However it is comforting to know that I already know them.

Okay, but now where are these shapes located? I know the high G shapes (seven of them): leading tone on the 2nd fret, tonic on the 4th, mediant on the 7th, subdominant on the 9th, dominant on the 11th, leadingtone on the 13th, tonic on 15th.

But what's going on with the low G shapes? The lowest shape is the subdominant on the 2nd fret, dominant on the 4th, leading tone on the 7th, tonic on the 9th, mediant on the 12th, subdominant on the 14th, dominant on 16th.

So both low and high G has 7 shapes. At least that's the case in the key of E. I wonder if that's the rule with all keys. It is with Ab and D.


What is really great about having high and low G shapes is the transitioning between shapes. For example, you can ascend in the high G tonic shape, but as you descend back down the scale, don't stop on the tonic; keep on going 'til you hit the dominant B on the G string. It appeared that you were descending the tonic shape but in reality it was the dominant shape.

Another transition idea I have, but haven't really put it to practice is moving between shapes by notes. All the shapes have all the notes, so that you could jump between the shapes. For example you could be playing in the low G dominant shape and when it comes time to pluck the E in that shape, quickly move to any other E on the fretboard. It will still sound like you're in the dominant but as you start playing the shape around the new E, you're in another shape. The only problem with this is shifting pitches, but even those could be managed with ornaments like sliding
 
my hard case did arrive while I was sleeping. It is everything I hoped it would be. The inside is a plump red velvet. It is a very mellow yellow--almost a butterscotch, more like brown mustard--with thin brown lines. It is a bit psychedelic. When you look at it, the lines seem animated. They seem to vibrate and the brown and the yellow seem to alternate between foreground and background. Lastly, since it is a bit bigger, the strap is easily tucked in around the lower bout. However it doesn't jiggle around. The strap fills up the space between the uke and the case, and the velvet of the case presses against the ukulele to keep it firm. I will try to get my wife to take a picture or two.
 
I am still in the feeling-out stage with the Yorkshire tenor. I am also still very much in the first stages of infatuation. While I'm not at home I brace myself up by thinking of playing when I get home.

I looked down at its walnut neck while I was playing and I was struck by how cool walnut is. It has such an unique color. I can't quite put my finger on it. Walnut is immediately recognizable. Maybe it is the brown undertone.

I am still acting like I have a lower bout. When I go down to play something on the 16th fret or thereabouts, I instinctively make that shriveled monkey's paw that is required. I keep forgetting that I can now keep my hand in a normal shape. It is kind of like you think you have a beard even after you've shaved it off. You still move your hand to whisk the beard away when zipping up a jacket, although there is no beard there.

Having my Low G ukulele has opened up so much musically. Having G string shapes and C string shapes means that there are so many notes. I'm just using my tonic,leading tone, and dominant shapes, but it all seems so fluid. I can just play and play and play. I should note that I obviously need to eventually stop wanking around and try to make something musical. However, I still have to get used to all the new shapes based off the G string. The modes are going to need some practice.

And my Kamaka isn't suffering any loss during all this. Although I am entrenched in the learning curve with the Yorkshire, the Kamaka receives me and relieves me when I need something more comfortable.
 
waiting for the sun.

Working the graveyard shift, I have an eccentric sleeping pattern. Even on my days off. After spending a pleasant Saturday evening at the local pub, I went to bed and woke up at 2:30am. Then I pottered around and cleaned the kitchen and prepped my upcoming week's meals by making a batch toasted millet.

I went out on the porch a little bit before seven and I was waiting for the sun. The silhouettes of the trees were black and the sky was a slightly less dark grey. This is a perfect theme for a blues song. The American music tradition is heavily influenced by its African roots which is pentatonic. Since pentatonics are a shortened minor, they lend themselves to a mournful wistfulness. Waiting fits into all this perfectly and it is universal. We are all waiting for something. I know my grey cat is sitting at the door waiting for me to come back in and I am waiting for certain things to happen. I am waiting for my job to reach a certain level of undesirability before I quit. I am waiting for my old landlord to die so that I can move back west. And now I am waiting for the sun.

Pentatonics are special because they seem to mimic human speech. The first step would be to find the right shape to articulate the lilt of my voice when I say "I'm waiting for the sun." After I have that the rest will follow.

To that end, I have been practicing my pentatonic shapes. I seem to have a good grasp of them at the lower end of the fretboard and at the top end. The middle is where my knowledge is sketchy. I need to remedy that and codify my knowledge. After I have that, I will be able to unlearn my shapes and move freely to wherever my whimsy takes me. I am at the point where I am comfortable working within a shape and at launching into other shapes from certain notes, but it isn't fluid and I am still a slave to the forms.

Aside from the pentatonic shapes I have also been practicing getting my thumb autonomous on re-entrant tuning. It is still resistant. With re-entrant tuning the thumb drones from the C string to the G string and that is so counter-intuitive to my muscle memory. For whatever reason I like to move from the G to the C--which is the pattern for linear tunings. With forethought I can do the inside-outside pattern but always at some point my thumb reverts back to outside-inside, thereby breaking the rhythm.
 
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