my ukulele progress

CPG said:

Softwood and hardwood tops have different tonal charactoristics. Yes, softwoods tend to have more overtones and bring out a broader range of the tonal spectrum, but hardwoods tend to have more mids, a stronger fundemantal note, and often a lot of warmth. The science of the vibrations is useful information for understanding and describing these differences but ultimately tonal preference is subjective. I personally love hard wood tops. Both my ukes and my steel string guitar are solid mahogany. I would choose my hardwood top guitar over a softwood top guitar every time. They all have wonderful warm, woody, full mids that you can really feel, but still plenty of richness across the tonal spectrum. You should go with whichevers tonal charactoristics you like better. Again what sounds "better" is largly subjective and in the ear of the beholder. Maybe describe the tonal properties you like to the maker and see what they reccomend based on that description.

EDIT: Or as you say, if the subtle differneces in tonallity aren't that important to you, then yes, just go with a wood you think is unique and interesting and that the luthier still thinks will work well as a tonewood. The build matters more than the wood anyway, and since you are using a skilled luthier I'm sure they will be able to make just about any wood sound great. Personally, I always think it's cool when luthiers use a wood that isn't necessarily uncommon or exotic in general, but that is uncommon in luthery, like your London Plane instrument.

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Thanks for the input. I don't want to perseverate on this (or anything)! I freely acknowledge the statistical benefit of combining soft and hard woods. The numbers are better. But those numbers don't transfer to reality for my ears. So I am going to go 100% hardwood on my baritone. The only issue is will it be a single hardwood or two different hardwoods.

I did want to give exposure to a ukulele patreon that I underwrite: tenthumbs. He tries to make people musicians rather than ukulele players. Currently he is engaged in a blues challenge where he teaches techniques daily and encourages people to post their efforts. I really appreciate the effort into trying to get people making music outside of first position chords of torchsongs. I'm not going to trash talk. I now a lot of people around here like to play and strum cowboy chords. That's not my cup of tea but more power to them. In fact, I can't do that. It takes a skill to play in the pocket and support the group. I've tried and I get bored (which means I am not willing to expend the discipline to learn that skill). Regardless, what I'm saying is that tenthumbs gives opportunities to people who want to branch out and I appreciate that.

ripock said:

I did want to give exposure to a ukulele patreon that I underwrite: tenthumbs. He tries to make people musicians rather than ukulele players. Currently he is engaged in a blues challenge where he teaches techniques daily and encourages people to post their efforts. I really appreciate the effort into trying to get people making music outside of first position chords of torchsongs. I'm not going to trash talk. I now a lot of people around here like to play and strum cowboy chords. That's not my cup of tea but more power to them. In fact, I can't do that. It takes a skill to play in the pocket and support the group. I've tried and I get bored (which means I am not willing to expend the discipline to learn that skill). Regardless, what I'm saying is that tenthumbs gives opportunities to people who want to branch out and I appreciate that.

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I have lurked occasionally at your posts/journal, everything from hungarian scales to D#m arpeggios to porridge. I declare you officially unusual. Please consider that a compliment.
I'm still feeling my way around the ukulele world. I joined tenthumbs patreon-- thanks for that tip. There is a lot there that I want to learn. I really need to get to know the neck of a uke. I have a decent theory background but I am weaning myself from converting everything in my head from guitar. I want to be able to play around the circle of fifths on uke with all the major and minor chords soon without that.

The transition between guitar and ukulele isn't that difficult. The only thing different is the name. For example, If I play the blues in Ab, but play it on a guitar, then I'm playing in Eb. But you probably already know that. And if you don't, let me recommend my favorite $10 musical purchase: The Chord Wheel by Jim Fleser, available at Amazon. Once you see a picture of it, you'll realize the benefit. It is a beefed up circle of fifths.

And instead of learning all the discreet shapes for all the first position major and minor chords, I would just use moveable barre chords. Then for every chord quality, you only need four chord shapes (accounting for a root on each of the four strings).

I was messing around with chord substitutions. I was just sticking to comfort zone progressions like the minor 2-5-1 and of course the 7-3-6 which is the 2-5-1 in the relative minor.

So that's that, but I was inserting v/v and tritone substitutions. The thing that was both self-evident and revolutionary was that substitutions are not equivalencies. I guess I had a tacit assumption that substitutions would sound the same. However they don't. They do the same thing for the progression but they do it in their own fashion. At first I found it off-putting because I wasn't getting the sound I wanted. But after a while I started to respect the sassiness.

It was a case of déjà vu for me because the ukulele is the first stringed instrument I had ever played, so voicings were a very foreign concept to me. I had always thought of notes as absolutes. I had a rather Hegelian one-for-one correspondence between signifer and signified. I remember pacing the floor of my library wondering how can we have one term E major but it has different sounds depending on the voicing. Over time I learnt to chill out and embrace the ambiguity.

Same thing with chord substitutions: the chords will perform the essential function of pulling and approaching a preceding or ensuing chord, but it will do it with its own nuances.

I was also playing with the B Mixolydian b6/D# super lokrian on the 16th fret. Because of my tuning ( I am playing 3 half steps looser than GCEA) the notes sound very lush up there on the 16th fret. However things are too tight up there for chords. So I was using double stops and implied chords. This scale shape has a lot of chords built into it. In fact, most of what I want, except for no augmented.

ripock said:

The transition between guitar and ukulele isn't that difficult. The only thing different is the name. For example, If I play the blues in Ab, but play it on a guitar, then I'm playing in Eb. But you probably already know that. And if you don't, let me recommend my favorite $10 musical purchase: The Chord Wheel by Jim Fleser, available at Amazon. Once you see a picture of it, you'll realize the benefit. It is a beefed up circle of fifths.

And instead of learning all the discreet shapes for all the first position major and minor chords, I would just use moveable barre chords. Then for every chord quality, you only need four chord shapes (accounting for a root on each of the four strings).

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I'm just now connecting on some of that. I can play inversions on guitar but need to know that neck of the uke. It's a weird mental thing-- right now I could play F chords up the uke neck with at least 5 variations by telling myself I'm looking for C chords and C, E and G. I'm waiting from a synapse that will all of a sudden connect this and I'm the more I practice, the more it will make sense.
I can fake uke really well. I can play all my guitar songs and sing them down a 5th which is great since a lot of what I liked was too high for me even 40 years ago.

Justaguest, I don't have any perspective on switching back and forth because I have only played ukes/tenor guitar. I have never had to switch back and forth. However, I am at your service if I can suggest chord shapes or things of that nature.

The hygrometer is at 39% which is acceptable. It hasn't jumped up yet even though summer is advancing. That's because my swamp cooler is kind of like a Sopwith Camel: it is either engaged or it is idle; it doesn't have gradations and settings. So I turn it on for a few hours midday. Once it gets hotter, then it will be on more frequently and providing the living space with moist coolage. I am treating this as an exigent concern because last summer I let the ukes get to 60% and that is too moist in my opinion. I was careless last summer and I was keeping Yorkie out of its case and I sprouted a fret. And it was around the 16th fret which perhaps wouldn't affect some people, but that's one of my favorite areas of the fret board. It cost under a hundred bucks to fix it, so it was no big deal...but I want to avoid future issues by controlling the moisture.

I have advanced in my experiments with eggplants. I threw away my bread crumbs. Even though I don't normally use processed foods like pasta or pastries like bread, I bought some bread crumbs because it seemed like that was de rigueur when dealing with eggplants. But I find that I enjoy them just baked naked on a jelly roll pan. The only trick I have discovered is to cook them thoroughly. If you don't, they taste kind of vegetable-y--which is fine if that's your goal. But since I was using the eggplant as a medium for guacamole or hummus, I wanted it more anonymous.

It is in the A.M. so I can only play my electric cigar box unplugged. Anything else wakes up my wife. I don't prefer it because it has a guitar neck which is a bit stretchy for a ukulele player...but I will survive.

I was focusing on a segment of the fret board I do not typically patronize: the lower middle. I was playing C# Aiolian b5 which bleeds into the F# Dorian b2. It contains within it a Em, a F#m7, and a B+ chord. Obviously those are elements of a modified mixolydian progression. It should work, but only time will tell. This is actually one of my blind spots: I can never seem to move from chords to notes in a way that sounds natural to my ear. The pitches seem off to me. What I mean by that is that the chords have an overall pitch to them but when I start to imbricate single notes, the notes either sound too low or too high.

P.S.: since the shape I was exploring began with C#, I of course slipped in some E major pentatonic stuff.

ripock said:

Justaguest, I don't have any perspective on switching back and forth because I have only played ukes/tenor guitar. I have never had to switch back and forth. However, I am at your service if I can suggest chord shapes or things of that nature.

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Thank you. I appreciate that. I'll study the majors and minors first and see how that goes.

I had been neglecting my Kamaka and I figured I should get it out--just to refill the humidifier if nothing else. Since I have it out, I thought I would revisit my re-entrant pentatonic shapes as well as the melodic minor shapes. I have a somewhat passive memory of them but it is always good to firm up knowledge. I will report later on my impressions. It is too late in the evening to commit much to writing.

I think I crapped my pants reading about all this complex theory!

Voran said:

I think I crapped my pants reading about all this complex theory!

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it is no big deal. You just take it one day at a time, one topic at a time. There is a ton I don't know. I don't approach the theory systematically. It just comes up naturally. I have a curiosity and then I research that one topic. Over time you construct a patchwork of things that have piqued your interest. I think I probably started with scales and keys because I wanted to know the rules for what sounds good. Then I looked for rules on how to break the rules. And things spread from there.

I am just messing around re-entrant shapes...basically just to codify it in my mind. I focused on four of the five minor pentatonic shapes: sub-tonic, tonic, mediant, and subdominant. I didn't really bother with the dominant shape because that's my favorite and I play it a lot.

For the melodic minor I was bit more restrained today--just playing the lower modes: C# Aiolian b5 and the D# Super Lokrian. I really need to practice on the mid-fretboard modes like the G Lydian #5 because I tend to pass them by, gravitating as I do towards the ends of the fretboard.

I am not prepared to go into it in-depth. I didn't really latch my chelated mind onto an elements of melody. That will come in a day or so. Today was more just wanking around with notes played over a primarily mixolydian progression of E, Am add9, D (with a descending dominant run of B9, Bm7b5, B7.

I often forget how instructive it is to play the re-entrant.

Not in terms of chords. The chords are just a different voicing and that amounts to a big nothing burger since you can still play the same old chords and get the same old results.

But for picking notes, it is different. the re-entrant only has half the shapes of the linear and that can be a good thing. A linear tuning almost presents an embarrassment of riches. The re-entrant helps you focus on what little you do have.

I used random.org to randomize an interval upon which to focus. I received the note A as my assignment. For re-entrant that obviously means the 5th, 9th, and 12th frets (obviously also the 17th but I'll focus on that because my kamaka doesn't have a cutaway and the 17th just replicates the 5th fret).

The A's on the 12th and 9th are part of the same shapes. For the pentatonic world, that means the subdominant shape. And in the melodic minor realm that is the A Lydian Dominant. The A on the 12th is also part of the Pentatonic Dominant shape and the B mixolydian b6 shape, but I discount them because they are actually my favorite and I know them rather intimately.

The A on the 5th fret is in a different circumstance. It is a pivot point betwixt several shapes. The the pentatonics, the A is part of sub-tonic and tonic shape. And as for the melodic minor modes, it is a member of C# Aiolian b5, D# Super Lokrian, and the E Aiolian #6#7.

Now that I have talked it out, I will focus on making some music. Then, when I switch back to linear with twice the possibilities, I'll have a firmer grounding to work from.

more news on using the re-entrant.

As I have said more than once in this journal, I often play visually and spatially--I think I referred to it as geometrical. That's a good thing. It is useful to have vision, and to have a vision, of what you're doing.

However, the problem with seeing things is that you cannot unsee them. It can become limiting. For example, with the A on the 5th fret in Tonic shape of the minor pentatonic, there are only so many places you can go. In theory, you can go to any of the other notes in the shape, but even that has limitations because if you wander too far from the A it sounds random and kind of like Arnold Schoenberg. One path out of this corner is to blur the lines between the Tonic and Sub-Tonic shapes.

This works for me because it gives me additional geometries to work with. I still don't understand how it works since the notes in the Tonic shape are the same as the notes in the Sub-tonic shape, but it works. I come up with different melodies. My best guess is that the new shape groups the same old notes in different ways, and that suggests new lines for me to follow.

And I haven't even scratched the surface of the A in the modes of the melodic minor. For example, in the D# Super Lokrian, the A is the center of a quincunx pattern. That allows for 4 different paths. Here's one example:

From the A move to the D# on the A string. From the D# ascend the A string using the notes in the F# Dorian b2: D#, E, F#. From that F#, arpeggiate horizontally: F#, C#, A (F#m). From that A on the 9th fret you can ascend the subdominant pentatonic shape and then you're in flavor country with the Lydian Dominant, B Mixolydian b6 or the dominant pentatonic shape.

And that's just one example. I can actually play non-stop for an hour by using such as template and adding phrasing, pregnant pauses, festoonings and ornamentations, and different rhythms. I find this much more rewarding than playing covers of others music. In this way of mine, you give birth to something, it lives for a short but exalted time, and then dies without a decline or convalescence. There is no audience and no affirmation. It is just a moment that justifies itself and then evanesces. That's Dadaist but nonetheless true for me. And you want to know what else is true? This technique is also the answer to the frequent question of what's a cheap recording app/software. The answer is the the cheapest solution is to do nothing. Just live in your moment instead of trying to capture it, so that people in the future can view your past mediocrity instead of living in their own contemporary moment.

What's up with all the negativity? The administrators shut down a pointless negative thread and then someone gets sand in his vagina and starts bitching about not being able to bitch. Censorship is alluded to and I think censorship is needed in this case. Social media is inherently biased toward the negative and it doesn't give a true impression.

The guy who runs Living Waters strings sent me an overly brusque email response to a question. I could have been a Karen and shouted my discomfiture as a customer from the rooftop and posted my experience which would be highly viewed because of its salacious nature and which would give a false overview of the person's behavior.

Instead of being a douche, I just picked up my uke and played my music

I practiced regarding the sub-tonic and the tonic shapes of the minor pentatonic as one big shape and experimented with moving within that bigger shape. And I played around with the G Lydian #5. I made some melodies with the shape, with glissandi on the C string, and with chords derived from the shape: B+, E sus2, F#m.

someone typified improvisation as noodling and I take umbrage at that remark. I don't consider what I do as noodling. Noodling has more of a connotation of aimlessness and randomness whereas I fancy most people would consider what I do as plodding and robotic. There are obviously forks in the road upon which I travel but I take them with premeditation. What I do is closer to a crystal that has hard edges and definite facets, but within each facet there is some room for spontaneous sparkles and glimmers.

I had to do some prep-cooking as well as cook dinner. I made some eggplant slices. I just baked them with some oil on one side. I decided I didn't want breading on them even though that's how they are usually prepared. Aside from being philosophically opposed to breading, it was too messy. After all I only use the eggplant as a medium to scoop guacamole or hummus.

I also made a batch of porridge for my wife's breakfasts.

Because the kitchen was already getting hot, I just threw together a quick meal of tilapia, roasted potatoes, and a can of turnip greens.

After that I was finally able to get down to business which was to build some melodies.

My base of operation was the F# Dorian b2 and the F# Neapolitan Major. For some reason the B and C# on the E string were giving me some awkwardness. I would pivot on the A note and move from the F# Dorian b2 to the G Lydian #5. There is really a lot to explore here because I dislike and avoid the Lydian shapes in general. So I am rather unfamiliar with it.

Another thing I did with the F# Dorian b2 is transition to the mediant shape of E major pentatonic. Something that was odd was that mediant shape really pulled toward the C# on the first fret for resolution. Well...I guess that isn't so weird since the E major pentatonic is the same as the C# minor pentatonic--since C# is the relative minor of E.

Lastly, for chordal interludes the F# Dorian b2 has the F#m, Em, B, and D#+

ripock said:

someone typified improvisation as noodling and I take umbrage at that remark. I don't consider what I do as noodling. Noodling has more of a connotation of aimlessness and randomness whereas I fancy most people would consider what I do as plodding and robotic. There are obviously forks in the road upon which I travel but I take them with premeditation. What I do is closer to a crystal that has hard edges and definite facets, but within each facet there is some room for spontaneous sparkles and glimmers.

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That would be me, and I in no way meant it as an insult or anything like that. I guess I could have described it better. That was just a term I heard a lot in the guitar world. I don’t belittle or judge how people choose to play their instrument.

No worries. I wasn't being serious at being offended. I am literary so I was just using the remark as a transition to talk about my noodling, wanking, improvising, or whatever you want to call it. However I had to stop and make dinner before finishing that entry.