Practicing Away from Your 4-stringed Addiction

Swiftsailor98

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I caught the uke bug. However, the work environment and a decent drive time to/from work reduce hands-on opportunities with my ukes.

How do you practice away from your ukulele?

I've found myself practicing right-hand techniques on the outer seam of my pants to work muscle memory for fingerpicking patterns or to nail the rhythm of a new strumming pattern.

Does anyone else have any other tricks or exercises?
 
I try practice filing my index, middle and ring finger nails in right hand. I don't much like it, but nails can't be kept in good shape with just scissors.

I don't try any physical exercises, but mentally I might name common chord sequences in various keys. In that imagining how I finger chords with left hand helps naming them.
 
I caught the uke bug. However, the work environment and a decent drive time to/from work reduce hands-on opportunities with my ukes.

How do you practice away from your ukulele?

I've found myself practicing right-hand techniques on the outer seam of my pants to work muscle memory for fingerpicking patterns or to nail the rhythm of a new strumming pattern.

Does anyone else have any other tricks or exercises?

I kind of do the same thing on the train. Samantha Muir has a good book of right hand exercises and I kind of do those to work the muscle memory.
 
Besides working on the technical/mechanical aspects, you can work on the mental and musical side of things. Run through chord progressions, lyrics, note names on the fingerboard, alternate chord positions up the neck, etc, etc in your head.
 
You can use your forearm to substitute for the instrument's neck when practicing mentally. Apparently, it actually works.

 
Only if you have frets implanted. ;)
 
One thing that I do sometimes, and it isn't a substitute because I do have plenty of time to play my ukulele, I go over the lyrics in my head to songs that I know. I memorize a lot of songs and sometimes I forget parts of them. So running them through my head helps keep them fresh. I do this a lot when I go to bed and I can't get to sleep, or when I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep. It is a really good way to get your mind off of your worries and relax..
 
One thing that I do sometimes, and it isn't a substitute because I do have plenty of time to play my ukulele, I go over the lyrics in my head to songs that I know. I memorize a lot of songs and sometimes I forget parts of them. So running them through my head helps keep them fresh. I do this a lot when I go to bed and I can't get to sleep, or when I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep. It is a really good way to get your mind off of your worries and relax..

I do a lot of of singing in my car, really helps to memorize the lyrics. I also see in my minds eye the chord above the lyrics line, kinda like looking at the printed page I use to learn the song from. I will also go through the chord progression in my mind as well to help memorize it. Most of the stuff I work on now is memorization for songs I am going to perform.
 
Thank you all -- good ideas, great discussion.

A graph paper tablet was beneficial for finally breaking the code on chords up the neck.

DownUpDave, I also do a lot of singing in the car. I created at least two playlists of "play-along" songs and "sing-along" songs for the same purpose.

Only if you have frets implanted. ;)
EDW, did you come up with a new tattoo idea? I'm interested in what the fret markers look like...:D
 
Thank you all -- good ideas, great discussion.

A graph paper tablet was beneficial for finally breaking the code on chords up the neck.

DownUpDave, I also do a lot of singing in the car. I created at least two playlists of "play-along" songs and "sing-along" songs for the same purpose.


EDW, did you come up with a new tattoo idea? I'm interested in what the fret markers look like...:D

I will record myself playing the instrumental part on my smart phone. My car has bluetooth so I can play the instrumental part of the song on the car speaker while I sing along with it. Fortunately I haven't gotten pulled over and arrested for disturbing the peace :p No I don't go at it that loud, just referring to the quality of my voice lol;)
 
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