2nd week with my uke

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phydaux

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I'm a few days into my second week with my new baritone ukulele.

My impressions so far:

  • OMG! My fingers have forgotten EVERYTHING from when I learned guitar as a kid.
  • I don't remember my fingers hurting this much.
  • Skill acquisition comes slowly. SOOO slowly.
  • It doesn't sound like I'm playing. It sounds like I'm HURTING it.

I have improved a LITTLE in the last week. I don't have to look at the chord chart as much anymore. I've started to add 7 and minor chords to my practice.

My strumming is fair, but my fingerpicking is HOPELESS. I keep telling myself "It's better to slow down and do it RIGHT than to try to play quickly and repeat mistakes." So I play slowly and STILL make mistakes.

Sigh...
 
Try playing small sections of the music. Play it over and over until it's right, then move to the next.

It will come back.
 
I think a big difference between new players with and without another instrument background is...

Why do so many new players without instrumental background feel the need to rush?

Learning to play any instrument is a life-long journey. A totally new player may not understand it completely and feel the need to rush things. Then, what is that saying? The brightly burning candle goes out too quickly. Take it slow and carry the distance.

Build on the basic technique like correct hold and hand positions, to prevent injury; then play away. The journey is itself very rewarding as it really never ends.
 
The old saying is 10,000 hours to achieve mastery.

If you practice 2 hours a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year, that's only 500 hours a YEAR. At that rate it would take 20 years to master an instrument.
 
clear said:
Why do so many new players without instrumental background feel the need to rush?
Click to expand...

Even people WITH instrumental backgrounds often rush. You just get excited and want to sound good as fast as possible.

But you're definitely right. There's no ticking clock and you should play as slow as you can. There's a FANTASTIC book called The Practice of Practice and it talks about how some college professors have their students practice so slowly you can't recognize the tune. That's one of the two barometers. If you can recognize the tune, you're playing too fast.

The other one is if you're making mistakes, you're playing too fast.

Slow down to an unnatural pace and work on the steadiness of it. Make the notes ring out clearly and move on without error. If there are errors, slow down even more. Every time you do it right, you're building things in your brain that remembers what you're doing.

But every time you do it WRONG, you're also building things in your brain that remembers how to do that as well. So really take your time, enjoy what you're doing and give yourself every advantage you can.
 
It is so difficult because it is hard. There is a reason why musicians get the chicks; there's a cultural cachet that accompanies the accomplishment of music. But it has to be earned. So earn it. Keep playing your music and amass experience and expertise. In two years you should have something to crow about. But two weeks? Hell, I couldn't make kimchi in two weeks, let alone music.

So hang out for a while. Ask questions and get answers. Upload your playing and get feedback. There are a lot of ways to stay motivated around here while you put in your time to be the musician you want to be.
 
LOL. Tommy Emmanuel is the musician I WANT to be, but that’s just not gonna happen
 
If you continue to practice as you do now you will get better, learn new techniques, develop those callouses and so on. You won't become Tommy Emmanuel, but you'll become your own unique player or musician. I hope you enjoy the process.

If the strings are too thick maybe you could change them. If the tension is too high then tune your baritone down a step or even more. You are fingerpicking already, and I think that's amazing. I know some people who have been playing for years and they limit themselves to strumming! It is easy to see and hear what goes wrong, what is missing, how much we want to progress etc. Take all of those niggles as goals for the next two or three months. For now focus on small things and take baby steps. After a month even all of those baby steps will have carried you along a good distance.
 
Keep at it, but not ten hours a day. In the beginning, I almost quit because I couldn't get my fingers to form a G chord. Now it's second nature. Your fingers will hurt, but they will learn to accommodate and stop hurting. Playing regularly is the key. If you can find a group and Zoom with them, even better.

You can jam with us today - or just watch.

We're meeting as usual to play together on Saturday. I'll turn on the meeting around 12:30 for chats and we start playing at 1:00. I love these events and being able to play with everyone virtually. Welcome to all our new participants! Feel free to forward this to anyone you know. Go to our webpage for all the details and music books. http://ukulelecatskill.com/hygenic-jam-with-carmen-and-friends/. This week we are lucky to have Katie lead one of the sets! It's going to be great!

We're going to have fun! Wear a cool hat! See you soon!

Johnny Uke

Join The Jam!
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8399830378
Meeting ID: 839 983 0378
Meeting ID: 839 983 0378
One tap mobile
+16468769923,,8399830378# US (New York)
 
Try not to be so hard on yourself. Don't beat yourself up over it. You're just playing the ukulele, it isn't like you're studying to be a concert pianist. Quit fighting it and it will come. You are not in a race, take your time and don't worry about winning. That's about all the encouragement I can come up with at the moment. You are doing fine.
 
As Stu Fuchs says, Mistakes are our friends.

The main and most important thing in learning to play well, is to keep asking yourself "Am I having fun?"

Hand in there, take it easy on yourself, the ukulele is a fun instrument. This isn't rocket science, and it isn't symphonic work.
 
I'm very pragmatic learner, up to a point that I drive my family nuts. It comes from my classical piano background I think. And now that I'm learning a new instrument, my learning habits come very handy. And as I teach my students to practise wisely, it is hard not to follow those guidelines too.

I find few things very useful. Practise SLOWLY. Think slow and slow it down by half and then slow it down even more. Practise few things, or bars example, at times. Practise separately and with thought those things that you find particularly hard. And practise hands separately. Play backwards: all the chords from the end to the beginning, or when fingerpicking and with classical music just play the last bar alone, then from the bar before that, and keep adding bars and always play to the end (hope that makes sense!). Play peaces that you'll enjoy! And forgive yourself that it doesn't go as planned or sound perfect - one can't see the grass grow either. And don't think all the things you don't know, think all the fun stuff that you will learn. And have fun!
 
As a practice I can’t help but think about Napoleon Dynamite:

“I don't even have any good skills. You know like nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills. Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills!”
 
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