His Sinfulness
Well-known member
I use a strap standing or sitting with my tenor. It freed my left hand up and made many chords much easier for me. I wouldn't play without one now.
Playing Ukulele while Standing?
- Thread starter CasanovaGuy
- Start date
Bob Bledsoe
Well-known member
I bought a strap and used it early on, but now I play with no strap because it's just easier to grab and play. I spent about a week practicing standing up and now it's just second nature to play without a strap.
Did you ever get around to putting the fake screw heads on the fabric, as I suggested oh-so long ago?
Just wondered....
Just wondered....
-Kurt
bdukes
Well-known member
I'm a forearm and boob man myself. Umm, that came out wrong.
Although, there probably is a blog about it...
jmw
Well-known member
It's funny because it's true.
OldePhart
Well-known member
Hah-haa. I remember that - but, no, never have gotten around to it. Would make great heart-attack inducing pictures in the uke p*** thread, wouldn't it!
Blue Skies
Well-known member
BTW Big, is that you in your Star Treck uniform?
I found that I get much more volume from my ukes when I am sitting, because I am not holding the uke against my body. That extra volume (and nicer tone) might be handy when performing. How about performing on a tall stool (sometimes Jake does this for a few songs during a concert). I would not be able to successfully play anything remotely complicated without some kind of strap.
–Lori
–Lori
stevepetergal
Well-known member
Whistle vs. Electronic Tuner
"for people just learning to play any instrument, do not buy an electronic tuner, get a whistle tuner and train your ear to be able to tune. ridiculous to learn how to play an instrument and never learning to tune first. electronic tuners are for stage playing when you can't hear your instrument properly, not at home trying to learn something"
As a long-time professional tuner, this sounds insane to me. If you're learning to play the ukulele, you're learning to play the ukulele. The tuning technique or device you use should be the one that wastes the least time getting you there.
If you're learning to tune (an entirely different endeavor), I agree you need to put away the electronic tuner. It's precisely as useless as the whistle. To accurately tune an instrument with a tempered scale, like an ukulele, a guitar, or piano, one string should be tuned to A440 (or other desired standard) and the rest of the strings must be tuned to that string and to each other. So, even if you can "train your ear" to tune with the whistle rather than the electronic device, you're still not learning to tune.
Because of my background in the purely technical/mathematical science of tuning, I can tune my instruments more accurately without either. But, of the two I much prefer the electronic tuner over the whistle. It's not better, just easier for me.
If you have one that works for you, why buy the other? The best tuner is the one that gets you playing. In my opinion, it's best to save "training your ear" for the music you'll be making.
"for people just learning to play any instrument, do not buy an electronic tuner, get a whistle tuner and train your ear to be able to tune. ridiculous to learn how to play an instrument and never learning to tune first. electronic tuners are for stage playing when you can't hear your instrument properly, not at home trying to learn something"
As a long-time professional tuner, this sounds insane to me. If you're learning to play the ukulele, you're learning to play the ukulele. The tuning technique or device you use should be the one that wastes the least time getting you there.
If you're learning to tune (an entirely different endeavor), I agree you need to put away the electronic tuner. It's precisely as useless as the whistle. To accurately tune an instrument with a tempered scale, like an ukulele, a guitar, or piano, one string should be tuned to A440 (or other desired standard) and the rest of the strings must be tuned to that string and to each other. So, even if you can "train your ear" to tune with the whistle rather than the electronic device, you're still not learning to tune.
Because of my background in the purely technical/mathematical science of tuning, I can tune my instruments more accurately without either. But, of the two I much prefer the electronic tuner over the whistle. It's not better, just easier for me.
If you have one that works for you, why buy the other? The best tuner is the one that gets you playing. In my opinion, it's best to save "training your ear" for the music you'll be making.
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I have never cared for the pitch pipes. I like my Snark electronic tuners. But I also plan on just getting a bunch of A440 tuning forks, one for each instrument. Back when I first learned to play guitar, that's how I did it. Tune the "A", and everything else relative to it.
-Kurt
The Big Kahuna
Well-known member
The very piece itself. Yes, it's still crap, but without a strap I couldn't even get to the second bar without totally screwing up. A strap allows your fingers/hand/wrist/arm to do what it's designed to do, instead of having to hold the damn slippery bastard of an instrument.
Freeda
Well-known member
Excellent vid! Strapless I do not have that kind of mobility and there is also a cost in terms of resonance. One day I will devote some time and energy to finding the right strap. Just not today!
Blue Skies
Well-known member
Well, this makes an awful lot of sense as well!
The Big Kahuna
Well-known member
I've just found the "Police Line Do Not Cross" strap that Bruce Shimabukuro uses on an English website. I think I'll order one next week.
ok .. so you all must be holding your uke incorrectly while standing...
well, firstly, if you are picking a song, like real picking, not just repeat a pattern picking in place of a a strum, but like jamming a mean picking sound, using rest-picking, not free-air picking, u almost always should be sitting down, like on a bar stool, or other stool without arms....
but if your just plucking a song or strumming, then you should rest the face of the body of the ukulele on your right fore-arm (if u play right-handed) then bring the bottom side edge under your ribs, so your ukulele is really almost upside-down.. or at least facing towards the ground at about a 45-degree angle down-forward.. and your finger strum should be actually like strumming the ukulele upside down..
and you want to create a little box with your bicep, chest, body, and back of your ukulele, so the sound resonates from the back side of the ukulele and makes a louder sound in that little chamber you made with your body..
holding it this way ensures no pressure is on the front or back panels of the ukulele where all the sound comes from, and no pressure is on the side panels either, so the ukulele can make its most vibrant and brilliant sound possible.. as the only place it makes contact with you is along the corner where the back meets the side, which is up under your ribs, or against your body, and the corner where the side panel meets the front panel, which is on your strumming fore-arm..
thats the standing position..
however, i usually make a little strap to hang the ukulele from by the inside of the hole in the front.. like a mobile-phone strap, that works pretty great too.. they sell them special made for ukes, or at least they used to..
well, firstly, if you are picking a song, like real picking, not just repeat a pattern picking in place of a a strum, but like jamming a mean picking sound, using rest-picking, not free-air picking, u almost always should be sitting down, like on a bar stool, or other stool without arms....
but if your just plucking a song or strumming, then you should rest the face of the body of the ukulele on your right fore-arm (if u play right-handed) then bring the bottom side edge under your ribs, so your ukulele is really almost upside-down.. or at least facing towards the ground at about a 45-degree angle down-forward.. and your finger strum should be actually like strumming the ukulele upside down..
and you want to create a little box with your bicep, chest, body, and back of your ukulele, so the sound resonates from the back side of the ukulele and makes a louder sound in that little chamber you made with your body..
holding it this way ensures no pressure is on the front or back panels of the ukulele where all the sound comes from, and no pressure is on the side panels either, so the ukulele can make its most vibrant and brilliant sound possible.. as the only place it makes contact with you is along the corner where the back meets the side, which is up under your ribs, or against your body, and the corner where the side panel meets the front panel, which is on your strumming fore-arm..
thats the standing position..
however, i usually make a little strap to hang the ukulele from by the inside of the hole in the front.. like a mobile-phone strap, that works pretty great too.. they sell them special made for ukes, or at least they used to..
i've actually also tied a very thin string straight around the smallest part of the body, right by the hole... then made a knot and took the string straight to the top of the neck, tied it around the neck, then pulled the string tightly between those two knots, then ran the string back and tied it off in two places about a 1cm apart, before before taking it back to the first knot, then just clipped directly into that 1 cm tied-off space with a regular ID badge neck strap..
or I've tied a string snugly around the middle part of the uke then took it straight to the neck making a tight line between the two points, then just tied a little loop on the prefect balancing part of that string between the center of the body and the top of the neck.. so its hanging with the neck facing up at a 45 degree angle, where i want my hand to be, then tied a little loop at that point, and clipped directly into that loop with a regular badge strap...
the string around the body was so small i didnt really notice any sound difference, and it allowed me to keep the ukulele off my body completely most of the time.. i just used the little black braided nylon string you get from Chinese necklaces etc..
or I've tied a string snugly around the middle part of the uke then took it straight to the neck making a tight line between the two points, then just tied a little loop on the prefect balancing part of that string between the center of the body and the top of the neck.. so its hanging with the neck facing up at a 45 degree angle, where i want my hand to be, then tied a little loop at that point, and clipped directly into that loop with a regular badge strap...
the string around the body was so small i didnt really notice any sound difference, and it allowed me to keep the ukulele off my body completely most of the time.. i just used the little black braided nylon string you get from Chinese necklaces etc..
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jonyoon
Well-known member
I did the trick with the 3M Command Hooks to install a cheap no-drill hook to my uke to add a strap.
http://themissy.com/2011/quick-cheap-no-drill-ukulele-strap
http://themissy.com/2011/quick-cheap-no-drill-ukulele-strap
OldePhart
Well-known member
That's an excellent idea - WalMart here I come!
i think then the strap goes around your body, which is likely to pull the back panel of the uke onto your belly and stop the resonance of the back panel and cause your uke to become less powerful and far-reaching
the best kind of uke strap is something with a hook like this:
http://ts2.mm.bing.net/thumb/get?bid=qbh7sNfoZ4spIA&bn=CC&fbid=7wIR63+Clmj+0A&fbn=CC
and then it hooks on to your uke like this:
http://ukeeku.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/ukestarinuse.gif
so the hook goes into the hole while the uke hole is facing your body, then its flipped up towards your chest..
the image in that photo is probably a bit too high, but the reason for the strap going under it is so your ukulele can rest on the strap out away from your body, and not rest on your body, so the sound can still resonate more and travel further and be more full..
i suppose it could be redesigned to have a line that ties around the neck of the uke, to stabilize it even more for picking, and the back could be redesigned to have a bit wider support network and even less contact on the body of the uke itself, such as with straps that have a raised rubber rib down the middle or something.. and the straps on top could be lengthened to give even longer size adjustment for bigger guys who like to jam it lower..
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cheesegasuki
Well-known member
Those straps work fine assuming you're not endowed in the chest area. That's when things start to get tricky. I always felt that the Kiwaya strap I had caused the uke to tilt forward.
