how to move from intermediate to advanced?

Captain America

Captain America

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Any tips most welcome!

I fingerpick and strum, etc., read tab well, but I have this Great Vision of just being able to pick the uke up and make it go really well at the very get go.

Any suggestions on making this happen?
 
The only good adice is PRACTICE,PRACTICE,PRACTICE,PRACTICE,ad infinitum!
But providing you love your instrument and your music you will reach a level
where you will be content!
 
Practicing is good advice but only goes so far. People have a tendency to practice what they know so they stay the same. Here are some ways to break the cycle:

1. Take songs you already know, especially songs where you know a fingerpicking arrangement, figure out how to play them in more than one key.
2. When you play with a uke jam, or play familiar songs, use chords in a different position up the neck.
3. Take a break from uke for a couple of months (this is counterintuitive, but studies have shown that it takes a while for skills to get hardwired into the brain). I've found that if I take a break I lose a little, but after a couple of weeks improve more than I ever could before.
4. Learn music theory and learn how to read music
5. Get a keyboard (I use a cheap $40 Casio). Train your ear. Learn how to recognize what you hear, translate it into music and then translate it into the ukulele.
6. Learning techniques and scales, etc will only take you so far. Learn to hear music,really hear it, then to play what you hear.

Jake Shimabukuro, Daniel Ho, Britney Paiva, Sara Maisel, Jason Arimoto, James Hill, Gerald Ross - they are all musicians. If you want to go to the next level, learn to play music on the ukulele, don't just focus on learning the ukulele.
 
I think what pushed me over the edge was learning a Jake Shimabukuro song by ear, Blue Roses Falling to be specific. In my opinion, what separates the advanced players from intermediate ones is not their tech skill but their understanding of music; they know what sounds good and why it does. The song was an eye-opener for me. Sure, learning any Jake Shimabukuro song will naturally develop your tech skills like artificial harmonics and tremolo picking, but more importantly, you'll get to understand his play style as only someone who learns songs on his/her own can. And as you look at more and more advanced players like Kalei Gamiao and Kris Fuchigami, you'll begin to pinpoint specifics in their styles and hopefully develop your own, which I feel will carry you well out of the intermediate class. For starters, see if you can spot these characteristics in the following players' songs:

1. Taimane Gardner's technical proficiency
2. James Hill's incorporation of rhythm
3. Kalei Gamiao's chord voicings

I don't want to completely rule out tech skills though. I think the really important ones are
1. Picking comfortably with three fingers
2. Ghost notes
3. Triple strums, and
4. Tremolo picking

That's it! Good luck! :D
 
Captain America said:
Any tips most welcome!

I fingerpick and strum, etc., read tab well, but I have this Great Vision of just being able to pick the uke up and make it go really well at the very get go.

Any suggestions on making this happen?
Click to expand...

Yes ...and seriously ...grow up......and I don't mean that derisively or insultingly......:)....don't work your arse off trying and striving to do what you cannot do at the moment, enjoy what you have got and what you can do....and as you do you'll loosen up and develop ...someone here wrote pick it up ,put it down ...good advice and as you get older one day you will do exactly what you just wrote that you wanted to do....that is why it is important to start young and if you start old accept what you get to be able to do....do what you can do well.....and most important enjoy it ...that's my two pence worth.....

music ain't a quick fix ....
 
Most excellent players have things they do well and things they don't. I don't know that anyone is great at anything. For example, I've seen this from Ukulele camp, Sarah Maisel is great with jazz voicings but she doesn't really fingerpick. Jason Arimoto really knows blues and is good at improvising, but a lot of his playing more nuanced music is sloppy. Daniel Ho is a magnificent musical player, but he doesn't improvise as well as Jason or play jazz as well as Sarah. Many players are very good within their comfort zone and ordinary players in other ways. They can make it go at the get go in some ways and not in others.

The biggest problem I see with a lot of the ukulele players I encounter is that they want to play the ukulele but they don't want to learn music. A lot of making it "go from the get go" is knowing music well enough to substitute what you do know how to do for what you don't but still make it fit the music.
 
katysax said:
If you want to go to the next level, learn to play music on the ukulele, don't just focus on learning the ukulele.
Click to expand...

This.

The best way to become a better ukulele player is to become a better musician. The ukulele is just a tool for making music.

Since you are looking for practical advice.... Rhythm. Improving your rhythm will give you the most bang for your buck in improving your overall playing. Rhythm (the temporal arrangement of sounds) is what creates music as opposed to noise.
 
Wicked said:
This.

The best way to become a better ukulele player is to become a better musician. The ukulele is just a tool for making music.

Since you are looking for practical advice.... Rhythm. Improving your rhythm will give you the most bang for your buck in improving your overall playing. Rhythm (the temporal arrangement of sounds) is what creates music as opposed to noise.
Click to expand...


Yes ....and that is like saying ...here's a gun ...clear off down the range and let loose with as many rounds as it takes till you hit the target.....sheesh....

Tell the guy How to improve his rhythm.....tell him How to improve his musician skills....I know you and the previous poster mean well but it comes across a leeeeeetle bit pompous...and I cannot believe that you mean to but we don't want to put people off...

Get a time keeper swingy thing...metronome....play along to records or backing tracks (easier for rock, pop blues etc than classical if that is your bag)

Best of all find a uke buddy easier said, wrote than done, preferably someone who is a bit better....no not better , more advanced than you ...or a lot more advanced and see if they are happy to let you sit in with them ....Woodshed ....or if you want to pay someone get a teacher (that last one really bites me though )...listen to lots of music as well ....but mostly feel it and then try and interpret it in your own way...(now who is sounding poncey and pompous lol) .....but Have Fun Doing It ....most important.....
 
CasanovaGuy said:
I don't want to completely rule out tech skills though. I think the really important ones are
1. Picking comfortably with three fingers
2. Ghost notes
3. Triple strums, and
4. Tremolo picking

That's it! Good luck! :D
Click to expand...

Just curious as to your definition of ghost notes as played on the uke ...I can only find reference to them as drum notes:confused: on google....and that is probably google's fault......how would you describe them as played on the uke ?

CJ
 
CeeJay said:
Yes ....and that is like saying ...here's a gun ...clear off down the range and let loose with as many rounds as it takes till you hit the target.....sheesh....

Tell the guy How to improve his rhythm.....tell him How to improve his musician skills....I know you and the previous poster mean well but it comes across a leeeeeetle bit pompous...and I cannot believe that you mean to but we don't want to put people off...

Get a time keeper swingy thing...metronome....play along to records or backing tracks (easier for rock, pop blues etc than classical if that is your bag)

Best of all find a uke buddy easier said, wrote than done, preferably someone who is a bit better....no not better , more advanced than you ...or a lot more advanced and see if they are happy to let you sit in with them ....Woodshed ....or if you want to pay someone get a teacher (that last one really bites me though )...listen to lots of music as well ....but mostly feel it and then try and interpret it in your own way...(now who is sounding poncey and pompous lol) .....but Have Fun Doing It ....most important.....
Click to expand...

I think that if you were to look around the forums, you would find that I strive to be helpful and provide very detailed explaination to those with questions. You... not so much.
 
Find an audience, not close friends. Watch them while you play. (If you can't watch while you play, that's your next target.

Note what worked (head nods, leaning in, etc) and what lost their attention.

Work on changing your performance so that all of it works, though I'd be happy if most of it worked
 
Two things have helped me progress a lot over the last few years:

  1. Learning to read musical notation. Being able to read music has helped me access lots of new (to me) music---folk music, classic Hawaiian music, pop songs of the early 20th century, classical music, etc. Musical notation reveals rhythmic and harmonic relationships that tablature tends to obscure.
  2. Participating in the Seasons of the Ukulele. Finding a new song to learn and play each week has taught me more than I thought I could learn about arranging songs for uke, and the Seasons participants are a constant source of both inspiration and support.
 
Wicked said:
I think that if you were to look around the forums, you would find that I strive to be helpful and provide very detailed explaination to those with questions. You... not so much.
Click to expand...


Woooooah here hoss .... .... .....I did say that you were trying to be helpful....but that to my reading of it came across as a little pompous ...

I'm not here to fall out ...you can get enough of that on Ukulele Cosmos

You wrote "get rhythm .......fair enough....but 'how' would be what I was asking ".....and what do you mean I ain't trying to be helpful...?
 
Last edited:
CeeJay said:
Woooooah here hoss .... .... .....I did say that you were trying to be helpful....but that to my reading of it came across as a little pompous ...

I'm not here to fall out ...you can get enough of that on Ukulele Cosmos

You wrote "get rhythm .......fair enough....but 'how' would be what I was asking ".....and what do you mean I ain't trying to be helpful...?
Click to expand...

I'm not going to drag this out, but you came in and called two people pompous... And then proceeded to "help" the original poster by making the obvious recommendation that he find a teacher...

I typically write fairly detailed posts when people ask for help. In this case, I only had a minute to spare, so I wrote what I could. If the OP wishes clarification, I will be happy to respond.
 
"I'm not going to drag this out".........oh brother..

Oi, Over Sensitive ...I did not call two people pompous...I merely pointed out that what was written had come across as a little bit pompous....

I sometimes write like a prat ....but I'm not one ! Trust me...

I said get a teacher as a last resort ...would not be my first , second or third choice and it is as obvious as "learn music".... we all have different and equally valid ways of learning ...come on !
 
Not that my opinion is worth a popcorn fart, I agree with everything that Katysax (about playing music) and Wicked (about CeeJay) wrote.
 
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