Category: Music

Hello!

Here is my video of me performing “Im Yours” by Jason Mraz on the Ukulele.

I am so proud of myself! After hours (and I mean HOURS) of practicing everyday, I filmed my final video. It took many attempts and after about 3 hours of filming, this was my best take.

My thumb positioning has improved drastically since the time I filmed “Riptide” in February. Although sometimes my thumb goes up a little too high, I would say that 75% of the time, my thumb is behind the fret bar- which is a huge improvement! I am also no longer holding my Ukulele on my lap. This is a huge accomplishment for me, as last time I had my Ukulele resting on my lap. Overall, I am super proud of myself. Although it is not perfect and I had some minor errors here and there (strumming was sometimes off, thumb was visible at times) I could not be more happy with my performance. I am excited to keep practicing and learning over the summer.

Thank you so much for this amazing opportunity, I now have a new hobby I can carry with me everywhere!

Laurence

Hello my fellow musicians!

I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! After nearly two months of practicing with my new and improved technique, I can finally (almost) say that I am ready to film my video of me performing “Im Yours” by Jason Mraz on the Ukulele. Here are a few things I still need to work on:

1. The interlude: During this part of the song, the order of the chords changes; which I did not know until about two weeks ago when I realized something was not sounding right. Rather than going the typical Cx2, Gx2, Amx2, Fx2 , it goes C, G, Am, G, Fx2, D7X2. Although these are all chords I know, it is still something new I need to add to the song which takes some adapting and patience. I know I will be able to add it with little to no struggles. I will just have to keep on practicing it everyday!
2. Hugging the Ukulele with my right arm: This is something I am constantly reminding myself of. When I begin a practice session, I usually start off with practically perfect posture. Nearing the end, I find myself getting tired leading to me not holding on to my Ukulele with my right arm properly which in hand,  leads to my thumb on my left hand to move up the fret board; which is what I am trying to avoid! I need to remember the tightly hold onto the Ukulele with my right arm as if I was trying to “hug” it.
3. Knowing the exact lyrics: Because this song was so popular back in 2010, I tend to forget the lyrics sometimes as this was a long time ago. I need to start listening to the song when I am driving or working out, in order for the lyrics to stay in my head!

See you next week for my final post: the video!

Laurence

Hello!

So, for this song, my main goal is to have proper posture and hand positioning; meaning I have to have my Ukulele resting in my arms rather than on my lap and have my thumb  behind the fret bar. To say the least, this has been very difficult!

After Anita took the time to show me how to properly hold my Ukulele during one of our classes, I felt as though I was starting from point one all over again. I used to play with my Ukulele on my lap and had my thumb over the fret board, just like you would play a guitar. I got so used to this and playing the Ukulele started to feel natural. Now, I feel as though I have no idea how to play anymore. It feels like I went from driving an automatic car to driving a standard car! It is difficult to see the chords I am switching to with this new positioning. I still struggle with where the chords are and I need to be able to see them before switching. I realize that this will come with time and if I keep up the consistency of practicing every night before bed, sooner or later, I will be able to switch chords without looking at the fret board. The picture below shows how the proper way of holding the Ukulele: what I am striving to look like everyday! (Picture taken from WikiHow) I find that it helps practicing standing up, as I am forced to hold the Ukulele up and have proper posture. I will keep practicing standing up until holding it up comes naturally, then I can proceed to playing sitting down again.

Tune in next time to see my (hopefully) progress!

Laurence

Hello!

After 2 months of focusing everyday on practicing “Riptide” by Vance Joy on the Ukulele, it is time to move onto a bigger challenge; I will be learning “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz.

This song is very similar to “Riptide”. It has the same DDU UDU strumming pattern, and also consists of chords C, G, and Am; however, “Im Yours” also consists of an F chord, and also has a D chord used only a couple times. This means that “Im Yours” has a total of 5 chords; which is both exciting and frightening at the same time. For a first time Ukulele player, this is going to be challenging. I want to practice every night before bed -just like I did for Riptide- for 30-45 min segments each time. This means that I will be practicing 3.5 hours to 5 hours a week.

My goal for this song is to improve my posture. During “Riptide”, I had my thumb above the fret board. This time, I want to hold my Ukulele higher up in order to prevent my thumb from rising, and have my thumb behind the fret board. If I achieve this, this will help me switch from chord to chord more efficiently. This will defiantly be challenging, but I am up for the challenge!

I will link the  video I have been watching to get started on my learning journey

See you next time w

Hello!

After almost two months of practicing the Ukulele almost everyday and learning my favourite song “Riptide” by Vance Joy, I have finally filmed and uploaded my video to YouTube for Midterm. Here is the link.

Although this is far from perfect, I am so proud of myself. I had never played the Ukulele before this class and I have come a long way since the beginning of January. I sat down for nearly 2 hours and filmed many videos and this was the best one out of all of them. I almost perfectly strummed the DDU UDU pattern through the entire song. I was able to sing the whole song while playing which surprisingly was the most difficult part!Although I am proud go my accomplishments, there is room for improvement. I must be quicker from the switch to Am to G. I have gotten better over the past couple of weeks, however I still have some room for improvement. As well, I should have may thumb lower behind strings. I should barely be able to see my thumb but this takes a lot of skill. For my next song, my goal will be to improve my thumb positioning, and be quicker on those chord switches.

I am so proud of myself and am eager to learn my next song!

LBoucher

Hello fellow bloggers/musicians!

As I am approaching the end of learning Riptide on the Ukulele, I am getting nervous yet very excited!

I am starting to be able to strum Riptide on the Ukulele almost flawlessly. Although I still struggle with switching from the Am chord to the G chord, I am getting better each and every time I practice.  The thing I am currently working on is playing the Ukulele AND singing the lyrics to Riptide at the same time – which is something I thought would come carelessly – but it is so hard! Every time I start singing, my fingers instantly stop working and I stop strumming. I find it nearly impossible to do the two at the same time. I even tried simply humming the song and even that was too much. I asked my good friend Kate who is very good at the Ukulele if this is normal. She said that it 100% is normal and is all apart of the journey. She said that I just have to keep on practicing and eventually, I will be able to sing and play at the same time.  If I keep practicing both switching from the Am chord to the G chord and practice singing the lyrics, I will have done every necessary step to learn Riptide on the Ukulele. I am so excited to see what the final product sounds like!

I find this frustrating but it is all apart of the journey! I am a very impatient person but this is challenging me to improve this aspect of my personality.

Tune in in two weeks to see me playing Riptide and singing it on the Ukulele!

Laurence

Hello fellow bloggers!

Overall, my ukulele practice has been going very well. I am enjoying every step of this journey. I have always wanted to learn the ukulele so I am very thankful for this experience. 

After successfully learning the three chords, my next step was to be able to go from Am, the G, to C chord  trying to pause as for the least amount of between them. After a lot of work, I can succesfully switch from G to C, and C to Am. I am really struggling to go from Am to G. Going from 1 finger with the Am chord to quickly switching to the G chord which uses 3 fingers is very challenging. I notice that when I am able to do the switch quickly, it is when I have proper posture, my thumb is behind, and I am holding the ukulele properly. I just really need to focus on these things and one day, switching from Am to G chord will come naturally and effortlessly. Once I can master this, I will be ready to move forward with my learning journey and learn the strumming pattern, which is DDU UDU, to the song Riptide. I can not wait to learn this song! 

Tune in next time to see if I finally can switch from the chord Am to the chord G effortlessly! 

Laurence

Hello fellow bloggers!

For my EDCI 306 class, I will be learning the Ukulele. My goal by the end of this learning journey is to have learned “Riptide” by Vance Joy and “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz.

My first step to learning my first song “Riptide” is to learn the three chords needed which are Am, C, and G. I have absolutely no music background and do not even know what these chords sound like, so I decided to look it up on Youtube. The video is posted at the bottom of this blog post.

I found it very difficult to do the G cord. For the C and Am cord, it is simply one finger. For the G chord, on the other hand, 3 fingers are needed and it is a very awkward position. I had to ensure I had proper posture, my thumb was gripping the back of my Ukulele correctly, and that I was hugging the Ukulele with my right arm. Otherwise, I had no angle to do the G chord correctly. After about 30 minutes of practicing, I finally got the three chords down. I did get frustrated a few times as I could not get the hang of the G chord but after a few times, it started to get easy.  I find the Am the easiest to do however, I find that the G chord is the one that sounds the best. I can not wait to put these chords together!

Laurence

Here is the Youtube video that helped me practice the Am, C, and G chords.