my ukulele progress

My singing voice is far more akin to that of an aged orangutan with COPD who is deaf in the right ear and tone deaf in the left.
Thus far, this is my best evidence (18 Wheels And A Dozen Roses, which was indeed performed by female bluegrass superstar Kathy Mattea). I recorded long pauses between portions of the verse and between verse and chorus in the hope of soliciting future UUF collaboration.
View attachment Eighteen Wheels for Chris667.m4a
Is “satisfyingly resonant” inaccurate?
 
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ripock said:
I don't know the song, so I have no reference point but I enjoyed the music on its own merit. I was expecting a simian serenade but I was still pleased with the picking.
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:ROFLMAO: Thank you. Simian serenade is “I Wanna Be Like You” by King Louie (featured in the Disney version of Kipling’s “The Jungle Book”).
 
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I was forcing myself to play some modes which were rather uncomfortable. I don't primarily mean physically uncomfortable although there are one or two 3-fret gaps such as the interval between C and D#. It is a big jump but nothing that planting a pinky or even a quick slide cannot overcome.

My issue is more with how these modes require some hand movement or some big strretches if you wish to maintain a 3-note per string format. I find myself being very fluid in either going further up a string or moving laterally. And that's an uncomfortable sensation for me not to know where I want to go until I start going.

Also, I have some philosophical issues with these modes. I am much more of an aiolian and phrygian fan. But these modes are an ionian which is tantamount to the major scale and Lydian which is more major than a major scale in its sound. I am specifically referring to F Lydian #2 #6 and C Ionian Augmented #2.

It is funny but those two modes always give me trouble whether I'm playing harmonic minor, melodic minor, or this scale. In the past I didn't like them for philosophical reasons as I mentioned but also because they just sound so normal and bland when compared to the other modes. I acknowledge that they all have the same notes and therefore it shouldn't matter. But I am a visual player and the layout of the notes seriously impacts my melodizing.

However I don't really have that excuse with the Double Harmonic Δ. Its Lydian and Ionian are so funky with all those added sharps that they don't sound garden-variety. Even if you play the scales they don't sound very squamous.

So I need to get over this thing. It creates ghost town areas on the fretboard for me. I don't do it deliberately, but I just gravitate more toward the phrygians and the lokrians and the dorians and then if I ever try to move up or down on the fretboard I find myself in uncharted waters. I wonder where am I and then remember, oh I'm in G Ionian #5 territory and that's why I've lost my way.

I am about to hit the kitchen for my first grilling session of the season. I am going to make grilled chicken thighs and zucchini cut on a bias for more surface area.
 
Like a 25 year old, I enjoyed a pyrrhic victory over my wife. I was right, but sometimes, you can be right and still be wrong. Even though I knew better, I rubbed her face in it and forced her to acknowledge my truth step by step. Even though I am right, she will now sulk for a week. So What is the advantage of being right?

I went back to my core and was listening to Trout Mask Replica. It is a foundational piece of music for me. There is a special song for me. It is "moon over Vermont."

It makes me think of when I worked on Vermont in downtown LA. I worked for the Armenian mafia and they were characters.

Being swarthy, they resembled the Italian mafia but with some twists. My contact, "jimmy," was dressed to the nines and had a model on either hand, but the models had bushy eyebrows--being armenian. They still were impeccable in their decolletage cocktail dresses but their eyebrows were crazy. And at the end of the day "Jimmy" gave me food. But instead of cannoli and lasagne, it was lamb and rice.

The most memorable aspect of working with the mob were the face slaps. "jimmy" would say "you're a good worker" or "you're a funny guy" and give me 3 slaps to the right cheek. And the slaps were actually painful but you couldn't say anything because it was "jimmy" and he was giving me lamb and giving me access to his bikini models. What could I do?
 
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Wow, that brings back memories—not about the Armenian mob, but about Capt. Beefheart. Loved Trout Mask Replica. Remember “Orange Claw Hammer”?
 
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I have been rather satisfied with my perambulations through the modes of E Double Harmonic Δ. Primarily because I was able, though by accident, to shift the tonal center to A. I was just playing around and when I landed on A, it just sounded right to stop and resolve. That is successful modal playing because if your ear wants to resolve on E, then you're still playing in E regardless of all the fancy talk and theory. It is probably just luck or perhaps it is because the scale is so exotic that it is easy to shift. Regardless I am pleased.

Something that hasn't been pleasing me is fake meat. Youtube has suggested to me certain vegan videos claiming in their titles the ability to make fake bacon, or sausage, or meatballs. I don't understand. When I spent many years being vegan for fun, I just ate vegetables without the need to disguise them as animal products. It seems weird to me. I understand making the ethical decision not to sustain your flesh with the flesh of another sentient being. But why commit to that principle and then violate it by pretending to eat meat? It would be like someone who respects human life but made cakes in the shape of an infant. You say eating children is vile, but you're doing it. Again, it just seems odd to me. Maybe it is because I always eat whole foods regardless of my eating style. That precludes eating foods processed with textured soy protein, or tofu, or other things that deviate from the simplicity of eating whole vegetables. I even eschewed eating vegetable patties because the patties usually were replete with complications such as starches or xanthan gum or something like that, and the buns violated my need for simplicity as well. Anyway, it is no skin off my back although I am sure I could use the exfoliation.
 
In Greek they use the word areté which roughly means excellent. The idea is to be excellent. In practical terms that means to have a principle and commit to it excellently. That's my definition of a good person: have a guiding principle, which I may or may not agree with, and just embody it. A principled life is a good life. Having a purpose is the purpose of life.
 
I have to go take my pre-work nap, but I quickly wanted to annotate what I was doing. Capitalizing on my recent success with A, I plagiarized Beethoven's A, AAA B CC. Obviously that's just a whole step then a half step jump. So then I was responding to the melody but with odd chord qualities such as augmented. I also used some more central qualities such as 7 or ø. Although I wasn't doing anything as pre-meditated as re-harmonizing or even negative harmony, it was in the same ballpark insofar as it had the same darker vibe such as when you go from the tonal side of the circle of fifths to the dominant side. In a sense it is just high-brow doggerel, but it could turn out to be something if I was a bit more systematic. As it is, it sounds like a nice little theme and variation type of thing. And despite going from diatonic to chromatic chords, it does sound musical because of the repetition. The problem with knowing too much is doing too much, and music is simple repetition.
 
okay, now it is actually time for bed. Beethoven hasn't copyrighted A, B, and C, so I could argue I am not plagiarizing him but then I started playing more and more of his song. My larceny is now pellucidly transparent. That's the benefit of playing scales. If you play scales on three strings, certain patterns emerge and you have therefore under your fingers the building blocks to play anything. And without thinking about it, I just busted out a triply long lifting of old Ludwig.
 
ripock said:
I have been rather satisfied with my perambulations through the modes of E Double Harmonic Δ. Primarily because I was able, though by accident, to shift the tonal center to A. I was just playing around and when I landed on A, it just sounded right to stop and resolve. That is successful modal playing because if your ear wants to resolve on E, then you're still playing in E regardless of all the fancy talk and theory. It is probably just luck or perhaps it is because the scale is so exotic that it is easy to shift. Regardless I am pleased.

Something that hasn't been pleasing me is fake meat. Youtube has suggested to me certain vegan videos claiming in their titles the ability to make fake bacon, or sausage, or meatballs. I don't understand. When I spent many years being vegan for fun, I just ate vegetables without the need to disguise them as animal products. It seems weird to me. I understand making the ethical decision not to sustain your flesh with the flesh of another sentient being. But why commit to that principle and then violate it by pretending to eat meat? It would be like someone who respects human life but made cakes in the shape of an infant. You say eating children is vile, but you're doing it. Again, it just seems odd to me. Maybe it is because I always eat whole foods regardless of my eating style. That precludes eating foods processed with textured soy protein, or tofu, or other things that deviate from the simplicity of eating whole vegetables. I even eschewed eating vegetable patties because the patties usually were replete with complications such as starches or xanthan gum or something like that, and the buns violated my need for simplicity as well. Anyway, it is no skin off my back although I am sure I could use the exfoliation.
Click to expand...
Sodium content of the fake meat hamburger patties is as high, and sometimes higher, than in actual ground beef. Yet another example of “healthy” being improperly used. The same goes for so-called “self generated” chicken. It doesn’t get any more “genetically modified” than that.
 
I was playing melodies which I cannot re-create but I did employ a chordal interlude:

F7 rooted on the 5th
C+ rooted on the 3rd, but also on the 5th
B13 rooted on the 2nd
b7 rooted on the 4th
Em rooted on the 4th.

While I was playing that, I did wonder why there were no m6 chords, which are my favorite
 
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