my ukulele progress

Since I have been rather self-indulgently pontificating about the pentatonic, I just want to give one more practical application to show I'm not blowing smoke up anyone's ass...although that is a service I would happily render if the money was right!

The pentatonic is largely connected with playing the blues. And if you practice the blues and practice in all keys, then you know the tonic, the subdominant, and the dominant of every key.

This is actually equates to a humongous concept, the secondary dominant. Every key has a dominant. For example, in C the dominant is G. However every note within the key has its own secondary dominant. And if you know your blues progressions, you already know it.

The function of the dominant is that it creates a longing to resolve with its tonic and music such as jazz often exploits this connection with the secondary dominant. In fact, if you understand the ii-v relationship and secondary dominants, you have a really big chunk of jazz.

Here's one example to illustrate what I hope I'm expressing. In the key of C, you can go from a C to an Eminor. That is just a I to iii movement and it is what it is. But remember that a dominant paves the way to the tonic. So if we assume that E is the tonic, what is its dominant? The answer is B. B is the dominant of the iii, the E. Now if you insert the B before you go to the E, it sounds a lot more resolute. B, the secondary dominant, puts the spotlight on E and makes going to the E sound much more pre-meditated.

So if you know your Blues progressions, you can drop any secondary dominant before any note to create an ad hoc turnaround to that note. It always sounds good.
 
My goodness, I was just cursorily browsing the site and it seems like people are getting a bit heated about humidification. For me, I hate humidity personally. I grew up in the desert and I like it dry. There's a reason why old people move to Arizona for their health. But I keep an eye on my ukes. The last time I checked they were around 50%. If the humidity drops too much, I'll fill the humidifiers. That's another funny thing on the forum: people who complain about having to fill humidifiers. If you cannot spare 5 minutes a week to filling up a humidifier with distilled water, then you don't deserve nice things like solid ukes.

I quickly made my wife's supper. I carmelized an onion, put the onion in a pan with bouquet garni, chicken stock, and potatoes. Then I laid some chicken thighs atop and braised them. She ate a plate of chicken and potatoes. Then she had ice cream. She hasn't been well and lost weight and so she gets no grief from me about eating junk; I need to fatten her up.

For music, so far this evening, I have been practicing the super lokrian scale. I have been trying to get acquainted and comfortable with it. There is something exceedingly odd about it: it seems to want to resolve to the b2 instead of the tonic.

I'm playing it in E and I have been also playing a descending sequence: Eø, Dø, Fm. All the notes to all those chords are within the E super lokrian. I am using a slowed down 8 beat rumba strum I learned the other day. Now I have to go trim my nails because they were catching on the strings and I hate that. I play with nubs.
 
She hasn't been well and lost weight and so she gets no grief from me about eating junk; I need to fatten her up.
Make her a milkshake or a malted when she wants one. Great comfort food. Also rice pudding—you can spice it up with interesting flavors & dried fruits.
 
great idea about the milkshake except I don't have gadgets like microwaves or blenders. But I will keep it in mind.

I am feeling a bit feverish with a headache. So I didn't play too much tonight. Maybe half an hour. I did get that rumba strum down. The trick is the slap on the fifth beat. If you nail that slap on the strings, then it all falls into place.

And I did gain some fluency with the D super lokrian tonight along with the three chords that are evident within the scale: the Dø, Cø, and D#m. And I'm starting to find which groupings of notes make good riffs.
 
finally it was cold enough for me to gad about in full regalia: homburg hat, surcoat, and beneath the usual sportscoat and waistcoat. The homburg is of course a hard chapeau so that the slight rain was snapping on the brim. I had a mental health crisis, or at least an event that shook my faith in my memory. I would have bet dollars to donuts that in the pocket of my surcoat there was a slit that allowed communication between the outer layer of my surcoat and the inner layer of my sportscoat, so that I can have access to my tobacco pouch or pocket watch without unbuttoning my surcoat. However I could not find it. It makes me wonder about the Mandela Effect where I at some point had existed in a parallel universe where the only difference in realities was the existence of the eminently useful pocket slit.

I took the day off work because work was becoming a drag. I suppose it is a mental health day. I had amassed several gift cards for doing the bare minimum at work: showing up and doing my job. Regardless I gathered all my gift cards and my employee ID and I went to the store and purchased the most expensive vacuum cleaner they had. By the time my discounts had been applied, it was under $100. Now I can vacuum the house in style. On the way home, I stopped by the market and purchased a bottle of Laphroaig to while away the day in comfort.
 
… I gathered all my gift cards and my employee ID and I went to the store and purchased the most expensive vacuum cleaner they had. By the time my discounts had been applied, it was under $100. Now I can vacuum the house in style. On the way home, I stopped by the market and purchased a bottle of Laphroaig to while away the day in comfort.
Is it a Dyson? We have one of those iconic 1950s canister Electrolux jobs that’s a tank and does the job, but it’s getting expensive to keep it going. Think I’d like a Dyson, but so pricey!
 
No, a bissell. The only Dyson ones I saw were the sticks and I was apprehensive about them. The sticks were more expensive than the normal looking vacuums. My experience with those lighter options is that they aren't as durable and I didn't want to spend an extra $150 on a stick that would break.
 
Is it a Dyson? We have one of those iconic 1950s canister Electrolux jobs that’s a tank and does the job, but it’s getting expensive to keep it going. Think I’d like a Dyson, but so pricey!
Love, love, love the Dyson. We have one for each floor / story / level. That it’s possible to achieve such workable precision with plastic always astounds me. However, I recommend that you buy any model other than the “ball” roller. It just feels far flimsier than the originals.
 
I practiced with the super lokrian, or the alt. scale if you're a jazz player.

Then I started to fancy the sound of C going to D# for some reason. If I stick with the D#, that D# is the b2 of the D super lokrian. Or if I go to the C, then I can play the C Lydian #2 and when I get to the A string switch to the Lokrian 13 and end up on the F#. From the F# I can either go to the sub-tonic shape of the E major pentatonic or arpeggiate back down to the C on the 5th fret using the D# dim7 chord.

And for chords today I was playing Dø, Cø, D+, D13. Some of the elements of the D13 (like the 13 and the 9) were non-diatonic, but it still sounded good.
 
I have been practicing some 9 chords because they hurt. Being a life-long husband and teacher I know one should always pick one's battles and never lose the battles one picks. Therefore, I give up. There's a reason the lord gave us ten fingers. In his/her infinite wisdom he/she knew we would lose a few fingers and would need back-ups. So the distal phlange doesn't work as it should so I am practicing playing a 9 chord rooted on the C string using the pinky for the 9 and the ring finger for the b7. It is okay but I need to work on it. If I move chromatically I lose the integrity of the shape but that comes with practice. And the pinky mutes the neighboring string, but it will learn to be more erect. The modification shouldn't take too long to perfect.
 
I bought another chicken to whom I am going to perform an extreme spinal laminectomy and roast it atop an onion chutney. The chicken is good but I have been finding the chutney is equally important because I save it after I roast the chicken and use it during the week with my wife's grains and fish. This week I also bought some pineapple and an apple. I am going to core and peel the apple and add the apple and pineapple to the onion to make it a more savory dish. I also intend to add some salt and herbs to liven up the onion.

My new 9 chord practice is progressing. I'm using a blues progression I know from somewhere. It is in G and I kept it in G because if I transposed it to E the 9 chords would be too easy. Of course I never play blues progressions as blues progressions. Being a roots musician I usually take a blues progression and do something with it that isn't obsolescent. Regardless here's the progression:

G7
C9
G7 and Ab7
G7
C9
C9
G7 and Am (which I play as A add9 since I hate open strings and the add9 covers more strings)
Bm and Bbm
D9
Eb9 and D9
G7 and C9
G7 and D+

I obscure its bluesiness by inserting some rumba strums, or fingerpicking, or playing the D super lokrian instead of D9 (even tho the super lokrian has a b2 instead of a 2)

That last sentence seemed to trigger me somewhat. I think I object to the term fingerpicking because I do not like the restrictive definition most ukulele players apply to it. When most people say fingerpicking or fingerstyle they are referring to that robotic inside/outside pattern that seems to be popular. However for me that term denotes playing individual notes which includes playing melodies, playing scales, playing double-stops, et c.

Also, I think mentioning the blues has raised my dander because there is a recent thread about the tenor being more suitable to a re-entrant tuning and it peeved me a bit because the unspoken assumption is that the default way of playing a ukulele is to strum cowboy chords and sing five foot two eyes of blue. And that chafes me because it doesn't describe me at all. And back to the point: I have watched some videos of some very, very, very accomplished uke players playing the blues with re-entrant and it stuck me as asinine to the point of being a joke.
 
Oh boy, maybe I shouldn't be replying...
I once had a colleague who went by Randolf Walton III. For a chuckle, I'd say Randy, do you have the time? Without fail, he'd politely correct me on his name, then give me the time in hours, minutes and seconds, as if his Casio was an atomic clock. ;)
I wrote my PhD dissertation on the Greek comedian Menandros. Therefore I know there is nothing less funny than talking about why something's funny. However, I have to ask what you're talking about. It sounds funny, but I don't understand. Explain and ruin the humor.
 
I wrote my PhD dissertation on the Greek comedian Menandros. Therefore I know there is nothing less funny than talking about why something's funny. However, I have to ask what you're talking about. It sounds funny, but I don't understand.
Explain and ruin the humor.
Sorry, I shouldn't have responded. My bad.
 
Oh boy, maybe I shouldn't be replying...
I once had a colleague who went by Randolf Walton III. For a chuckle, I'd say Randy, do you have the time? Without fail, he'd politely correct me on his name, then give me the time in hours, minutes and seconds, as if his Casio was an atomic clock. ;)
Maybe it's my GA redneck vernacular but I've tried saying the name aloud and am still not getting the joking connection between the name and the time. Help me out here.
 
I teach plenty of GA rednecks in Valdosta, so I don't believe that's it. Randy does mean horny. Could that be the lynch-pin of the joke?
 
I teach plenty of GA rednecks in Valdosta, so I don't believe that's it. Randy does mean horny. Could that be the lynch-pin of the joke?
Wait, Valdosta, the South GA college town that Siri can never pronounce! I thought you were in AUS! Where did I get that idea? As to the joke, I'm not getting it. Randy-walt-on-3? Sounds more like a play call by American football quarterback than a joke to me.
 
on an unrelated note, there is actually a fairly funny thread going on about how not to get ripped off in online ukulele transactions. To me it is funny because it is oxymoronic. The whole purpose of capitalism is to rip somebody off, to trick somebody into paying more for an item than it is intrinciscally worth. So the thread is about how to rip people off without being ripped off.
 
Wait, Valdosta, the South GA college town that Siri can never pronounce! I thought you were in AUS! Where did I get that idea? As to the joke, I'm not getting it. Randy-walt-on-3? Sounds more like a play call by American football quarterback than a joke to me.
I am in New Mexico but through the magic of computers I teach at Valdosta State as one of my jobs.
 
Went on my fortnightly jaunt to the pub and didn't make any friends. On the TV they were playing the movie Salt of the Earth which I explained to those present who didn't know the plot or that the makers of the movie were all blacklisted because of the red scare and it was an early example of feminism. The movie takes place in Grant County and people here in New Mexico do not like to be reminded that they are occupying the cherriest lands stolen from indigenous peoples. In fact many of the neighborhood charters still have explicit bans on brown people. There is a generation of people who actually act like they are autochthonous because they have been here since the 70's. In conversation, I usually refer to these people as Rhodesians or Israelis due to their similar outlooks.

So since I wasn't too popular today I was sitting, reading Horatius, and trying to dope out the joke of Renaissance Man and I think I may have it. I had been annotating that I was messing about with D# and C. In the patois of the kids, a D is a dick and I assume a C may stand for the corresponding female genitalia. So by alluding to D's going to C's perhaps I was crafting sexual imagery unbeknownst.

Time will tell. I am currently making the newest incarnation of my flat chicken. The spinal laminectomy went much more smoothly this time around. I think I was making smaller but more frequent snips instead of trying to complete the entire operation in a snip or two. I think the chutney is going to turn out well. I gave the onions extra carmelization added some seasoning salt and a lot of an herbal mixture I have of sage and Dr. Bragg's herb medley. Dr. Bragg is pretty much a health food huckster but the herbal mixture is actually very good and aromatic. I have high hopes when I spoon a bit of the chutney as a relish for my wife's millet. The chicken itself is golden brown because it was roasted at 450 but also because I used a salt mixture called Revolution which is salt, tumeric, and orange peel.
 
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