What did you do today? Anything hobby-related.

[Brian PacNW]

The idea

Share what you did today in terms of new songs/progress/understanding/activities/crazy chords/etc. as they relate to our shared hobby. These are items that someone might want to share but doesn't want to create a whole new thread for. (I did find this thread about uke-specific activities such as re-stringing, new instruments, cleaning, shopping, etc. but nothing on general progress or activities.)

Feel free to stray off topic a bit, but hoping it mainly pertains to ukuleles/music in some way

I'll start

Today I signed up for James Hill's The Ukulele Way so I can get better background on combining melody and chords. I get the idea that the melody note is often the root or 3rd or 5th of the accompanying chord, and have an intermediate understanding of theory and progressions too (I-vi-IV-V7, etc). But looking to start to branch out and create songs rather than just play them. Seeing as I have very little creativity, I'm not hopeful, but anything helps (or so I'm telling myself).

As an aside, I'm learning the chords to Michelle by The Beatles. Wow, what a fun progression! I know all the various sections of the song, now just need to clean it up and string it together without forgetting what comes next.

 

[derbyhat]

Me? I read your blog post.

 

[vcs700s]

The idea

Share what you did today in terms of new songs/progress/understanding/activities/crazy chords/etc. These are items that someone might want to share but doesn't want to create a whole new thread for. (I did find this thread about uke-specific activities such as re-stringing, new instruments, cleaning, shopping, etc. but nothing on general progress or activities.)

I'll start

Today I signed up for James Hill's The Ukulele Way so I can get better background on combining melody and chords. I get the idea that the melody note is often the root or 3rd or 5th of the accompanying chord, and have an intermediate understanding of theory and progressions too (I-vi-IV-V7, etc). But looking to start to branch out and create songs rather than just play them. Seeing as I have very little creativity, I'm not hopeful, but anything helps (or so I'm telling myself).

As an aside, I'm learning the chords to Michelle by The Beatles. Wow, what a fun progression! I know all the various sections of the song, now just need to clean it up and string it together without forgetting what comes next.

Practiced flat picking Old Joe Clark on my uke (2 versions).

Also worked on Herb Ohta Jr’s Rainy Days.

Fun times.

 

[Biggfoot44]

Literally Today ? Nothing . My weekly shopping , weekly socializing at LGS , then off to afternoon OT .

Last Night ? Met with some of the guys for the Saturday Nite Jam Session/ quasi gig at the local hole in the wall sleazy honky tonk bar . Basically the owner lets us use the space for free , and he gets to write on the board , " Bluegrass Saturday 6:30 " . It's important to us . because after the passing of the owner of the previous jam venue , there wasn't a convient place to regularly jam/ hang out w/ musical intent .

Bluegrass , with some Traditional Country and some Christmas songs . 1 Guitar only , 1 switching Guitar & Mando . upright Bass , and me on Dobro .

I was mainly trying to regain a semblance of timing . and remember a few of my fill licks after a lay off .

Eventually , I will catch up with my Guitar buddy who also does Uke among other things for some Uke pointers , but 80hr work , plus family , plus volunteer leaves little time .

 

[Joyful Uke]

Played a bit, tried to talk myself out of looking for another ukulele to try, (I think I was successful, but who knows when UAS will strike), and picked out a few things to learn/memorize, (Presbyterian Guitar, The Christmas Song (Brittni's version), and The Long and Winding Road.) Watched the end of the bidding war for the Moore Bettah. A few people really, really wanted that ukulele.

Now I think I'll go do a string change. I had noted that I didn't like Living Water strings on one ukulele, but I really like Living Water strings and can't remember what I didn't like about them on that one ukulele, so will have to go remind myself by doing a string change to Living Waters. Currently have Worths on there. If I still don't like Living Waters on that ukulele, I'm going have to leave myself a note to remind myself why, and to stick with Worths.

Edit to add: Hmm, so far I really like the Living Water strings on the ukulele this time. Hopefully, that will continue to be the case. I wonder why I didn't like them before....

 

[Wiggy]

Working on a song for SOTU that doesn't quite "fit" the qualification formula, but is somewhat close.

(Attempting to work any song out in less than a month is a challenge!)

 

[Bill Sheehan]

Just got back from playing a 45-minute set for a ladies' club Christmas party, at the bowling alley in a small town about 25 miles south of here. It went fine, but I struggled a bit with "the sound". In the interest of simplicity, I limited my setup to a little Kustom PA-50, into which I plugged two separate Shure PG-81 "tubular" style condenser mics-- one aimed at my voice and the other aimed at my uke. I was hoping I'd be able to get a fair amount of gain before feedback, but unfortunately I was getting a boomy sort of effect that prevented me from cranking the unit high enough to be heard toward the back of the room. The folks up front seemed to be hearing me okay. I'm wondering if I might have better luck with a couple of dynamic mics for this kind of situation. But... overall it was a nice outing. And it's always fun to ponder the question, "How can I improve on it next time?"

 

[rainbow21]

Watched football and the Moore Bettah auction. Don't know which was more suspenseful.

Finished reading "Building and Owning a Bettah Ukulele" by Staci Blevins.

 

[Patty]

Organized my sheet music in the proper binders, making a note to visit Staples and get bigger binders.

Then practiced for an hour. And of course checked out what was happening on UU.

 

[Bill Sheehan]

Organized my sheet music in the proper binders, making a note to visit Staples and get bigger binders.

Then practiced for an hour. And of course checked out what was happening on UU.

No more dinky binders, Patty !!!

 

[KohanMike]

Aside from doing the laundry, throwing out the trash and recycles, attaching small cleats on a wall in my bedroom and attach workout bands, vacuuming the mess I made, shopping, making marinaded cucumbers, unloading the dishwasher, folding the laundry, I also reworked about 15 songs of the 179 songs in a songbook for a group play-along in a park every other Sunday, that lost the position of the chords when I imported it for my iPad Pro 12.9".

---

Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly Grove near the Beverly Center
4 tenor thinline cutaway ukes, 3 thinline acoustic bass ukes, 5 solid body bass ukes
•Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
•Member Cali Rose & The CC Strummers: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers

 

[Laidback1]

Watched football and the Moore Bettah auction. Don't know which was more suspenseful.

Finished reading "Building and Owning a Bettah Ukulele" by Staci Blevins.

Looks like it went for a significant price! Beautiful ukulele and the guys at TUS really did a great job showing it off in their demo videos.

 

[Laidback1]

Finished up pulling together a finger style solo arrangement of “White Sandy Beach”………..

 

[Arcy]

It's been a good music day.

Tickled the piano for a while this morning - mostly scales & Hanon, then a bit of work on Let It Be
Some time this afternoon working on clawhammer uke, a break to make pizzas, then back at it this evening.
Probably going to do a bit of James Hill's Baritone Jazz course before bed.

(James Hill and the Beatles - I'm on the same wavelength as @Brian PacNW !)

There was some potential illness in the house, so I skipped the in-person uke group. Bummer!

 

[clear]

Today, I uninstalled eMedia Ukulele Method from my PC. Why? Because I finished it. It took me 2 years, but I got thru. It was actually much easier than I remembered; I think my 1 year of guitar lessons helped.

What else musical? Well, I played the uke for about an hour today; and I bought a new guitar as well.

 

[Brian PacNW]

Today I downloaded tab editor software. It's my first time really writing anything original down, digital or not, and my first time messing with music software. The piece is very short and is the start of something, not complete. Or maybe it is complete, who knows.

Whatever this is, it's pretty fun so far. And this probably seems silly now, but I had no idea that software like this could play the music too. Neat.

 

[TBB]

So far I’ve farted about playing a few of my favourites and spent a bit of time trying to work out whether I can find a song and get myself organised to take part in the Seasons this week (I do this every week and haven’t actually managed to get myself organised since about 2018 ).

It’s only about 7.30am, but the couple of hours I have before the rest of the family emerge is probably my most productive ukulele time.

Ooh, and I ordered a manuscript notebook, thought I might have a go at arranging some stuff.

 

[Patty]

No more dinky binders, Patty !!!

Oops--I blew it. Missed an opportunity to use the word "dinky." I'll try not to let it happen again!

 

[Oldscruggsfan]

Downloaded a tune whose title begins with "O" to learn for this week's SOTU entry, transposed to F to accommodate my razor- narrow vocal range.
Concentrated on work for two hours.
Affixed proper domestic US postage to fulfill a promise made last week to another UU member.
Considered two other "O" tunes for this week's SOTU and saw that @vcs700s has worked on one of those for other reasons.
Concentrated on work for another hour.
Mentally cast about for some material that has lots of tiny (say 1mm/1/32" diameter) holes such as vinyl speaker covering, to attach - tightly stretched - on the underside of my uke's new side port. Camel-colored or black leather seem proper choices but leather will relatively shortly become brittle so I'm open for suggested alternatives. Of course, I need only a miniscule portion of one square yard. . .
The slot-style port is, I realized this past Saturday, very slightly smaller than but otherwise the exact contour of my metal US Army dog/ toe tag if bent to match the curvature of Yowling Ginger Tom's upper bout. I was somewhat jarred this past weekend when it finally occurred to me that, when painting the white border around the sound port, I'd subconsciously mimicked the width of the tag's rubber edging that had served as a baffle to prevent a clinking sound against the P-38 can opener that hung alongside it.

Back to work. . .

 

[Canada Jim]

I've been looking for songs to play that start with J for Season 563 "What's in a name?" John has challenged us to come up with songs whose title begins with the same letter as our forum name. Since my forum name is the same as my real life name, my songs will be J songs. I'm looking at: Jambalaya, Java Jive, Joshua Gone Barbados and have just finished trying to find an acceptable set of chords for the verse of Jada. One chord seemed to have me stumped for a while and Google didn't help; It seems that no one sings the verse any more, but I think I have found an acceptable chord if I don't play it too loudly.