my ukulele progress

[ripock]

Wife brought home some leftover potatoes from a restaurant she went to. I expended my mustard on them. So I had to make more.

I mortared a bunch of brown mustard seeds.
added curry powder, dill, and a pinch of garlic/onion salt
added juice of 5 limes in lieu of vinegar

I'll let that sit overnight and then add Colman's mustard powder to thicken it up if needed. I hope the lime works.

I bought a new (to me) variety of potatoes: butter cream. They look like russets but the name implies they'll be more like yukon gold in the middle. We'll see.

 

[ripock]

The mustard turned out fine. I added 3 tsp of mustard powder to thicken it up. The lime wasn't really present while the mustard's in the mouth but there is a distinct tangy after-taste.

Circling back to the butter cream potatoes, since I have them I am going to make a cottager's pie for my wife's big meal next week. I know everyone calls it cottage pie but I don't like that term. We are supposedly drawing a parallel between shepherd's pie and cottage pie, but a shepherd is a person while a cottage is a building. I think we should either use two terms referring to people or to buildings. My main exposure to shepherds is through Greek poetry where shepherds, when not sitting beneath a tree, inhabit what appears to be a cottage or a hovel as opposed to the more formal main building of an estate. So I would call a shepherd's pie a cottage pie and I would call a cottager's pie a farmhouse pie.

Here's my plan.

Obviously, a pastry shell at the bottom.

Then the meat mixture. I bought some ground beef. I also bought some julienne cut green beans in lieu of disgusting peas. Obviously I will heavily spice the meat. I feel the meat should be bound in some way. I'm not in the mood to make any sauces, so I will probably opt for mixing in some eggs.

I have a little bit of Canadian cheddar in honor of Ploverwing.

Then I'll put a topping of butter cream potatoes, which I will rice.

It should be okay. It is almost impossible to err when pastry is involved. In fact, I think the only time in my life when I failed with pastry is when I made a grape pie. I even peeled those mofos and still received a less than lukewarm response.

 

[ripock]

This may come as no shock, but I am having the most success in mixing scales by mixing bigger chunks. Switching too quickly seems to make more of a random sound versus playing, say, an F# Lokrian 13 and switching to major pentatonic. Patterns are starting to emerge so that I can shortly have more lucid statements.

 

[Ms Bean]

The mustard turned out fine. I added 3 tsp of mustard powder to thicken it up. The lime wasn't really present while the mustard's in the mouth but there is a distinct tangy after-taste.

Circling back to the butter cream potatoes, since I have them I am going to make a cottager's pie for my wife's big meal next week. I know everyone calls it cottage pie but I don't like that term. We are supposedly drawing a parallel between shepherd's pie and cottage pie, but a shepherd is a person while a cottage is a building. I think we should either use two terms referring to people or to buildings. My main exposure to shepherds is through Greek poetry where shepherds, when not sitting beneath a tree, inhabit what appears to be a cottage or a hovel as opposed to the more formal main building of an estate. So I would call a shepherd's pie a cottage pie and I would call a cottager's pie a farmhouse pie.

Here's my plan.

Obviously, a pastry shell at the bottom.

Then the meat mixture. I bought some ground beef. I also bought some julienne cut green beans in lieu of disgusting peas. Obviously I will heavily spice the meat. I feel the meat should be bound in some way. I'm not in the mood to make any sauces, so I will probably opt for mixing in some eggs.

I have a little bit of Canadian cheddar in honor of Ploverwing.

Then I'll put a topping of butter cream potatoes, which I will rice.

It should be okay. It is almost impossible to err when pastry is involved. In fact, I think the only time in my life when I failed with pastry is when I made a grape pie. I even peeled those mofos and still received a less than lukewarm response.

There are many pies with a pastry shell, but I've never seen a cottage or shepherd's pie with one. However, there might be smaller sized (serves one) ready meal cottage/shepherd's pies available in the shops. I wouldn't know...

Shepherd's pie - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[bbkobabe]

We are supposedly drawing a parallel between shepherd's pie and cottage pie, but a shepherd is a person while a cottage...

...is cheese. So butcher a shepherd and add cottage cheese. Am I keeping up? Oh yes, pastry shell of course...

 

[ripock]

It is funny how our conversations influence our behavior. I contributed to a thread about cowboy chords. That, to me, is an insulting phrase denoting a person who can only play first position chords. So when I found myself engaged in some wankery around the 16th fret, I had to wonder if I wasn't doing that to exorcise the taint of the cowboy.

Regardless, my strategy was to focus on the B on the 16th fret and combine the major and minor pentatonic off that B. That is a delicious part of the fretboard. You are so far away from the nut and the bridge so that you can get really lush sounds and very broad bends.

Obviously I was playing some righteous melodies but also some chords of distinction as well. It is difficult to formulate chords that high on the fretboard because of the confined space but I was making generally straight barres from the pentatonic shapes. I wasn't being very perspicacious in terms of roots but I was making chord shapes that I associate with m7, sus4, m11, and Δ chords. Since the chords were all derived from the pentatonic shapes, they all sounded more or less appropriate since the notes were all in a scale.

I did make my cottager's pie and, as predicted, it is scrumptious. It is impossible to screw up a bed of pastry topped with a filling which itself is topped with mashed potatoes. My only lament is that I forgot to add garlic which would have made the dish pop a little more.

Speaking of garlic, I generally use garlic powder because it is less likely to burn. However, I watched a video that suggested using the micro plane to shred fresh garlic. I had never thought of that. Slicing garlic is a bit onerous and garlic presses seem to waste so much garlic. The plane seems like a great alternative.

I went to my middle eastern store for my painful biannual gathering of staples. It is always so expensive because I buy such big quantities that last a long time. I spent around $150 to get big containers of olive oil, ghee, and sesame oil. Luckily, I didn't need any herbs or spices or I would have been quite distracted. I did buy as a treat some really big flat bread that the store bakes up and a little brick of halloumi, one of my favorite cheeses, and I'll make a bean burrito or two.

 

[ukudancer]

Do you have any videos of your playing? Your posts are always super technical but I don't think I've ever come across any footage of you playing.

I'd love to see / hear you someday

 

[ploverwing]

Do you have any videos of your playing? Your posts are always super technical but I don't think I've ever come across any footage of you playing.

I'd love to see / hear you someday

Our ripock eschews the mobile phone. I've requested recordings (even audio only) before. Alas, it seems is not to be

 

[bbkobabe]

Always eschew obfuscation!

 

[ripock]

yeah. I know what it takes to efficaciously present material. In my teaching days I learned html, xml and cascading style sheets to make my own websites. It would take twice as long as performing to edit and produce the videos and sheet music and visual aids. And that's definitely not in my priorities. I would rather play than take twice the time to show others what I'm playing.

 

[ripock]

I saw a silly statement saying the soprano is the purest form of the uke. That's like saying an amoeba is the purest form of a dog. That may be true in a certain sense but you can't get a frisbee and play with an amoeba. The soprano was just a stage in the development of the instrument that came to the island from Europe. It was great as an accompaniment to singing but eventually the uke changed to become something more suited to soloing. All these stages don't have values; they are just developments over time. It is unnecessarily polemical to say the changes either improved over time or the changes exhibit a degradation. I'm just glad there are choices. I stick to the bigger ukes because they fit my needs better having enough frets to play all the pentatonic shapes or all the modes of a standard heptatonic scale. If I were a singer by nature I would naturally gravitate to the soprano to play chords to support my voice.

 

[ukudancer]

yeah. I know what it takes to efficaciously present material. In my teaching days I learned html, xml and cascading style sheets to make my own websites. It would take twice as long as performing to edit and produce the videos and sheet music and visual aids. And that's definitely not in my priorities. I would rather play than take twice the time to show others what I'm playing.

No one is asking you to go through that much effort. I certainly wasn't asking for sheets and visual aids. I just wanted to see your words applied to real music... because without that, this would be like a Grey's Anatomy book without illustrations.

 

[ripock]

No one is asking you to go through that much effort. I certainly wasn't asking for sheets and visual aids. I just wanted to see your words applied to real music... because without that, this would be like a Grey's Anatomy book without illustrations.

I understand you never asked me to do all that, but it is what I would have to do personally. That's just me; if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right.

 

[ripock]

Arrived home from my day job but didn't go to bed 'til 2 a.m. What was I doing?

I had to make a batch of beans as I had run out. The stars of this cast were my burnt shallots/chives. I have recently been obsessed with burnt vegetables. A plate of burnt vegetables is unappealing, but when used as a flavor is intriguing. For a big pot of beans I burn a little bit of bacon and a little bit of shallots/chives. When those items are included in the pot they add an element of smokiness and flavor.

I poured the beans, still hot, over some cilantro and garlic. I think I may have to give up the garlic. Using fresh garlic is wonderful but since adding that element to my eating I have been having some issues in the bathroom (the less said, the better). So I think I will have to cut the garlic out.

While the beans were pressure cooking I did the grading for my three classes as well as addressed some pressing emails (you'd never guess that there would be such a thing as a Latin emergency, but when dealing with 20 year olds anything is possible).

My main musical interlude to all this was switching from the B4 on the 16th fret to the B4 on the 2nd fret. As you can imagine there are a lot of possibilities here. One B is surrounded by the highest notes on the fretboard while the other is surrounded by the lowest notes. So if you pivot betwixt B's you can have a melody with the widest range of notes possible for a uke. Right now my biggest challenge is note selection because the intervals, when too wide, can sound random. It is a challenge to find broad intervals which still cohere.

 

[ukudancer]

I understand you never asked me to do all that, but it is what I would have to do personally. That's just me; if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right.

I meant no offense, btw and obviously do whatever you want. But for a progress blog, we (the reader) don't really see any progress. You might learn as much theory as you've written on here, but who the heck really knows how far you've come? There's no way for us to compare day 1 Riprock to current Riprock, that's all. But again, it's your journey, your post.

 

[ripock]

I caught the Bach bug, so I was just playing around. Back in the day I always play "jesu joy of man's desiring" in D, so I just transposed it to E and then used the first measure as a motif. When I get to the first first note of the second measure, which is a B in this key, I switched to E major pentatonic and just improvised for a while. It actually sounded good. Obviously it was different because of the differences but it sounded purposeful--as if this were another song that could have been written.

Sometimes, using the pentatonic as a buffer between bach and me, I'd venture into something a little more minor such as a B Mixolydian b6. But eventually I'd resolve a phrase on E and start back on Jesu.

I had to go to work, so I didn't get a chance to swap out B's. For example, I was using the B on the 7th fret but I could also use the one on the 2nd fret or the one on the 16th fret. I'll do that later and see what pops up for me.

 

[ploverwing]

Using fresh garlic is wonderful but since adding that element to my eating I have been having some issues in the bathroom (the less said, the better). So I think I will have to cut the garlic out.

I roast probably a pound or two of whole garlic heads snuggled up in parchment and in a covered baking dish. I don't bother cutting the tops. I store them in the fridge (they will keep for a looong time), and smoosh out a clove or six in a dish. Doesn't bother me like garlic prepared any other way does (and I CANNOT do garlic powder).

 

[Oldscruggsfan]

I roast probably a pound or two of whole garlic heads snuggled up in parchment and in a covered baking dish. I don't bother cutting the tops. I store them in the fridge (they will keep for a looong time), and smoosh out a clove or six in a dish. Doesn't bother me like garlic prepared any other way does (and I CANNOT do garlic powder).

So, do you later mince the cloves either by hand or on a mandoline / grater and leave them in whatever dish you’ve prepared, or do you only use them to flavor the oil/ sauce, then discard the cloves?
I’ve been told that discarding the actual cloves is how it’s typically done in Italy. When in Rome….

 

[Oldscruggsfan]

I’m writing this NOT because my digital High Desert friend Professor Ron requires anyone to speak in his defense NOR because @ukudancer’s comment regarding audio/ video evidence was in any way offensive.

Fact is, any thread that has now run to more than 100 pages gains my respect for that reason alone. Meanwhile, I not only enjoy but actually relish and expectantly await Ron’s next missive. His prose has promoted me to enjoy reading about music theory and his non- music observations are inevitably fascinating. In case you haven’t noticed, Ron has my respect for a far more basic reason: he’s no stranger to, nor shirker from, manual labor yet has the credentials to teach subjects to doctoral candidates about (and in) dead languages I can’t even pronounce.

When I say it’s a major achievement for anyone to write in such a compelling manner that I eagerly await a deep dive into chord progressions I never knew existed, that’s a major achievement. Hells bells, prior to joining UUF, my interest in reading about music extended no deeper than how long Merle practiced “Pancho and Lefty” before cutting the record with Willie (once) or how many laps Earl was able to walk around the farmhouse in the opposite direction from his also- banjo- playing sister and still be hitting the proper timing on the tune they were playing each time they passed.

Keep it up, Ron! Inquiring UUF minds want to know. I personally don’t want to hear a recording of you playing one of your top- of- the- line custom bari ukes. I freakin’ want to jam with you, my brother!

 

[ploverwing]

So, do you later mince the cloves either by hand or on a mandoline / grater and leave them in whatever dish you’ve prepared, or do you only use them to flavor the oil/ sauce, then discard the cloves?
I’ve been told that discarding the actual cloves is how it’s typically done in Italy. When in Rome….

They're squishy post roasting. They break down really easily with not much effort.