About getting stuck...

[ItsUkuLovely]

Hi!
I find myself getting stuck from time to time.
I don't have a real time teacher, no Uke pals in the neighbourhood to practice with.
YouTube is loaded with great teachers and tutorials, Instagram and YouTube is where I get inspiration but maybe there's too much out there? I get confused sometimes, overwhelmed with what style I want to play, I don't want to restrict myself to strumming basic chords. So I try different styles and genres which results in the feeling that I'll never get good at anything.
Do you get stuck sometimes and what do you do when it happens? How do you get out of that phase?
Grateful for som advice and tips

 

[necessaryrooster]

Hi, I think this is a really common problem in the land of self-taught music. Many people will advocate for getting a teacher, as this will help you with accountability and structure to your practice and keep you from jumping from song to song or technique to style and never really nailing any one thing down. A good teacher will be able to assess where you currently are and help you with what to work on next.

If you don't want to get a teacher, I recommend finding a course you can follow. This can either be paid or free; lots of YouTube teachers have series of playlists to work on a particular skill (or just overall skills). A paid course will have more material and usually some method to contact the teacher for feedback.

It's mostly a matter of providing structure for yourself and sticking to it. There is a lot of advice about how to structure a practice routine; it all depends on how much time you have to play every day along with where you are in your uke journey. The general recommendation for structure a practice session (from what I have seen) is usually a warmup, scales/learning the fretboard, chord transitions (which can double as rhythm practice), work on a particular song or technique, and then some time to play familiar songs you already know or noodle. At some point you'll want to add music theory into your routine as well.

Think about why you picked up the uke in the first place. Is there a particular artist that inspires you? A particular song you wanted to learn how to play?

 

[MorganTheBard]

I might be wired differently than you, so my advice maybe won’t work for you, but for me the things that people normally suggest didn’t work
practising with other people stressed me out because I had the feeling I have to play exactly the same as others and alone the social situation Stressed me out
working with tutorials/a program didn’t work because I always had the feeling I wasn’t getting to the point what was expected of me and I needed to do things differently and the person couldn’t adapt to my needs

so then I just dumped everything every idea of having to choose how I want to play having to do a certain things to practice. I just played how I felt it was right. I listen to a lot of music not specifically for ukulele, but just on Spotify and every time when I thought hey I like this song I looked up the chords and started to play it. Sometimes I listened to other covers of that song on YouTube, but first I just played

also, I experimented with different tunings because on my baritone ukulele, I always had the problem that I was playing the same chords that I like to play on guitar because this tuning is very similar, so I only played the chords that were easy for me, but then, as I got my concert ukulele and played with the standard tuning different chords were suddenly easy for me and I had a complete new range of chord combinations and then I tried other tunings and also tried to playThe ones that were easy for me in this tuning in a different tuning so I had more and more range of different combinations .

I know this doesn’t probably work for most people, but I seem to be like an anarchist if things get too structured or two strict. I don’t know how to explain it. I just completely get a blockage and then stop playing altogether. Maybe that’s my ADHD I don’t know
for me, was just a good way to stop all the pressure and expectations how ukulele playing should work or how a ukulele player should be

 

[Peteslp]

It's pretty common to get "stuck". Happens to lots of us. My biggest problem is staying focused on one exercise/tune/instrument. I've come to accept my musical ADD.
I'll offer 2 suggestions:
1. I find Bruce Emery's "Ukulele From Scratch" books are well structured and he's clear that his goal is to help develop the reader's skill with understanding music in addition to playing the ukulele. I go back to them often.
B. This may be off the wall. Put your Ukulele down for a week. Just take a break. Clear your head. Something will probably come along that will re-inspire you. Then you scratch that itch.
Hope this might help. Good luck!

 

[merlin666]

Playing music is an evolving process and if you feel you get stuck it may just mean that it's time to move on to the next challenge. I got stuck many times and then some months or even years later revisited and all of a sudden what seemed difficult at one time came easy at a later time. So being stuck can just mean that you're not quite ready yet. Unstick yourself and focus on enjoyment of the music.

 

[Oldscruggsfan]

I have days when even tunes I know well sound horrible.

Then come days when I think some tune sounds so good I should immediately go on the road. On such days I’m simply delusional because when I circle back to practice with a metronome, often I wasn’t even playing the tune I intended, and the timing was way off.

The key is that I practice every day. And I always anticipate the joy of that “me” time.

 

[ripock]

I remember driving with my wife and she said, "we're lost." I retorted that we are not lost because we weren't going anywhere; you cannot be lost if you had no destination. So, therefore, the problem with being "stuck" is defining your starting and ending point.

In practical terms: if you want to play "while my guitar gently weeps," you are lost and stuck. If you want to play tremolo like Brittni Paiva, you are lost and stuck. You need to make smaller, attainable goals. If you want to avoid being stuck, don't make goals in which you will get stuck. I know that sounds stupid, but my wife is a social scientist and she gets paid $40 an hour to help people not make goals that get them stuck. It is a real thing.

 

[ripock]

just as an example of what I said, I am working on making the G# Ultraphrygian scale musical on a re-entrant tuned uke. I know that sounds insignificant and, indeed, it is quite negligible. However when you combine this nugatory item with all my other ones, it creates an ability to make music. So, take baby steps and never be frustrated.

As a negative example, I'll tell you something I desire but something upon which I would never embark. I want to play the first minute and a half of "The Sails of Charon," a funky flamenco-esque intro to a Scorpions song from the 70's. I've looked at the sheet music and it could be done on the treble strings of a guitar a.k.a. the strings of a uke. But I would never try it because I would get stuck. Therefore, pick your battles. Make sure every battle you initiate is winnable.

 

[ItsUkuLovely]

Hi, I think this is a really common problem in the land of self-taught music. Many people will advocate for getting a teacher, as this will help you with accountability and structure to your practice and keep you from jumping from song to song or technique to style and never really nailing any one thing down. A good teacher will be able to assess where you currently are and help you with what to work on next.

If you don't want to get a teacher, I recommend finding a course you can follow. This can either be paid or free; lots of YouTube teachers have series of playlists to work on a particular skill (or just overall skills). A paid course will have more material and usually some method to contact the teacher for feedback.

It's mostly a matter of providing structure for yourself and sticking to it. There is a lot of advice about how to structure a practice routine; it all depends on how much time you have to play every day along with where you are in your uke journey. The general recommendation for structure a practice session (from what I have seen) is usually a warmup, scales/learning the fretboard, chord transitions (which can double as rhythm practice), work on a particular song or technique, and then some time to play familiar songs you already know or noodle. At some point you'll want to add music theory into your routine as well.

Think about why you picked up the uke in the first place. Is there a particular artist that inspires you? A particular song you wanted to learn how to play?

Thank you! I am mostly interested in fingerstyle and I am currently trying to understand and learn the CAGED system for Ukulele. Fingerstyle is really fun, the hard thing is to pick the right songs for my level of playing. When I pick a song that is really challenging I easily get discouraged. But I am hanging in there and make small steps forward I guess I am mostly lacking patience with myself. I will try to stick with one artist/teacher at the time. Thank you for your thoughts!

 

[ItsUkuLovely]

I might be wired differently than you, so my advice maybe won’t work for you, but for me the things that people normally suggest didn’t work
practising with other people stressed me out because I had the feeling I have to play exactly the same as others and alone the social situation Stressed me out
working with tutorials/a program didn’t work because I always had the feeling I wasn’t getting to the point what was expected of me and I needed to do things differently and the person couldn’t adapt to my needs

so then I just dumped everything every idea of having to choose how I want to play having to do a certain things to practice. I just played how I felt it was right. I listen to a lot of music not specifically for ukulele, but just on Spotify and every time when I thought hey I like this song I looked up the chords and started to play it. Sometimes I listened to other covers of that song on YouTube, but first I just played

also, I experimented with different tunings because on my baritone ukulele, I always had the problem that I was playing the same chords that I like to play on guitar because this tuning is very similar, so I only played the chords that were easy for me, but then, as I got my concert ukulele and played with the standard tuning different chords were suddenly easy for me and I had a complete new range of chord combinations and then I tried other tunings and also tried to playThe ones that were easy for me in this tuning in a different tuning so I had more and more range of different combinations .

I know this doesn’t probably work for most people, but I seem to be like an anarchist if things get too structured or two strict. I don’t know how to explain it. I just completely get a blockage and then stop playing altogether. Maybe that’s my ADHD I don’t know
for me, was just a good way to stop all the pressure and expectations how ukulele playing should work or how a ukulele player should be

Great that you found a way that works for you! The most important thing is to have fun right?"

 

[ItsUkuLovely]

I have days when even tunes I know well sound horrible.

Then come days when I think some tune sounds so good I should immediately go on the road. On such days I’m simply delusional because when I circle back to practice with a metronome, often I wasn’t even playing the tune I intended, and the timing was way off.

The key is that I practice every day. And I always anticipate the joy of that “me” time.

 

[ItsUkuLovely]

"Me" time it is! I do try to practice every day, even if it is just for 5 minutes.

 

[ItsUkuLovely]

Playing music is an evolving process and if you feel you get stuck it may just mean that it's time to move on to the next challenge. I got stuck many times and then some months or even years later revisited and all of a sudden what seemed difficult at one time came easy at a later time. So being stuck can just mean that you're not quite ready yet. Unstick yourself and focus on enjoyment of the music.

That feels like good advice! Thank you!

 

[Jan D]

I don’t know what your playing level is, but there is an immense amount of free ukulele fingerstyle tabs on these two websites. From these collections, I’m sure you would be able to find plenty of music that is accessible (and satisfying) to you now. And you can save the rest of the music for those times you want (and can manage) more of a challenge. Good luck!

Ukulele Tabs

The arrangements on this site are being shared for nonprofit educational purposes only. This site is free, but if you like it, you can send me a donation through PayPal to show your appreciation. Enjoy! Putter

sites.google.com

http://ukulelehunt.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/solobuch1.pdf

 

[ItsUkuLovely]

I don’t know what your playing level is, but there is an immense amount of free ukulele fingerstyle tabs on these two websites. From these collections, I’m sure you would be able to find plenty of music that is accessible (and satisfying) to you now. And you can save the rest of the music for those times you want (and can manage) more of a challenge. Good luck!

Ukulele Tabs

The arrangements on this site are being shared for nonprofit educational purposes only. This site is free, but if you like it, you can send me a donation through PayPal to show your appreciation. Enjoy! Putter

sites.google.com

http://ukulelehunt.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/solobuch1.pdf

Thank you! Amazing I recognize some of the German songs I sang and played on the guitar as a kid.
I feel motivated already

 

[engravertom]

I have been stuck many times. Too many interests! Finding a method or plan that works for you is a potential help.

I struggle to say no to many good things so I can yes to the best things.


I just got unstuck again about an hour ago!

But I’m not going to lie to myself. I may get stuck again. That’s ok. I have learned something from every “distraction” and every sticky place.

Enjoy the ride!

I have stressed way too much about what I won’t be or won’t do. I’m better off enjoying where I’m at right now. I get more accomplished with that mindset.

 

[kypfer]

When I get "stuck" I just put whatever aside and do something else ... the world seems a much nicer place after a few days

 

[ploverwing]

I either like to try something different, or I like to go back to things I know really well and just noodle with them. Sometimes I'll pick a technique that I know really needs work but that I haven't worked on for a while. Sometimes I'll pick a completely different type of song to try. Maybe I'll try to figure out a new chord and then place it in a chord progression to see how that goes. And sometimes I just won't play for a few days. I've not been thoroughly stuck for long, though, because there are just so many things I still need to learn. I will definitely walk away from a piece that's pissing me off, and by the time I try to play it again, I've usually developed some translatable skills that help in the parts that I was originally struggling with. But I'm still a beginner, so as I say, I have a long way to go with a lot to learn.

 

[ItsUkuLovely]

I have been stuck many times. Too many interests! Finding a method or plan that works for you is a potential help.

I struggle to say no to many good things so I can yes to the best things.


I just got unstuck again about an hour ago!

But I’m not going to lie to myself. I may get stuck again. That’s ok. I have learned something from every “distraction” and every sticky place.

Enjoy the ride!

I have stressed way too much about what I won’t be or won’t do. I’m better off enjoying where I’m at right now. I get more accomplished with that mindset.

I like the way you think! Happy playing!

 

[ItsUkuLovely]

I either like to try something different, or I like to go back to things I know really well and just noodle with them. Sometimes I'll pick a technique that I know really needs work but that I haven't worked on for a while. Sometimes I'll pick a completely different type of song to try. Maybe I'll try to figure out a new chord and then place it in a chord progression to see how that goes. And sometimes I just won't play for a few days. I've not been thoroughly stuck for long, though, because there are just so many things I still need to learn. I will definitely walk away from a piece that's pissing me off, and by the time I try to play it again, I've usually developed some translatable skills that help in the parts that I was originally struggling with. But I'm still a beginner, so as I say, I have a long way to go with a lot to learn.

I find myself going back to pieces I have learned earlier, unfortunately I have a hard time remembering them. I just look at the tabs though or the you tube video and more often then not my memory comes back quickly. Especially the muscle memory comes back quickly. I have played guitar since I was a kid, on and off. Now I play mostly the Ukulele, I feel I will always be a beginner and I guess I just have to accept that