Intermediate Ukulele

Chicago Dog Blues

4/24/2019

I love the Music Box Melody as a great exercise and mediation. Maybe I am just getting into the focused practice that Daniel talks about. I hope some of you are, too. I encourage you to continue working on all of the mediations we have done for a long time and see what you learn from them over the months. I intend to do that, too.
Chicago Dog Blues - This is basically a 12 bar Blues Shuffle in the key of A that could be played with many blues tunes. You can even make up your own song to go with it, or improvise over it using one of the pentatonic scales that I gave you yesterday. Get someone else in the class to play with you and just mess around with it. And you can use the tag ending with any blues song in the key of A. You might also think about moving it around the fretboard to play in other keys!!! Think about that!
Our Theory portion delt with the Pentatonic scale pattern and blues scale pattern (starting on the C string) and then we talked about making other (than major) chords:
Minor - flat the 3rd
dominant 7 - add flat 7
minor 7 - flat 3rd, and add flat 7
major 7 - add 7th (not flat)
(major) 6th - add 6th
Augmented - raise the 5th (sharp 5th)
and so forth .......
Your Understanding Ukulele Chords books is a wonderful resource to continue learning this chord theory.

This class has been a wonderful learning experience for me. Although your eyes were spinning sometimes, I hope that you learned something that you can apply to your practice and playing. You were all very brave and adventurous to take this experimental class. As I have said before, don't worry if you didn't get everything. I hope that as you play and as time goes by, little light bulbs will go on from time to time.
Thanks for making it happen, and for making music.
Gail

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Music Box Melody

4/17/2019

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This lovely exercise plays a sweet melody with the left hand on the A string while keeping a very steady pattern with the right hand. As always, practice your right hand, keeping it steady and smooth, first and enough that it feels comfortable. Then start working on the fingering on the right hand chords. Always think about efficiency of movement and using gentle pressure. I think this is really a pretty piece with enough repitition to make it playable.

Continue to practice your scales. I recommend that you develop a habit of starting each practice session with a scale or two. Scales are important practice and it will really benefit you in the long run.
Also practice playing the harmonized scales I gave you last week. Look up the chords you don't know for an opportunity to expand your chord repertoire.... and then practice them again.

We talked about relative minor scales and chords - Every major chord, scale, or key has a relative minor chord, scale, or key. Relative major and minor keys share the same key signature and the same notes in their scale. The relative minor of any major key is the 6th degree of the scale. Therefore the relative minor of C is Am.
(On the circle of 5ths, the relative minor is shown right below the major).
If you play the C scale notes, but start the scale on the A, you will end up with the Natural A minor scale.
When changing from any major chord to it's relative minor, you add one note and that note is the root of the relative minor scale (it will replace the 5th note of the scale). We'll go over this a bit more next week to clarify.
Try making first position major chords and then changing them to their relative minor. It's pretty interesting, and fun....
Next week is our last class. We will do one more Meditation - the last one in the book - Chicago Dog Blues. And a wrap on the theory with a bit more chord theory.
(building other than major chords) And I will try to answer any questions you have and recommend good books and websites for reference.

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Roll and Pull

4/9/2019

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For this week work on page 3. Roll and Pull. The roll refers to the right hand pattern and the pull refers to the pull-off with the left hand.
Start by practicing the picking pattern:
Strum the first beat then pluck the rest of the pattern with the fingers indicated.
Then work on the chords, moving from one to the next without strumming, just practicing the shapes and fingering. The try putting them together (still without the pull-off
Then practice the pull-offs: to pull-off the note pull slightly toward the floor as you remove your finger from the fretboard. Like a little pluck with the left hand.
Finally try putting it all together.
If you can't pull of to the new note, try just lifting your finger off of the fretboard where the pull is indicated. If that is too much, just play the chords and the strum/picking pattern.
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Theory - one more major scale pattern across the neck (attached) to practice. Whatever note you start on is the root (the name of the scale). The one we are practicing is the bottom one: Pattern from 3rd string for major scale.
If you want to you can go ahead and practice the top one which is the major scale pattern orginating on the (low) G string, on your own.

If you use only notes from a major scale to make chords, you'll end up with 3 major chords I, IV, V and 3 minor chords ii. iii. and vi. The 7th chord of the scale is a diminished chord (an oddball).
Just practice the harmonized scales on the handout. We'll talk more about them next week.

major_scale_patterns_across_neck.pdf
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harmonized_scale_in_4_keys.doc
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Air Pudding...

4/3/2019

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We are skipping Drop and Pull for the moment and and going on to Air Pudding this week.
The biggest challenge of this piece is just to get the picking pattern learned so well that you can do it without thinking. So... just sit around a few minutes here and there and let your fingers learn the pattern. Start slowly and keep your fingers quiet and calm.
Then work on the chords being careful to use the most efficient fingering to get from one chord to the next, as discussed in class.

Scales, Scales, Scales.............the best practice. It would be a good idea to start every practice with some quick scale practice. It doesn't have to be long.
This week work on the major scale patterns we have talked about. Straight up the neck on one string, then working across from C to E, and working across from E to G. As you practice these scales take some time to say the note names and then the degree number (1,2,3, etc....) This will help you in many ways to become familiar with the fretboard, scales, and chords. Move the scale around, starting on different notes to practice the patterns and the learning where and what the notes are.
Finally, practice the Repeating notes on the Ukulele Neck (on the attached handout). This shows you where all of the matching notes are on the fretboard and the pattern they make. For the moment just play the pattern as shown. Then move to a different note to start and repeat the pattern. Try starting on different notes (string). If this confuses the heck out of you, just play the pattern as written until it begins to make sense and we can discuss it more in class.
Mostly......Have fun and learn something... it's good for your brain.

scales_patterns.pdf
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Floating Loops and chords shapes

3/27/2019

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On we go to the 2nd Meditation where the challenge is to make smooth, efficient transitions between chords. The fingering is important.
Please practice the transitions slowly, without even strumming, just moving back and forth between 2 chords until your fingers begin to know what to do.
When moving to the F and Em, and G chords it is important to place your finger on the string that you will play first: with the F chords place the finger on the G string (A note). With the Em chords, place the ring finger on the C string first (E note), and with the G chord place the first finger on the C string first (D note). The let the other fingers fall into place.
On the first two chords Cmaj7 and Cmaj9, be sure to slide up on the A string with your first finger to the 5th fret.
Chords and Theory:
We learned another way to play the major scale up the neck. This scale works starting on the C string and ending up on the E string (does not work on E and A strings)
We talked about how the circle of 5ths works (attached is a page with some explanation) and specifically worked on playing the I, IV, V chords with 3 closed chord shapes. In fact, there are only 3 major chord shapes.
As with the meditations, work to teach these shapes to your fingers. Move slowly and efficiently from one shape to another. It is really good practice to work on these shape without pressing or strumming to begin with.
For this week after working on your meditation, and after working on the shapes, try playing some songs using the 3 chords shapes for the I, IV and V chords.
As always, go slowly. these shapes take time to learn.
IMPORTANT: Remember to breathe !

major_scale_notes.pdf
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closed_i_iv_v_chords.pdf
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circle_of_5ths_explained.pdf
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Welcome .......

3/20/2019

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Welcome to Intermediate Ukulele!
The first class may be a bit daunting but we will build on the concepts introduced until they are not so mysterious. And you should expand your knowledge of the ukulele a great deal, learn how to get and better sound, and maybe have some fun, too. Please do not hesitate to write or call me with your questions and concerns. My main goal it to help you be successful.

This week practice the first exercise in Arpeggio Meditations. Things to remember:
Keep your right hand quiet and even. Letting the fingers to the work. Watch your hand while you play the arpeggio and work toward getting a clear and even sound on each string.
Use suggested fingering with the left hand. use the be very efficient with your finger movement. Don't move a finger unless you have to.
Don't press too hard. Use gentle pressure.
Let your elbow be relaxed and float out if necessary to make chords.
Work on memorizing the chords.
Work toward getting a good sound.
Go very slowly and use a metronome (not all of the time) to stay steady.
Listen to your notes and breathe......

I'm attaching the handout about Scale intervals, major chord composition, and major chords in a scale.
Practice playing a major scale straight up the neck. Then try to practice some I, IV, V chords using the sliding up the neck technique we learned in class. Use only the one chord shape. If You don't have any idea what I am talking about, never mind, we'll go over it again next week.

scale_intervals_etc.pdf
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Chicago Dog Blues

Music Box Melody

Roll and Pull

Air Pudding...

Floating Loops and chords shapes

Welcome .......

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