Thursday, July 11, 2013

Finger-picking

"The ukulele has this advantage: not even a trained musician could tell if you were really playing it or just monkeying around with it."
Will Rogers

Those old uke uncles on YouTube aren't a bit embarrassed to loudly accompany themselves singing corny songs, but as I told my instructor yesterday, no one wants to hear me sing, including myself.  Well, maybe Maya and Nova wouldn't mind singing along to You Are My Sunshine.

So anyway, my simple (ha! that word is always associated with ukuleles) goal is to play pleasing melodies along with the chords.  Remember the beautiful Ode to Joy?  Like that. As Matt said, "it will sound like you really know what you're doing." That's what I want.  Even if I don't know what I'm doing, I want to fool people. He picked up his cheap studio ukulele and demonstrated how easy it was to make Aura Lee and Oh Susanna sound absolutely beautiful. 

The best hobbies give us pleasure and purpose, so that's the latest from uke land-- this week's practice is devoted to the first lines of Ode to Joy. Not just the famous melody in little plinks, but with the accompanying chords.  Don't look for me on YouTube anytime soon.

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