Monday, November 27, 2017
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Adventures in Harpistry. Harperstry?
harperism?
The first time I decided I wanted a harp, I was about 13, and I was on an airplane.
People out there who are familiar with either harps or the numerous enticing delights offered to the average airplane-viewer in SkyMall may be familiar with the model.
It's celtic. So's my family! It's pretty! I like pretty! It was $400. I was aware that I was never going to have that harp.
The next time that I thought about harps, I was in 11th grade, on a school trip to Ashland, OR. I'd sort of tagged along with my sister and her friends, but they'd ditched me with a person who I hardly knew, who wasn't interested enough in musical instruments to want to stay in the music store more than a few minutes. There were harps there, and each one had a "please do not touch the harp" sign on them.
I didn't touch the harps.
Then, I was 20. I lived in Ashland. I was an arty, theatre person. The front of my hair had pink streaks in it. I played the ukulele, and I carried my ukulele around with me everywhere. When my friend and I had gone to the park to film some water, I slipped on the bridge in the park and ended up slamming my ukulele into the railing. Nothing was hurt except a broken string.
The music store here wasn't like my music stores I'd been shopping at. There aren't high school kids coming in and playing Stairway to Heaven and Sweet Child o Mine on an amp that badly needs the mids adjusted. There's no one playing anything. There's signs on the instruments that say, "please ask before touching," and "do not touch." There are double basses. And there's the harps. I knew the store. I knew I'd been there before.
I didn't touch the instruments. I said I needed a new set of strings for a concert ukulele, he asked low G or high, I said high, and do you have Aquillas, he said he only had Aquillas, I gave him however much he wanted and he wrote it out longhand on a piece of paper with carbon pieces to duplicate my receipt.
The small harps were six hundred dollars. I didn't see the price on the big ones.
I didn't touch the harps.
I didn't finish the Winter 2012 term at school. I almost didn't finish that year at life. I almost didn't make it back to Ashland.
I didn't even think about harps until January of 2013. I had a gross job cleaning up after other people. I was really finding my place building costume crafts for the school's high-quality productions. I didn't have pink hair.
I now had two ukuleles.
I had a 50+ year old ukulele that had belonged to my grandfather, which had the kind of problems that 50+ year old instruments have. I needed a metal or rubber washer with a 3/16"-1/4" hole and a total diameter of no more than 3/8". I took it to the music store downtown.
The man who owned the store, who'd sold me the ukulele strings, wasn't there. There was a younger guy.
The ukulele got a lot of praise, and got handed around to everyone who was there, and played a lot. I got told repeatedly that there was nothing wrong with the tuners, based on their 3 minutes of playing it, they knew for sure. I got legitimately mansplained about how friction pegs worked, never mind that I'd actually built two ukuleles by this point, obviously I didn't know.
But I got one thing.
I got to play a harp.
While they were handing around George Hammond the Ukulele like he was the hot drunk girl at the frat party, I asked before I touched the harp.
It wasn't magical. It was an instrument. I played a lot of them I didn't know what I was doing and it felt just like it feels every time you start doing something you have no clue what you're doing. Confusing, and really awkward. I was already a bit self-conscious because they clearly thought I knew nothing about anything, and a little more than annoyed that I'd implied that I'd like my super-cool priceless artifact from history back now, please, and gotten ignored.
I was too pissed off about that to have a magical moment with a harp that I knew I'd never afford.
Somehow in 2013 I ended up watching one or two or maybe 35 of these girls' videos. That one up there wasn't uploaded yet, but it's my favorite. I started thinking about levers and pedals in harps and how harps were tuned. I was writing a story for November 2013's National Novel Writing Month, and it had a symphony in it, and one of the characters played the harp because it was funny that he had a fifty thousand dollar harp and lived in a terrible, terrible apartment that didn't even have an elevator, and it gave him an excuse to always be at the symphony's rehearsal room and therefore close to the plot. I researched a lot about harp prices. I realized that none of them were in my reach. I had pink hair, but I was still working the same crap job (though with more hours) and I hadn't had $700 in my saving's account since the brief moment that time that the school accidentally refunded to my account instead of my dad's.
Even the most affordable harps I could find were $650.
Admittedly, the Sharpsicle is really cute and comes in bright pink, and it's not like I was planning on being a serious harpist who was going to play for my money, but I couldn't spend $600 on a harp when I needed things like a computer.
I wanted the Sharpsicle instead of the cheaper Harpsicle, not because of the sharping levers, but because of the bridge pins. I knew from the start that I wanted a harp I could add levers to as I was able to afford them. No point buying something that expensive without being able to invest in it. What I really wanted was a floor harp, like the one I'd played before. The more research I'd do, the more I was forming an idea in my mind of what I wanted and what I didn't want, and every want and every dislike added to that price I could never, ever afford.
I never saved up for a harp. I had other hobbies, cheaper hobbies, to spend time and money on. I had other instruments to play my music on.
And then I found out about the Waring Harp. You build it yourself, and it's made of cardboard, and it's $150.
It was a harp I could get.
I never did, largely through never remembering that I wanted it except for times when I couldn't spare the money, but I thought about it. I'd been doing some busking with my ukulele, and sometimes with my friends, and we'd been noticing that when we used the cigar box ukuleles I'd built, we got more money.
People took pity on us, I guess, or we were more sympathetic when we weren't using nice, expensive-looking instruments, or they liked crafty people who could make things on their own.
My harp dreams started solidifying into something I could reach. I'd taken stagecraft and prop building classes as part of the theatre degree that I never completed. I was confident that I could make it and have fun in the process. I had a friend who would have a blast painting a cardboard soundbox if I asked her.
Sure, it wasn't a 26+ string harp with full levers, or at least some levers, and it wasn't pretty, and I couldn't add levers. It failed to check about six boxes in my harp dreams. But it was one I could get. I didn't care.
So, fast forward to this year, when my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I gave a list of the Green Day CD's that I don't own, and chucked "and a Waring Harp," on the end for good measure.
I had never told my mom anything about the details in my harp goals. I don't think I'd told her I wanted to play the harp since the day I saw them in Sky Mall.
I think what happened is that my mom's Google-fu failed her, and she ended up with a different harp kit. A much more high-quality one. I'm building my dream harp right now, and loving every minute of it.
(I was ready to let this blog die, but I'm bringing it back. The content's going to be new, and it's just goingto be my music blog, but I'm keeping the name because I think it's catchy, and I'm keeping the first 21 posts because I still find them useful for my personal use, whihc is really whjat this blog was from the start)
The first time I decided I wanted a harp, I was about 13, and I was on an airplane.
It's celtic. So's my family! It's pretty! I like pretty! It was $400. I was aware that I was never going to have that harp.
The next time that I thought about harps, I was in 11th grade, on a school trip to Ashland, OR. I'd sort of tagged along with my sister and her friends, but they'd ditched me with a person who I hardly knew, who wasn't interested enough in musical instruments to want to stay in the music store more than a few minutes. There were harps there, and each one had a "please do not touch the harp" sign on them.
I didn't touch the harps.
The music store here wasn't like my music stores I'd been shopping at. There aren't high school kids coming in and playing Stairway to Heaven and Sweet Child o Mine on an amp that badly needs the mids adjusted. There's no one playing anything. There's signs on the instruments that say, "please ask before touching," and "do not touch." There are double basses. And there's the harps. I knew the store. I knew I'd been there before.
I didn't touch the instruments. I said I needed a new set of strings for a concert ukulele, he asked low G or high, I said high, and do you have Aquillas, he said he only had Aquillas, I gave him however much he wanted and he wrote it out longhand on a piece of paper with carbon pieces to duplicate my receipt.
The small harps were six hundred dollars. I didn't see the price on the big ones.
I didn't touch the harps.
I didn't finish the Winter 2012 term at school. I almost didn't finish that year at life. I almost didn't make it back to Ashland.
I didn't even think about harps until January of 2013. I had a gross job cleaning up after other people. I was really finding my place building costume crafts for the school's high-quality productions. I didn't have pink hair.
I now had two ukuleles.
I had a 50+ year old ukulele that had belonged to my grandfather, which had the kind of problems that 50+ year old instruments have. I needed a metal or rubber washer with a 3/16"-1/4" hole and a total diameter of no more than 3/8". I took it to the music store downtown.
The man who owned the store, who'd sold me the ukulele strings, wasn't there. There was a younger guy.
The ukulele got a lot of praise, and got handed around to everyone who was there, and played a lot. I got told repeatedly that there was nothing wrong with the tuners, based on their 3 minutes of playing it, they knew for sure. I got legitimately mansplained about how friction pegs worked, never mind that I'd actually built two ukuleles by this point, obviously I didn't know.
But I got one thing.
I got to play a harp.
While they were handing around George Hammond the Ukulele like he was the hot drunk girl at the frat party, I asked before I touched the harp.
It wasn't magical. It was an instrument. I played a lot of them I didn't know what I was doing and it felt just like it feels every time you start doing something you have no clue what you're doing. Confusing, and really awkward. I was already a bit self-conscious because they clearly thought I knew nothing about anything, and a little more than annoyed that I'd implied that I'd like my super-cool priceless artifact from history back now, please, and gotten ignored.
I was too pissed off about that to have a magical moment with a harp that I knew I'd never afford.
Somehow in 2013 I ended up watching one or two or maybe 35 of these girls' videos. That one up there wasn't uploaded yet, but it's my favorite. I started thinking about levers and pedals in harps and how harps were tuned. I was writing a story for November 2013's National Novel Writing Month, and it had a symphony in it, and one of the characters played the harp because it was funny that he had a fifty thousand dollar harp and lived in a terrible, terrible apartment that didn't even have an elevator, and it gave him an excuse to always be at the symphony's rehearsal room and therefore close to the plot. I researched a lot about harp prices. I realized that none of them were in my reach. I had pink hair, but I was still working the same crap job (though with more hours) and I hadn't had $700 in my saving's account since the brief moment that time that the school accidentally refunded to my account instead of my dad's.
Even the most affordable harps I could find were $650.
I wanted the Sharpsicle instead of the cheaper Harpsicle, not because of the sharping levers, but because of the bridge pins. I knew from the start that I wanted a harp I could add levers to as I was able to afford them. No point buying something that expensive without being able to invest in it. What I really wanted was a floor harp, like the one I'd played before. The more research I'd do, the more I was forming an idea in my mind of what I wanted and what I didn't want, and every want and every dislike added to that price I could never, ever afford.
I never saved up for a harp. I had other hobbies, cheaper hobbies, to spend time and money on. I had other instruments to play my music on.
It was a harp I could get.
I never did, largely through never remembering that I wanted it except for times when I couldn't spare the money, but I thought about it. I'd been doing some busking with my ukulele, and sometimes with my friends, and we'd been noticing that when we used the cigar box ukuleles I'd built, we got more money.
My harp dreams started solidifying into something I could reach. I'd taken stagecraft and prop building classes as part of the theatre degree that I never completed. I was confident that I could make it and have fun in the process. I had a friend who would have a blast painting a cardboard soundbox if I asked her.
Sure, it wasn't a 26+ string harp with full levers, or at least some levers, and it wasn't pretty, and I couldn't add levers. It failed to check about six boxes in my harp dreams. But it was one I could get. I didn't care.
So, fast forward to this year, when my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I gave a list of the Green Day CD's that I don't own, and chucked "and a Waring Harp," on the end for good measure.
I had never told my mom anything about the details in my harp goals. I don't think I'd told her I wanted to play the harp since the day I saw them in Sky Mall.
I think what happened is that my mom's Google-fu failed her, and she ended up with a different harp kit. A much more high-quality one. I'm building my dream harp right now, and loving every minute of it.
(I was ready to let this blog die, but I'm bringing it back. The content's going to be new, and it's just goingto be my music blog, but I'm keeping the name because I think it's catchy, and I'm keeping the first 21 posts because I still find them useful for my personal use, whihc is really whjat this blog was from the start)
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Day 21
Did you have fun playing all those random arpeggios?
Guess what's up tonight!
MORE OF THAT
Okay. Theory again. Sorry. God, I"m bad at living up to the name here.
The notes with the letter names we've been playing are all part of something called the major scale.
I'm not going to talk about whole steps and half steps because you can get that anywhere. We're gonna TALK ABOUT FRETS.
If you're fretting an E, the next fret up on that string will be F. Always. If you're fretting an A, the fret after the next one up will be B. Alwaty.
So here's the circle, over and over. |-| indicates a fret you skip.
|a|-|B|C|-|D|-|E|F|-|G|-|A|-|B|C|-|D|-|E|F|-|G|...
Got it?
Good!
B and C are buddies, E and F are buddies, everyone else likes their personal space. Or something. Remember it how you can.
And this applies for everyone who's playing a fretted instrument (except dulcimer. Dulcimer's fretted differently. Dulcimers take skipping a fret a step further and just don't have that fret. Diatonic instead of chromatic).
So, you know the names of the strings on what you're playing, right?
Ukulele, you're probably gCEA or GCEA
Bass, EADG
And Guitar, GDAEBe. Which, if you go high-pitch to low, Easter Bunny Gets Drunk After Easter.
(Baritone uke gets Easter Bunny Gets Drunk and bass has Get Drunk After Easter. And ukulele gets...guhSEEEUUH. Sorry. That's how I remember it. gCEA spells guhSEEEEuuuhh.)
Okay. Now you know your strings. Pick one.
Let's pick the G string, because it makes me laugh inside to say that.
Look up at the head of your instrument with the tuners. The thing that separates the part of the string you play from the part of the string that's being wrapped around the tuners is called the nut. I've probably said that before. I don't know. I'm not an expert. This isn't even a real car.
So pretend the nut's a fret. It looks like a fret, it's parallel to the frets. You're good.
If it helps you remember, lightly put your finger on the tiner-windy bit of the string. Then play your open string. The note your string makes when the string is open is the name of the string note.
This lab coat has someone else's name on it. I don't know what's in this beaker.
Now, start counting. If it's yoru G string, you'd skip the next (first) fret and your next fret is A. If you're playing your G string (haha), the second fret will be A.. Now keep going. Find all the letters on the whole string.
Then do that thing from last nigth on that string.
Then cry over how much more you know than you knew.
Then try to get some sleep.
Guess what's up tonight!
MORE OF THAT
Okay. Theory again. Sorry. God, I"m bad at living up to the name here.
The notes with the letter names we've been playing are all part of something called the major scale.
I'm not going to talk about whole steps and half steps because you can get that anywhere. We're gonna TALK ABOUT FRETS.
If you're fretting an E, the next fret up on that string will be F. Always. If you're fretting an A, the fret after the next one up will be B. Alwaty.
So here's the circle, over and over. |-| indicates a fret you skip.
|a|-|B|C|-|D|-|E|F|-|G|-|A|-|B|C|-|D|-|E|F|-|G|...
Got it?
Good!
B and C are buddies, E and F are buddies, everyone else likes their personal space. Or something. Remember it how you can.
And this applies for everyone who's playing a fretted instrument (except dulcimer. Dulcimer's fretted differently. Dulcimers take skipping a fret a step further and just don't have that fret. Diatonic instead of chromatic).
So, you know the names of the strings on what you're playing, right?
Ukulele, you're probably gCEA or GCEA
Bass, EADG
And Guitar, GDAEBe. Which, if you go high-pitch to low, Easter Bunny Gets Drunk After Easter.
(Baritone uke gets Easter Bunny Gets Drunk and bass has Get Drunk After Easter. And ukulele gets...guhSEEEUUH. Sorry. That's how I remember it. gCEA spells guhSEEEEuuuhh.)
Okay. Now you know your strings. Pick one.
Let's pick the G string, because it makes me laugh inside to say that.
Look up at the head of your instrument with the tuners. The thing that separates the part of the string you play from the part of the string that's being wrapped around the tuners is called the nut. I've probably said that before. I don't know. I'm not an expert. This isn't even a real car.
So pretend the nut's a fret. It looks like a fret, it's parallel to the frets. You're good.
If it helps you remember, lightly put your finger on the tiner-windy bit of the string. Then play your open string. The note your string makes when the string is open is the name of the string note.
This lab coat has someone else's name on it. I don't know what's in this beaker.
Now, start counting. If it's yoru G string, you'd skip the next (first) fret and your next fret is A. If you're playing your G string (haha), the second fret will be A.. Now keep going. Find all the letters on the whole string.
Then do that thing from last nigth on that string.
Then cry over how much more you know than you knew.
Then try to get some sleep.
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Day 20
We made it this far.
Okay, here we go.
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
|-F-|---|-G-|---|-A-|---|-B-|-C-|---|-D-|---|-E-|-F-
The notes on the low E string. Ukulele, pretend you have different tuning or sit this one out.
You're going to memorize those.
Start by playing it up and down and up and down until you think you have it. You should also start listening to see if you can hear the difference in the tones.
Now, on each note, play
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|---|---|---|---|-X-|---|
|---|-X-|---|---|-X-|---|
|---|---|-X-|---|---|---|
Starting lowest pitch and working your way up.
Now, take each note in the following sequences, find it on the fretboard, and play that sequence (it's a major arpeggio, if you care). Then on to the next note.
Try to not look at the fret diagram up there. The ideal is that you just memorize where they are.
So here's your sequence:
AEFDCBG
AEFBDCE
AFEAFBGDF
ADFEE
AEFGDBA
FEDCBDG
AEFGBDF
EDFBG
FBDFCB
BDBF
If you're wondering how I got those sequences, the answer is keysmashing on my number pad and then doing a find and replace. They don't represent actual frequencies of the note bine used or anything
Okay, here we go.
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
|-F-|---|-G-|---|-A-|---|-B-|-C-|---|-D-|---|-E-|-F-
The notes on the low E string. Ukulele, pretend you have different tuning or sit this one out.
You're going to memorize those.
Start by playing it up and down and up and down until you think you have it. You should also start listening to see if you can hear the difference in the tones.
Now, on each note, play
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|---|---|---|---|-X-|---|
|---|-X-|---|---|-X-|---|
|---|---|-X-|---|---|---|
Starting lowest pitch and working your way up.
Now, take each note in the following sequences, find it on the fretboard, and play that sequence (it's a major arpeggio, if you care). Then on to the next note.
Try to not look at the fret diagram up there. The ideal is that you just memorize where they are.
So here's your sequence:
AEFDCBG
AEFBDCE
AFEAFBGDF
ADFEE
AEFGDBA
FEDCBDG
AEFGBDF
EDFBG
FBDFCB
BDBF
If you're wondering how I got those sequences, the answer is keysmashing on my number pad and then doing a find and replace. They don't represent actual frequencies of the note bine used or anything
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
day 19
Accept that sometimwe you have a bad day
sometimes you work really hard
and when you're done you just dont' feel like playing.
And take a break.
sometimes you work really hard
and when you're done you just dont' feel like playing.
And take a break.
Monday, February 1, 2016
Day 18
Bassists: bad news for you. Or maybe good news.
You're going to need to know more music theory than most people, to be able to play with other people.
Here's a quick, dirty, and oversimplified way to know enough music theory to be able to play along with people.
Other instruments, follow along, because this is useful to know.
When you look up chords on ultimateguitar or the JoCo wiki or wherever you're getting your chords from, you're going to see text and letter names above it. Like
Em A Em B Em
I've got a regular problem so my standard break from life is in order.
Where the letter above the word changes, the guitarist changes the chord.
(This is probably review for everyone. just hang with me)
Notes have names. Chords have names. The notes on your fretboard have names. You need to know all of them. Most of them. At least these.
|G|---|-A-|---|-B-|-C-|---|
|D|---|-E-|-F-|---|-G-|---|
|A|---|-B-|-C-|---|-D-|---|
|E|-F-|---|-G-|---|-A-|---|
I hope that diagram makes sense. The |X| is the nut and the open string name and every | is a fret..
So. That's your thing for tonight. Get to a point where you can find all those notes, without having to stress about it. You don't need to be good at it. Just get the idea in your head, or be able to count up those letters. Play it up and down and over and over until you start to remember where the frets with the letters are.
Don't care about theory? PLay it anyway. Up and down and up and down, tose frets, until your fingers fall off.
Guitar and ukulele, keep up with that strum practice from last night. Get really good at that. It'll help you later. Getting really good at switchign between G and Em? Throw in A.
|-0-----
|-0-----
|-1-----
|-3-----
|--0----
|--3----
|--3----
|--3----
|--0----
|-------
And keep up that strum thing until you're really good at changing chords in that half-beat. There's never going to be a time in your life when you go GOD DAMN IT I'M REALLY GOOD AT CHANGING CHORDS IN THE HALF BEAT.
So you have that going for you.
Which is nice.
Sleep well.
You're going to need to know more music theory than most people, to be able to play with other people.
Here's a quick, dirty, and oversimplified way to know enough music theory to be able to play along with people.
Other instruments, follow along, because this is useful to know.
When you look up chords on ultimateguitar or the JoCo wiki or wherever you're getting your chords from, you're going to see text and letter names above it. Like
Em A Em B Em
I've got a regular problem so my standard break from life is in order.
Where the letter above the word changes, the guitarist changes the chord.
(This is probably review for everyone. just hang with me)
Notes have names. Chords have names. The notes on your fretboard have names. You need to know all of them. Most of them. At least these.
|G|---|-A-|---|-B-|-C-|---|
|D|---|-E-|-F-|---|-G-|---|
|A|---|-B-|-C-|---|-D-|---|
|E|-F-|---|-G-|---|-A-|---|
I hope that diagram makes sense. The |X| is the nut and the open string name and every | is a fret..
So. That's your thing for tonight. Get to a point where you can find all those notes, without having to stress about it. You don't need to be good at it. Just get the idea in your head, or be able to count up those letters. Play it up and down and over and over until you start to remember where the frets with the letters are.
Don't care about theory? PLay it anyway. Up and down and up and down, tose frets, until your fingers fall off.
Guitar and ukulele, keep up with that strum practice from last night. Get really good at that. It'll help you later. Getting really good at switchign between G and Em? Throw in A.
|-0-----
|-0-----
|-1-----
|-3-----
|--0----
|--3----
|--3----
|--3----
|--0----
|-------
And keep up that strum thing until you're really good at changing chords in that half-beat. There's never going to be a time in your life when you go GOD DAMN IT I'M REALLY GOOD AT CHANGING CHORDS IN THE HALF BEAT.
So you have that going for you.
Which is nice.
Sleep well.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Day 17
Let's get back in the swing of things.
For you guys playing chords, let's do this:
Earlier you learned the G Major chord. I don't think I said the name, because this isn't a music theory blog, but there you go.
|-3--
|-0--
|-0--
|-0--
|-2--
|-3--
|-2--
|-3--
|-2--
|-0--
Barritone ukulele players, play the ukulele fingering. Because your instrument is tuned differently, you'll be playing a D Major chord.
The chord doesn't matter. This isn't about chords. This is about making your fingers do things.
Even if you've played this chord a million times, and you know how you always play it, just humor me here.
Take the pad of your thumb, and put it in the middle of the neck, at about the same level as the fret.
In other words, if you're playing ukulele, if you could drill a small hole in the 2nd fret in between the C and E strings, and go straight through your neck, you would hit your thumb.
Don't wrap your thumb around the neck. Don't lie it flat. Just get used to playing that chord with your thumb right there. This isn't the most natural place, and it's probably not going to be your usual place to put your thumb when you're playing G.
But if you're learning new chords, or ever having trouble switching from one chord to another, try playing with your thumb right there.
When we play, sometimes we all have a tendency to want to anchor our thumbs somewhere and not move it. This is a normal tendency that everyone has.
If you anchor your thumb in an imaginary plumbline down the widthwise center of the neck, you can reach more strings and more frets than you can with any other thumb position.
Other thumb positions are not necessarily wrong. When you are doing something that makes it impossible to put your fingers where you want to put your fingers when you want your fingers, then you're doing something wrong. Other than that, go to town. Do you.
So, you've got your G major chord, your finger's in the middle of your neck, and you're happily strumming a D DU UDU or something. In fact, do that. Get your beat going. Now slow it down. Keep your beat, keep those gaps where there should be gaps.
Now, in between that last U and that first D of your new repeat, change chords.
We're switching to Em
|-0--
|-0--
|-0--
|-2--
|-2--
|-0--
|-2--
|-3--
|-4--
|-0--
As far as cowboy chord changes go, this isn't the easiest. It's going to involve picking up a lot of fingers and putting them down. Go as slow as you need to.
Honesty hour: I'm crap at this, That specific strum pattern, and big chord changes, I never do it right. I cheat, and do this trick where I lift my fingers on the last up strum, muting the fretted ones and letting the open strings ring. It's not a good habit to get into. This is an exercize that's really hard for me, honestly. Switchign between two basic chords while keeping a simple strum repeat seems really easy. It's a lot of the basics of playing guitar/uke is all about, and it's really easy to do well enough to play.
But if you're on a quest for improvement, half of it is trying new things, and playing the new things until you go from being not good to being not as bad, to being better. And the other half is looking at the things you do, and asking how you can do them better.
And a really important thing is to remember that when you feel like giving up, is to say, okay, today I'll fake it. Tomorrow I'll quit. And to keep finding the strength to fake it one more day at a time, until you end up with the motivation to do a day where you aren't faking it.
Bassists, stick around for tomorrow, because I'll have something. Something.
For you guys playing chords, let's do this:
Earlier you learned the G Major chord. I don't think I said the name, because this isn't a music theory blog, but there you go.
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Barritone ukulele players, play the ukulele fingering. Because your instrument is tuned differently, you'll be playing a D Major chord.
The chord doesn't matter. This isn't about chords. This is about making your fingers do things.
Even if you've played this chord a million times, and you know how you always play it, just humor me here.
Take the pad of your thumb, and put it in the middle of the neck, at about the same level as the fret.
In other words, if you're playing ukulele, if you could drill a small hole in the 2nd fret in between the C and E strings, and go straight through your neck, you would hit your thumb.
Don't wrap your thumb around the neck. Don't lie it flat. Just get used to playing that chord with your thumb right there. This isn't the most natural place, and it's probably not going to be your usual place to put your thumb when you're playing G.
But if you're learning new chords, or ever having trouble switching from one chord to another, try playing with your thumb right there.
When we play, sometimes we all have a tendency to want to anchor our thumbs somewhere and not move it. This is a normal tendency that everyone has.
If you anchor your thumb in an imaginary plumbline down the widthwise center of the neck, you can reach more strings and more frets than you can with any other thumb position.
Other thumb positions are not necessarily wrong. When you are doing something that makes it impossible to put your fingers where you want to put your fingers when you want your fingers, then you're doing something wrong. Other than that, go to town. Do you.
So, you've got your G major chord, your finger's in the middle of your neck, and you're happily strumming a D DU UDU or something. In fact, do that. Get your beat going. Now slow it down. Keep your beat, keep those gaps where there should be gaps.
Now, in between that last U and that first D of your new repeat, change chords.
We're switching to Em
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As far as cowboy chord changes go, this isn't the easiest. It's going to involve picking up a lot of fingers and putting them down. Go as slow as you need to.
Honesty hour: I'm crap at this, That specific strum pattern, and big chord changes, I never do it right. I cheat, and do this trick where I lift my fingers on the last up strum, muting the fretted ones and letting the open strings ring. It's not a good habit to get into. This is an exercize that's really hard for me, honestly. Switchign between two basic chords while keeping a simple strum repeat seems really easy. It's a lot of the basics of playing guitar/uke is all about, and it's really easy to do well enough to play.
But if you're on a quest for improvement, half of it is trying new things, and playing the new things until you go from being not good to being not as bad, to being better. And the other half is looking at the things you do, and asking how you can do them better.
And a really important thing is to remember that when you feel like giving up, is to say, okay, today I'll fake it. Tomorrow I'll quit. And to keep finding the strength to fake it one more day at a time, until you end up with the motivation to do a day where you aren't faking it.
Bassists, stick around for tomorrow, because I'll have something. Something.
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