A Reflection

So, I've presented, I'm done, I went home on Wednesday, put my ukulele aside, and gave my piano some much needed attention. I feel great. Not about the presentation itself, but just that it's over. I think, presentation-wise, I did alright. Personally, I felt like I was relying on my notecards a little too much, but that might have just been me being paranoid.
This was one of my first presentations where I actually wasn't too ecstatic about my script. That's a lie, there have been plenty where I haven't loved my script. But for some reason, with this one, I just wasn't feeling it. When I was actually onstage, I felt a little better because I'm comfortable talking and presenting in front of people. I'm also really good at acting confident and like I know what I'm doing, so there's actually a high possibility that I tricked myself into thinking I had a good script when I really didn't. I don't know, the grades will tell.
Something I was actually really nervous about was my powerpoint. I don't know why, but I was scared that I wouldn't have the "right" stuff on it, or that I wouldn't have enough, so I finally just gave up on worrying and just stuck stuff on there and hoped for the best. I actually came to like my powerpoint. I had fun making jokes about myself and including pictures. That picture of me from Young Frankenstein is priceless. Special thanks to Bob Raines for always making me look good. Also, any time I get to poke fun at my brother is a good time. I got some laughs throughout the presentation, which is a good thing, so I was happy about that.
As for the project itself, like I said in my presentation, I didn't get as far as I had hoped. Sometimes when I play ukulele, it doesn't really sound right, if that makes any sense. It might just be me, I don't know. I still mess up on some things, and it took me F O R E V E R to get a half-decent take of a song to be able to post it. I'm definitely going to continue working at this like I am at all of my instruments.
If I take a step back and look at it and consider that I've taught myself everything I know about ukulele- along with piano and guitar - I've come a really long way, and I'm proud of myself. I can make music come out of a piece of wood. (It's a really pretty piece of wood, I actually love my ukulele so much. It's a really nice ukulele.) I've learned a whole lot of chords, I figured out how to strum properly, and basically everything, really. When I got my ukulele in December, I was quite literally at square one.
I said in my presentation that I picked the song I Will Follow You Into The Dark by Death Cab For Cutie because I've performed it on ukulele before. I use the term "performed" loosely. I rewatched the video a few weeks ago, when I was thinking of what song to play, and oh my god, it was painful. I put this here with the hopes that you will not speak of it to me ever.

(This is from my camp's talent show this past summer)

Like okay that STRUMMING oh my god I can't handle it just look at my hand l o o k a t m y h a n d

(And yes, Mohammad, that is why my hand was doing the thing)

But yeah, that's why I did that song in my presentation. It really shows how far I've come in my skills, how much I've learned and improved. It's a great before and after between this and my presentation.

Which brings me to me actually singing in front of people during a presentation. 

I was literally so ready and excited for it, and then literally mid-strum I was like "oh my god wait I'm doing this I'm actually playing in front of classmates and teachers oh my god wait I'm supposed to sing sometime aren't I start singing" and I went on this sort of autopilot where I was just kind of saying words and moving my fingers and my mindset was basically ohmygoddon'tmessupdon'tfreakingmessup

I still love performing and I'm really comfortable in front of people, but when a grade depends on it it's just a little more worrying. 

So basically, I'm rambling a lot, but this was a really great experience for me, and I'm excited to keep learning more and keep expanding my musical skills. 

I'm honestly probably going to reflect a little more here, because I'm thinking of putting together a little blooper thing of my vlog because oh my god there are some gems in there. So yeah, keep posted.

We're talkin bout practice (post 4 (I think?))

So frankly I'm so out of whack with extra posts and scheduling but I think this counts as my official post 4.
So I've been practicing lately for my presentation and trying to figure out what would be best for my presentation, if I should even play live for my presentation (because god knows how much could go wrong that way holy wow), and a bunch of other things. I've gotten sooooo much better at strumming like wow it makes me happy. I still falter a bit when I actually attempt to throw singing into the mix, but that is a goal that I've set to try and overcome. It's a lot of coordination and your brain is working on a lot of things at once, but I've gotten better.
So I picked a song for this week to practice that has a pretty distinct strumming pattern and chords that for the most part I feel comfortable with. One chord that's been giving me t o n s of trouble lately is E.

It's an awkward finger placement and I've been struggling with it a lot, and of course it's in this song like six times. So I found a video from my old uke buddy about how to hold this chord, because it's one that a lot of people struggle with.

This was nice because it gave me a way of looking at the chord that I hadn't before. I'd previously just been holding down the three consecutive dots with three fingers, but in this video, he suggests making it a bar chord. A bar chord is basically when you use one finger to hold down multiple strings at once, and they kinda suck butt. I r e a l l y don't like bar chords. However, I also really don't like E chord. so I tried it, and discovered that that strategy has its own number of issues. He talks about how you need your ring finger to be able to bend backwards, and mine can sorta do that, but not enough to hold down the three strings I need without holding the other one. So I figured I could pull it off better with my original method than this method, though I've been doing finger exercises to be able to pull off this particular bar chord.

So basically if anything sounds really wonky in this video, it's probably E chord. 

I'm excited to present, and I'm still trying to figure out how best to incorporate actual ukulele into my presentation. I definitely want to use it live because it'll be cool, and I just really like being able to show off my ukulele in school. 

I think I know what song I'm going to be doing, however, and it'll be good because I've performed that song in the past on a ukulele. Granted, it was a different kind of ukulele, but it's still a good before and after. And god, was I bad before.

So wish me luck as I work on and finalize my presentation!

A pause for a song

So here, finally, is the song I used to work on my fingerpicking skills. There are tons of different patterns and such for fingerpicking, and the one I used I got from my book. It looks a little something like this:

Basically how interpreting this works is similar to chord diagrams: the number indicates the fret you hold, moving linear-ly down the staff. So you basically place a chord like normal but instead of strumming you do the plucking pattern. This particular pattern also implements another technique my book taught me called a pinch:

It's basically just plucking two strings at once.

So the song I did is called This Too Shall Pass by Danny Schmidt, and it's a favorite of mine. I found it through a podcast I listen to and, though admittedly the original version is somewhat country-sounding, it's a pretty haunting song. The lyrics are beautiful, and the fingerpicking pattern I used for my amateur rendition of it really brings that out. So anyway, here's that.

dat face doe

My singing is rather nonexistent because I was trying to avoid plucking the wrong strings or placing the chord wrong or making sure I pinched right, so here's a link to the lyrics if you want them, because I really do love them.

http://www.dannyschmidt.com/lyr_thistooshallpass.html

(You'll find I used a minor censorship which is an achievement for me, and I wish I could say I came up with it but I stole it from my friend when she performed this song at a camp talent show this past summer.)

Actually, here's a link to the video of her performance, she probably won't mind, she's the biggest sweetheart and she performed on guitar. This video actually gives a great demonstration of fingerpicking on a different instrument, showing the different patterns and sounds you can get. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDax93UIgBY

So yeah, here's me fingerpicking, expect more practice videos of different techniques as I prep for the TED talk!

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Vlog

So here it is in all its glory. There's tons of cuts because dear lord it needed a lot of editing. I'm considering a gag reel. There are some real gems in there.
I apologize in advance for subjecting you to the sound of my voice.

DEAR LORD THAT'S A CLASSY THUMBNAIL

My song for this will be posted shortly.

Interlude: Interlude

I'm literally so hilarious I just thought of that title oh my god
Anyway
I'm posting this now because why not, I feel better at switching between chords than I did before this pseudo-week. I've been so messed up with the snow days and the show and being sick-ish that I've lost all concept of time and when I was originally planning on posting this, so here, have it now.
I'm still not great at switching between chords, just because it's pretty circumstantial. In one song you'll have to switch between a G and a B chord, and you can master that transition, but then in another song you'll do a change from G to F sharp, which sucks, by the way.
I found this awesome video that gave a really good strategy for smooth chord changes.

This guy does TONS of tutorials on various ukulele things; I've gone to him whenever I get stuck on a chord.

I had originally attempted another song before this, but it was way too hard. The technique discussed in the video where you leave an open chord on the upstroke didn't really apply because the chords came so fast and were all singular downstrokes. I just couldn't get it.
So I picked a new song, Interlude: Moving On by Paramore. I'll admit I didn't do a great job, and there's a lot I have to work on. I wasn't focusing on my strumming as much as just getting the chords down on time. Also, singing is basically nonexistent for a laundry list of reasons, so.
Also, ukulele is dangerous and I messed up my strumming finger, my bandaid kept getting caught on the strings. So there's a lot of plucking that sounds like it really shouldn't be there, and that's why. Some chords were also muted because of this, either my strum would be awkward, I'd scare myself by bandaid-plucking a string, or my bandaid would fail me completely and I'd be in pain. (That happened in a different take, it was actually a pretty good run of the song (better than this one, to be honest) but I couldn't use it due to a couple choice words at the point of injury, but shhh.) Again, my main focus was just switching chords for this week.
Looking back at this in retrospect, I actually didn't do as terribly at strumming as I thought I did. It still wasn't great, but not terrible. (That's also what I usually say when getting a test back.) The muted chords were messy, and that's a thing that will be avoided with lots of practice. But B chord is a chord that has plagued me forever, and I couldn't find a help video from my Hawaiian friend up there. The other tutorials kinda freaked me out.
That's something again with the finicky nature of chords. You can become great at one transition (I've got a song lined up for an upcoming post that I've nailed), and another sneaks up on you. Namely, G to B. I tried my best and only messed up a few times, so I'm pretty happy with myself. More than I thought I'd be, anyway.
Here it is.

(Also I finally figured out how videos work here. I usually leave the tech stuff to my dad so forgive me.)

Strumming away (3)

So I was planning on posting this over the weekend, but with my luck, less than a week before the musical opens and when I was planning on posting a video where I accompanied myself singing, my throat is shot. I'm not even kidding, I couldn't talk for half the weekend. I must have thrown out my throat while singing at dress rehearsal on Thursday, because since Friday my throat has been sore, I can pinpoint exactly where it's injured, and my blood content is probably eighty percent cough drop right now. So basically the video I'll be including in this post was filmed post-rehearsal and really quiet for a number of reasons. But moral of the story, don't be offended if I don't talk to you this week, it's probably just because I can't.
Anyway, ukulele.
I've improved a lot on my strumming and have actually learned a proper technique that I feel comfortable with. I got it from my book I have (which by the way is "Kev's Quickstart Fingerstyle Ukulele", if any of you are interested. Google that and it might come up?) which suggested two common techniques, shown here:

I use the index brush technique because it is most comfortable for me and easier to not destroy the strings with. It's easy to just kind of swing my hand up and down and let my finger catch the strings as it goes. 

Part of what I'm doing with these blogs is that for each skill I focus on, I'm picking a song that displays it to show. For strumming, I wanted to pick a song with a distinct pattern, and I eventually came up with House of Gold by 21 Pilots. It's a fun song to sing and play, and it uses a lot of chords which is good practice, as well as having a distinct strumming pattern. This song was originally performed on ukulele, so it was pretty easy to pick out the strumming pattern and attempt to replicate it.

I came across a few obstacles with this song. The first one was a chord that it includes, D minor. The chord diagram looks a little something like this:

(It's sideways as compared to the ones in my last post, but the same principle applies.)

I first started playing it, and noticed it sounded pretty ugly. There was something discordant about it that I couldn't quite pin down.  

And then I got smart and realized that the lack of a circle means that the string is unplayed. So I tried again, and it's much better.

I also encountered this little chord right here:

Kill me.

This is what's called a bar chord, and basically they SUCK. That big bold line is where you put one finger across multiple strings to play. So your one finger has to hold multiple strings, making sure they all sound good, and it sucks. Luckily, on ukulele they're much easier to play than on guitar.

If at any point in this video I make a strange face or prolong a note awkwardly, it's most likely due to one of these chords. Either that, or I just messed up. Anyway.

So anyway, without further ado, here's me playing House of Gold by 21 Pilots. Again, excuse my singing, I'm kind of dying. I'm not completely happy with how this run turned out, but a lot of the things I messed up on are skills I'll be focusing on in the coming weeks. So yeah, ignore the singing, ignore the bedtime attire, ignore that I'll probably be wearing this same outfit to school tomorrow, ignore the awkward cut at the end (because video size limit wow) and basically just ignore it and pretend that I did good.

No but really, since strumming is one of my biggest struggles (ESPECIALLY WITH SINGING UGH) I think I did okay. ish. 

AND ALRIGHT I HAVE BEEN HAVING SOOOO MANY TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES I'VE BEEN WORKING AT UPLOADING THIS GOD FREAKING DARN VIDEO FOR LIKE AN HOUR AND I FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT OH GOD NOTHING WAS COOPERATING SO ANYWAY HERE I GAVE IN AND PUT IT ON YOUTUBE HAVE YOUR FREAKING VIDEO AND LEAVE ME ALONE I'M DONE as of now posting this it's still processing but whatever it'll be there eventually you're welcome goodbye

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz2GAi9Jmbc

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