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A Study in Chords (2)

So I have set off on my journey to learn as many chords as possible, and chords suck. They're cool, they sound great, but they're hard. Actually learning them was easy, but being able to hold down the strings correctly isn't easy. As for learning them, I found these nifty little chord charts which have made life much easier.

 

So I set about learning these, and as you can see, some are easier than others. Each dot is a finger, and each vertical line represents a string. The horizontal lines are called frets, which are these little dudes on the actual uke.

The horizontal lines are the frets. Just like the charts. It's almost like someone did that on purpose.

To play a note, you put your finger between the frets. So to play a C chord, your finger goes between the second and third lines, or on the third fret, of the A string, like so.

A C chord. Snazzy.

So there are different finger positions for each chord. Some are easy, like C, and then there are some that exist solely to make your life just a little more miserable. I can't even play this one, so I'm just going to show the diagram. 

Looks innocent enough, right? Wrong. My body does not contort in that way. I'm sure it's fine for other people, but just know that any time F minor 7 comes up in a song, I'm not playing that song.

I've spent a fair deal of time just trying to strum out chords, going through the chart one by one until I got bored and looked up songs. I decided to look up a musical theater song, because there are tons of chord changes in those, and boy, I was not disappointed.

I put my musical playlist on shuffle, looked up the first song that came up, and promptly wanted to die.

I forced myself to play through half of the song, then gave up on coherency and just strummed out each chord. (Note the makeshift chord diagrams under each note- those are meant for guitar but the same principle applies. Strings go in order of the column, numbers are the fret number, a 0 is an open string, and an X is an unplayed string.)

I use the app Ultimate Guitar (http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/) to get chords for my songs. People submit chords and tabs for guitar songs, but the chords can be applied to ukulele as well. This app is super helpful, I use it for guitar, ukulele, and piano. So worth the $2.99. Anyway.

Though most of those chords look absolutely terrifying, it was actually really helpful in memorizing the more obscure ones. Chords like C and G and D are common, in almost every song, so I memorized those right off the bat. However, something like Bsus2 or Faug (which I've literally never heard of) that don't appear really ever at all are harder to memorize due to lack of exposure. Seeing them in this song helped. 

So to put it basically, ukulele is really fun and I've learned a lot of chords so far. I'm working on strumming now, which is mildly terrifying and somewhat painful, but I'll work on it. Hopefully I'll begin strumming correctly as opposed to blindly abusing the strings like I have been. Wish me luck, and get ready for me bringing in my ukulele on Monday. I'd apologize in advance, but really, you're welcome.

An Introductory Post (Post 1)

My love and passion for all things musical is enormous, unparalleled, and annoys the living crap out of everybody. I never shut up. I know you guys love it every time I get up and push tickets for whatever show I'm currently in. (Brace yourselves, Young Frankenstein tickets go on sale next week). I've loved singing for as long as I can remember, and I'm almost always humming a tune or tapping out a beat. People probably look at me when I'm crazy while I listen to music because I tend to try and figure out the chords or patterns for the instrumentation, often playing air piano on my desk.
I've been trying to improve my musical skills for years, probably since kindergarten, to be honest. I remember walking through the hallway singing to myself and saying something along the lines of "my voice is beautiful!" My massive ego hasn't dulled any since then, but luckily my sense of tact has increased. Somewhat. But since then I have been focusing on my singing voice, trying to figure out just what to do with it.
I've been making strides since then, delving deeper into the world of music and finally working up the courage to ask my parents for a piano for my birthday. They then proceeded to get me (and my brother, but do you really think I'd let him near it?) a guitar for hanukkah, and my newfound courage was somewhat dulled. They'd just gotten me a guitar, there was no way I could ask for another instrument now. I was still ecstatic, and immediately set about trying to teach myself the instrument. I'm actually not terrible at it, I can play songs if provided with the chords, given I know the chords and my minuscule hands are able to reach to where I need to press the string. It's also a hand-me-down guitar, and it makes a kind of rattling noise when I play it which I don't think it's supposed to do, so I've been letting it sit for a while to let it try and figure itself out.
The following summer, I finally breached the topic of a piano, saying I found a keyboard with all 88 keys on amazon for only 300 dollars, which is a good 200 dollars cheaper than any other 88 key keyboard. My parents still winced, but luckily I'm a massive gift card hoarder and had 245 dollars in amazon gift cards under my belt, and they were suddenly much more receptive to the idea. My mom said, "Well, we were planning on getting you a ukulele for hanukkah, but yeah, we can do this." I then proceeded to kick myself, because this stupid piano just gypped me out of another instrument, much like the guitar had with the keyboard itself. The keyboard came in a few days later (god bless amazon prime) and I loved it. I actually know a few songs beyond just playing chords, and can, upon request, play a small portion of Let It Go from Frozen.
Much to my pleasant surprise, I got the ukulele for hanukkah, and I adore it. It's so happy, it's just a happy sound, it's impossible to not be happy when you hear it. You almost feel bad for it, because it's just so pure and little and happy and too good for this world. I got it mid December, and it's mid February now, and I'm not very good. Similar to guitar, I can play songs if reading the chords, but I'm still learning the chords, I don't strum correctly, I can't pick out notes for songs, and basically I'm an amateur. I'm a ukulele rookie. A uke noob. So now I get to indulge my music addiction for a grade, through ukulele. This is awesome.
I'm gonna take it week by week (well, cycle by cycle, but whatever), focusing on a different component of playing ukulele each week.
Week 1 is gonna be learning more chords. I want to memorize the finger positions for as many as I can and make sure I play them correctly.
Week 2, I'm going to work on strumming. I'm currently strumming by using some bastardized version of the actual technique and I think I'm making it a lot harder for myself than it should be. So I'm gonna fix that.
Week 3 is going to focus on moving between chords. I'm currently insanely awkward between them, taking good three second pauses to move my fingers and put them in the right places before I'm able to play again, so I'm just going to practice as many moves as I can.
Week 4 is fingerpicking. This is basically when you pluck out the notes instead of strumming the chords. It's not easy, so I need to learn that.
Week 5 I'm gonna start combining, and week 6, I'm going to add singing into the mix (officially, I'll probably still sing beforehand) because for many people, singing while playing an instrument is hard.
By week 7 I hope to be able to expertly play a song that exemplifies these techniques.
I'm really excited about this and hopefully I'll become less not good at ukulele. It'll be fun. I'll get to annoy you guys with my singing, but this time you can't tell me to stop. You're welcome.
Buy Young Frankenstein tickets from me, they're ten bucks each.