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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