Thursday, October 18, 2007

A month since the last one !

I thought I really must update my blog only to discover that a whole month gone by since my last update. In that month I've learn the following songs :-

1. Daydream Believer - The Monkees
Quite tricky for a beginner, worth persevering with though. My biggest problem I had was trying to sing along, the key wasn't right for me and by the time I decided I really should have changed the key I was too sick of it to bother.

2. Fishermans Blues - The Waterboys
I love it sung by the Waterboys and is an easy song to learn, but becomes boring fast. Have a search on youTube a guy with a guitar does a great version.

3. I Wanna Be Like You - Song from the Jungle Book
This is a great fun song and sounds lovely on the uke, definitely learn this one. In fact my brother was around the other day, he didn't know I was learning the ukulele, after hearing a snippet of this he's decided to by a uke of his own, I'm expecting hate mail from his wife shortly ;)

4. I'll Fly Away - Traditional Gospel type song
This is the open invitational song for October at Ukulele Cosmos, not a type of song I would normally play, but its all for fun so I though I'd give it a blast. It turns out that its a good song to play and easy for a noob :)

I'm currently learning "Ain't She Sweet" courtesy once again of Doctor Uke.

Also one month ago I only had one ukulele, I now have three. My original coloured Mahalo, a soprano Ohana SK-25 and a concert Clearwater Roundback. I plan on putting up a comparison of these ukuleles, not a review as such but recordings of how each sound so that people can make up their own minds and draw their own conclusions.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hiya, Daydream Believer was one of the first songs I learned on my uke. It can be made easier if you play Bm as 0222 instead of 3222, replace the D7's with a normal 2220 D to save moving your fingers round, play Em7 in place of the Em's for ease. As you progress, you'll change these quite naturally, but while you're learning these will get you through this song.

Love reading your blog, and your ukeing is comng on a treat. Keep up the excellent work (it's not really "work" though, is it?! Heehee!)

C x

Keith said...

Nice tips Winger and you're right its certainly not work :)

J said...

good site! be interested to know if your concert size helped your finger speed improve... just wondering whether to get one. I'm currently finding your "When your smiling" gets a bit addictive, and rather annoying for anyone else in the house.
My best hard noob song has been 'Dream a little dream' Mamas and Papas from Boogaloo. Wanted to master Man of Constant Sorrow (ezfolk ukepix) but realising its more about singing than the uke! Looking for decent chords for 'Down to the river to pray' (both off the Coen Brothers film Brother where art thou)
Keep it up
Some notes on how you got your strumming good would be handy. I seem to be all over the place...

Keith said...

Hi Pondweed, the concert didn't so much as improve my speed but allowed my to hit some of the chords I had dificulty fitting my fingers in more cleanly e.g. [D], not a difficult chord but placing 3fingers into such a small space meant that sometimes I would accidently mute a string, on the concert this is less of a problem (for me. I've also been learning "Dream a little dream" its a great song and sounds nice on the uke.