Category: Learning Project (Page 1 of 2)
This week I tried learning from a new website called Booster Uke. This is definitely not a website to try if it your first time learning the instrument, you need to have some basic knowledge of the ukulele before you begin. This is a premium program that offers 10 lessons with access to a video and interactive sheet music for each lesson. I tried the free trial, which gave me access to one of their lessons at random. The lesson I was able to try was lesson 5, so that may be why I thought that you need prior knowledge of how to play the instrument before using this website.
The person instructing the video did not do a very good job, just basically explained the cords and started playing a song at a fast pace that was extremely hard to keep up to. He didn’t teach me how to do the weird strumming pattern he was doing. So, I think the instructional video did not help me at all. The interactive sheet music on the other hand was better. I thought it was better then 8notes sheet music. It had the guy playing the song with lyrics instead of just a beat to play to. The only thing was that, sometimes the music did not match the sheet music, which threw me for a loop.
BoosterUke Lesson (youtube.com)
I would not recommend this website, especially for a beginner. This website would be good if you already knew how to play the ukulele and were looking for new challenging songs and strumming patterns.
I had to take a week off playing the ukulele because I hurt my strumming finger playing football. But it was nice to pick up right were I left off this week. Last week I said that this was going to be my last week learning from the 8notes website. I played the song “Ukulele Blues“. This song had a lot of quick shifts between cords, and involved some cords I have never tried before. This song had the same timing throughout the song so it made it relatively easy to get into the rhythm after a couple practice rounds.
Here is a picture of what the sheet music looked like. and the link below is me attempting to play this song
I know I am wrapping up to the end of my learning experience. So for next week, I want to try one new source of online learning before I make my final post. I am unsure of what I am going to do, but my goal is to find a brand new useful resource to help me with my last ukulele lesson.
This week I practiced by reading sheet music on 8notes. It is still taking me some time to get used to reading sheet music, so I chose a song that used extremely easy cords to switch between involving only one finger. I really do like this website, it moves the sheet music along for you so you do not have to stop and scroll which is very nice. Although, I did try this one song, and the sheet music looked like it was scanned and added on, and that one song did not follow along so I decided I would choose a song where the technology of 8notes actually worked.
I chose to play the song Skip to My Lou. I was unable to play it at 100% speed right away, so I started at 50%, then 70%, then finally I was able to play 100%. This is what the sheet music of the song looked like
One thing I wish was different about 8notes is, I wish it gave me a countdown before the song begins. As soon as you press the play button it starts right away. So, I did not really have time to get ready for the first riff. You can see in my video, as soon as I press play I quickly try to play the first couple of notes to catch up.
Another thing I found out this week, as that there is a daily limit for using the app on the free version. It only allowed me to practice for about a half hour a day. I do not know if its a timed thing, whether it counts the minutes, or whether it counts how many times you play a song, but the daily limit did not seem like a very long time to practice.
Next week, I am going to practice on 8notes again, trying more different and difficult songs before I move on to the next source of technological learning.
I have been reading articles learning how to read sheet music for the ukulele. This has been a difficult task, as for me, it is difficult to learn things through strictly words. I have found an extremely helpful website called 8notes. There is a free section of it, I have only explored the part of the website referring to the ukulele, but this website can help you learn any instrument. For this weeks blog, I tried LOOM for the first time as well. I thought I would use this chrome extension to explain to you about this website.
Next week, I am going to start learning how to play music by going through this website. I have done a lot of reading on how to read sheet music, especially the tabs portion. I am excited to try out this website and learn more about playing the ukulele.
This week I practiced with Bernadette Teaches Music again, and also started doing some reading on how to read sheet music. I feel like I made leaps and bounds in my ability to switch cords and also my strumming. Bernadette Teaches Music had me switching between some very different and more difficult cords then what I was used to. The new cords I learned are Cmaj7, Dm, G7, E7, Am, A, and D.
This is going to be my last time practicing from YouTube. I feel I now have a good enough foundation to start learning from other websites and articles. I have found YouTube such an extremely helpful tool in this learning process. There is just so many helpful videos on this platform for literally anything that you want to learn in life. So far, I have started looking into other sources of learning how to play the ukulele. Many of these articles and websites have links to YouTube videos explaining something in greater detail. This just shows that when learning certain things, especially the ukulele, it is hard to learn without a visual, or at least without knowing what a certain cord, note, or song is suppose to sound like.
This week I continued to learn from Bernadette Teaches Music on YouTube. I find her videos extremely thorough and she explains things extremely well. She taught me a couple more cords, and she explained a strumming pattern that I was struggling with earlier extremely well. She also walked me through transitions to cords. For this week I videoed myself playing the Lion Sleeps Tonight. Which a song she taught me during the lesson using the cords C, F, and G.
Ukulele Practice – The Lion Sleeps Tonught (youtube.com)
Next week I plan on learning one more song and a couple more cords with Bernadette Teaches Music. Then I am going to try a different website to learn how to read music and play songs without being walked through the entire song cord for cord.
I tried the app Audacity for the first time this week. This is an awesome tool that allows you to make your sounds with different objects or sounds tools. I would compare it to moviemaker for music. It allows you to record a sound where you can split, cut, duplicate, and move around to make different sound tracks.
This is what the app looks like. The red button you press to start recording and then press the pause button to stop recording. The two arrows you can use to move frames from as small as a millisecond to make sure your cutting the sound at the right time. If you right click on the line that goes across as your music is playing, it gives you options to delete, split, and many other things that I do not know how to use. I recorded three different cords separately in a song that I learned while playing the ukulele this week. I cut it so that the transition between cords was flawless. I also duplicated each sound and played it in the same pattern to make the song longer. There is so much that you can do on this app that I didn’t get the chance to explore. Although, by just knowing the basics, I was able to make a song I have been struggling play and make it sound decently good. The only problem with this app is that you can only share your audio to one site called audio.com. It is free to sign up and has a lot of different sounds you can use from other creators, but it would be nice to have the option to upload it to more then one platform if needed. Once you have uploaded your song, you can name it, give a description, and post it as public or unlisted, very similar to how you are able to post YouTube videos.
This is the example sound clip I made from my ukulele recording.
I would use this tool in a music and drama class. I would give the kids full autonomy to use whatever instruments or objects they can find to create a song. This would allow them to be able to move the sounds around to make it sound however they want. They can also overlay different sounds to make it sound like more instruments are being played at the same time.
In the SAMR model, I feel modification is the biggest transformation as it allows for the creation of music in class to be significantly redesigned. Instead of having students in groups trying to create something, where a student might not play at the right time or mess up a cord or a note. They can record these instruments and cords individually, and put the song together so that it sounds like there is no mistakes.
Last week I watched Andy Guitar’s first and second day free Ukulele lesson on YouTube. I had a lot of trouble with the new strumming pattern that was introduced in the second video. So I just practiced going over it again and again without trying to switch cords until I could get it down. Then once I figured out the strumming pattern, I found myself struggling to be able to maintain that pattern while also being able to switch cords fluently. At the end of the lesson we went over the song “Take me Down to The Riptide” which is a song I was hoping I would learn how to play at some point during this journey. I found Andy, went through this song extremely fast and I was never able to catch up, or I would mess up and fall behind trying to play at the same pace as him. This is were I changed the video to 0.5 speed. This allowed me to work on switching cords and playing the strumming pattern at my own pace, and getting comfortable with it. I ended up working my way to playing the song at 0.75 speed and it sounded super good and I was super proud of the strides I made from last week to this week.
Being able to change the speed of the videos on YouTube is such an amazing feature that is extremely helpful especially in fast paced videos like the one I was watching.
Next week, I am going to try Day 3 of Andy Guitar’s free Ukulele lessons, I am also going to look for a new site on a different platform and compare the two of them. I want to know which platform is better for promoting learning and what video is easier to follow and learn.
Hi everyone,
I have been trying to learn to play the ukulele for my blog. I have started by watching a basic welcome to ukulele YouTube video. The channel I am following is 10-day free ukulele lesson done by Andy Guitar. I did the first two days worth of videos that he has posted. The first video was very easy. Learning three different cords: the C major, F major, and the G major. We also finished the video by playing the song “You are My Sunshine”. We also practiced strumming to a four beat. I found this video a great introduction, he explained everything in great detail, and even gave some extra practice songs at the end.
The second day video I found extremely challenging. He tough us the A minor cord and a new strumming pattern. I found this lesson a massive jump from the first day. I ended up actually going back to the first video to practice a little more before going back to the day 2 video. I got myself familiar with switching cords fluently, but I never was able to figure out the new strumming pattern as it involved strumming the strings with a different finger then what I am used to. The final song he teaches in this video is “Take me Down to the Riptide”. He did not go over this song in nearly as much depth as the last video. I think it is going to take me a couple days of practice before I can move on to the next. He explains it very fast and doesn’t really allow you to follow along as well as when he did the song “You are my Sunshine”.
I really like learning through Youtube videos as the moment. It allows me to go back and restart things if I feel I did not do it properly. Or if I think I missed something I can always go back and check. It is also super easy for me to take a look back at things I have already learned and practice more.
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