Category: Progress Reports

After a year of existence, I finally got a proper logo and branding for this project! Big shout out to SugarDogStudios for working with me to come up with the design. I was stubbornly resisting using AI and hoped to find a local artist that I could rely on, and she really came through! I need to do a little work to integrate it here on the site, but I’m super happy to finally have proper art for all my social channels.

Plus extra applause for Cheesecakes from the Uke Tribe Discord for making and sending the awesome bed sign over for me that became the basis of the logo! She’s the one who made those little ukulele’s I put on the bed as decor, and if you tune in from now on there’s a cool new sign to keep them company. Not sure if you can tell from the videos, but they’re hand-sewn ornaments made of felt. I think the original idea was to go on a Christmas tree or something, but they just happened to be a perfect accent for my little stream.

Speaking of streams, I managed to make through the month without calling in sick, which was honestly the main goal. I’ve talked a lot about planning here, and the thing to do once you’ve made a plan is to execute it and see how accurate reality is against your projections. I came up with a schedule that I thought I could keep, and I was able to keep it! Being satisfied with that means I don’t need to fret as much over things like follower counts. I don’t know enough to make those proper goals, so any growth is basically bonus points.

And there have been many bonus points! I somehow gained as many new Youtube subscribers in this month as I did in all of last year. I think a major part of it was that big guide to noodling aka improvisation on ukulele that I created. That seemed to be the most impactful activity. I have been trying to keep up with doing Youtube Shorts, and of course the daily streams too though, so it’s kind of hard to say exactly what the source of new subscribers is.

But the number did shoot up after sharing that tutorial. Because of that I’m working on another one, but it’s also going to be on a rather difficult “intermediate” level skill that I’m still far from mastering, so, that’s taking some time to write. Its fun to see number go up, but also being able to reach more people more effectively with my music is kind of the goal.

Twitch Happens

Twitch growth has been slow but steady – started from 0 and now at 16 followers! I’m pretty sure at least half of those are real people who have actually talked to me, but it’s not quite the same as when I basically knew who over half of my Youtube subscribers were.

Twitch strikes me as a much more social activity than I had initially anticipated. My idea was that if I am ever able to be upright again for extended periods of time, that I want to gain experience performing so that I could hold my own on stage at various venues around me, like restaurants or bars.

But streaming on Twitch is much more interactive: chat is there to, well, chat. It feels sort of natural to latch on to whoever decides to say anything because otherwise… you don’t really know if anyone is actually there. At least, I’m not able to easily monitor my viewer counts given my current setup.

I’m a little jealous of all the fancy overlays and chat commands and emotes that the bigger streamers have, but we’ll see. I have some medical stuff coming up this month that will tell me whether I should hold hope about getting better, or double down on the whole Twitch thing. I’d kind of rather not be another minion of big Bezos, but it kind of is the place to be. As if Alphabet tube is any better.

There’s also the aspect of getting to know other streamers. Raids, where chat is forwarded to a new streamer when one is about to end theirs, is a whole thing. I’ve been watching more streamers recently to get a better idea of how it works, and there’s a sort of “pay it forward” mentality. People forward their chats to people they know. So like, hanging out in chat and getting to know streamers seems to be something worth doing. I honestly don’t know what button to push yet to do a raid, but also haven’t had the audience to make it worth doing either.

“Hanging out” to get to know people is not a thing I do naturally for fun either. Part of it was that seeing normal people made me bitter so I learned to be ok with being alone in my room. Don’t mind me, I’ll just be playing uke and watching anime. But also I guess I’m a classic introvert in that it takes energy for me to be around people. I can’t help trying to create mental models of everyone I encounter to predict their behavior and act appropriately to create the outcomes I desire. Sound exhausting? Yeah, it kind of is.

It’s the same game with the videos, with the streams, with the social media posts… and honestly I’d just rather not. But if there is hope that I can get better, then I want to lay a foundation for to hit the ground running. And if there’s no hope that I can get better, then I also want to lay a foundation for success. So I guess I really rather would. Ugh. Work is always going to be work. But this is something that I can do. And, actually, I do typically enjoy being in the company of like minded people, so I guess it’s just something I need to embrace.

The other channel I’ve been working on developing is Blue Sky, but I don’t really get it. I made a tik tok account but I somehow have an innate distaste for that platform and don’t really get it either. Well, plenty on my plate for now.

I’ll be doing some medical travel in the middle of this month, but otherwise, you should be able to find me playing live weekdays on Twitch and Youtube! Come say hi

1/1/26 marked my very first stream on Twitch! Here’s to starting a new venture from nothing. Up the 3 followers already! Luckily I don’t need to return-by-death to try something new. I think it’ll be an interesting experience to see how far I can get in a year.

Last year I started the YouTube channel, and though getting new subs wasn’t really the main point, I managed to get 34 subscribers which I think is pretty neat. I also think it’s neat that I feel like I know a majority of those subscribers from the various uke places online that I’ve been hanging out in. It’s never about the numbers, but the people behind the screen. 

There are two ways to get good: experience and prescience. You can learn by doing, or you can learn by those who came before you. Streaming is definitely a new experience, and I’m revising my thoughts about it rather quickly.

I asked some experienced streamers some questions and they told me to just “do what I love” and said not treat it like a job. Well, I kind of feel like the stuff I love is not necessarily what is going to lead me to my goals. I love playing music and watching anime, and I can indulge in that entirely fine without being on stream. I get where they’re coming from, but I strongly feel that I need to treat this like a job to get what I want out of it. I need to show up consistently, and I need to do things I don’t necessarily enjoy to reach the outcomes I desire.

Art is a conversation, and talking to people who are only interested in talking about themselves gets boring. Being a musician means guiding your audience to feel certain ways. And finding an audience when you have none means showing up with something worth paying attention to. I strongly believe that I need to meet my audience at least half way.

Case and point, I spent a day playing some of my favorite goth and emo songs. I had a great time, but I it really didn’t feel like it was quite right. I’d wager that if I kept grinding at it I might eventually find people who would like this kind of music on ukulele. You can get it if you really want, but you must try, try and try, try and try. Is this what I want to try so hard for?

I don’t think so. My current idea is more about treating streaming as a proxy for busking. But one thing I realized yesterday is that the people who watch streamers actually want to interact with the personalities. It’s not like playing music on a busy sidewalk where people are in transit from point a to b. It’s a conscious decision to watch someone else do something entertaining, with the chance to talk with them.

I’ve been watching other popular Music streaming channels, and I was surprised to see that a large part of the stream is often dedicated to talking. Then during the music parts people like to spam chat with emotes and walls of texts. It’s not really about the music as much as the chance to be seen.

Its a curious thing. I wouldn’t mind participating in that form of culture, but I fear that setting up the back end to make those kinds of things happen will be very difficult given my difficulties with using a computer. In an ideal world, I would find a friend who would be willing to moderate my stream and help me build that back end. Well, first I’d need to build up my chat to be something that needs moderation.

Further, I was approaching streaming as a proxy for gaining experience to become a restaurant musician. You know, the kind that plays music in the background while people eat lunch or dinner. There’s typically not a lot of crowd work involved in that type of thing.

So how do I balance my intentions with the prevailing interests of the platform? I’m not sure. I’m not sure if I want to be a “streamer” as much as I want to be a “musician.” I guess the distinction would be that former connects with the audience through the streaming experience, while the latter connects through music. Its a matter of what skills you hone.

Right now I think streaming as a means to an end. It is a venue that I can perform at as a musician given my current situation. Next month I have a medical thing coming up that will hopefully definitively determine if there’s an operation that might return me to normal, or if I’m just going to be like this for the foreseeable future. If by some miracle I do get better, I’ll get to reset again and try figure out where to go from there.

I’ve figured out the live stream situation, at least the bare bones to get started, and made myself a venue where I can be heard: isekaiukulele.com/live

Tentative streaming schedule is M-F 2:30-5:30PM HST

I have been taking singing lessons for a little under a year now, and I’m quite happy with the progress. That’s been a(n expensive but) very good time. I’ve learned so many things that I never even imagined before under the guidance of an experienced professional.

While I plan to continue improving my skill, I feel like I’m at the point where I need to start gaining more experience performing in front of people. I actually think I’m quite ready yet, but I’m not sure that I’ll ever actually feel “ready” as I might imagine it. 

Until now I’ve been mostly playing for my four bedroom walls, or for the camera where I can retry until I get a good take. It’s quite different when someone else is in front of you and listening intently. If I were a normal person I’d play the busking game and go outside to sing on a street corner where strangers can keep walking if they don’t want to hear. Unfortunately that’s not so easy for me to do.  

Fortunately it just so happens we live in a day and age where there is a practical method to share one’s music across the world without taking a step outside of one’s room. So why not turn the camera on?

Well, unlike a busy street where people are walking by anyway, the digital attention economy is extremely crowded. In this era, music has become entirely commoditized. All the world’s music is available at your fingertips with a simple search. AI spits out music that is increasingly becoming indistinguishable from artists with decades of experience. Why bother listening to an amateur stumble through their catalog? 

If you turn the camera on, there’s no guarantee that anyone will come watch. And if people do click on you to watch, how can you deliver something worth their time? I feel like I need to do more than just show up. I need a strategy to gain attention, a reason to be heard.

Well, that’s the game isn’t it? If I figure out how to win, I’ll share it here. Until then, I’m happy to be mostly ignored while I continue to hone my singing skills. Give me another year or two, and hopefully I’ll be somewhere good by then.

So I found out that you don’t need 50 subscribers to stream live on YouTube. I guess that’s just a requirement for the mobile app or something. I still have a lot of issues to work out, but it’s all sorts of these little details that I don’t consider until I run into it as a problem. Like, somehow my eyes keep creeping up out of the frame XD

And this is a perfect example of the “matter over mind” perspective I’d like to share. I thought I couldn’t do a thing, and so I didn’t. But the truth was, materially, it was possible. I just had to look closer at the actual situation. What the mind thinks is real is irrelevant. What is actually real if the material world we exist in. Matter is the prime substance. 

In a similar way, the biggest thing I learned last year was that what I thought I wanted to do is not what I actually wanted to do. The mind is an unreliable narrator. 

I used to be very goal oriented. Decide what you want, make a plan to get it, execute and refine until successful. Having the rug pulled from under my feet with no reason or recourse made me reevaluate my perspective. Despite having a very mind-first approach, it could do nothing to remedy my situation. I believed then and still firmly believe now that when there’s a will there’s a way. But there was nothing I wanted enough to push through the extreme difficulty and pain to obtain. My will was insufficient. And so I came to believe instead that will is a function of the brain – that is, of matter. 

Case in point: I told my body to play music every day, and that I wanted to do instrumentals. I fully intended to do so. But when I picked up the uke, the body kept singing. Instead of focusing on transcribing anisong, which I thought I wanted to do but rarely pursued because it was a super frustrating process due to not being able to use a computer effectively, I’d learn to sing some new song that got stuck in my head instead. When it was pointed out that I seemed to just be singing a lot, I agreed and eventually just accepted that maybe what I really wanted to do is sing. And I’m quite happy with the outcome so far.  

So I’ve been trying on the perspective that the body will do whatever it wants to, and the best thing to do is adapt the mindset accordingly. There are ways in which you can encourage the body to do things, but ultimately the body controls the mind. You are your body, and the mind is a reflection of your physical state. Some may call it fate, or soul, but I am currently a hardline materialist. What is real is material, all the way down. There’s a whole practical line of reasoning behind this, see the works of Daniel Dennett, and Michael Graziano’s Attention Schema Theory of Consciousness if interested in learning more.

Many can and do train the body to reflect the wishes of the mind. For example, I’ve met many who dedicated their lives to making money and have found great financial success. Whether or not that leads to a happy life or inner fulfillment is a different question. We do the best we can with all we got. 

In the past, if the mind wanted more than what the body could handle I’d say work hard and you can get there. You can get it if you really want, but you must try, try and try, try and try. I still believe in this adage. But now I say, well, maybe change the mind to reflect where the body is. Am I sure I really want it? If I don’t have it, in reality, I must admit I didn’t want it enough to try, try and try until I got it. In truth,  the body actually wanted something else. 

The path of a solo singer is very different from that of the solo instrumentalist. I started this blog with a vision for how to create a platform for an instrumentalist. Now I have to pivot. It’s a little strange because I don’t feel super mentally compelled to walk this path – no bolt of inspiration or “good idea” appeared that I just have to explore further. But here we are. 

I thought I felt perfectly fine being a recluse and not singing for anyone else. I just find myself at the foot of this mountain and it feels like the body wants to climb it. So the new theme for this year is how to find an audience for the aspiring singer-strummer. I know there are many people out there who also want to have their singing be heard, so perhaps I can still light a path to follow. 

So, I want to be a streamer… 

A decade ago I graduated with an MBA and was working hard as a development coordinator raising millions of dollars for a nonprofit organization. Then I got horrifically sick.

I became bedridden in near constant agony, eventually had to move back in with my parents, and had to totally let go of being a highly proficient productive member of society. I had a lot of time while staring at my ceiling for contemplation and self reflection. Thus I embraced being a hikki-NEET loser (and watched a ton of anime). My physical condition has improved significantly after some treatment, but I’m still effectively bedridden and prone to random bouts of severe migraines. 

For the uninitiated: “Hikki” is short for “hikkikomori” which is roughly translated as “social recluse” aka one who stays in their room all day and never touches grass. Sort of like a reddit mod (which I (un?)ironically was for a bit). “NEET” stands for Not in Education, Employment, or Training. Basically no job and no prospects for one. I mean, I am disabled, and trying to do real work often results in excruciating pain. So, there’s that.

Still, these are rather derogatory terms, which became normalized in isekai (“other world”) anime where the adventure starts after the pathetic main character dies in an accident and gets reincarnated into a fantasy land with cheat powers and gets the girl(s) and saves the world.

One of the big questions they asked as we trained to be the business leaders of the next generation was: what would you do with FU money? That is, the amount of money in your bank account that you would say F U to anyone who asked you to do something you didn’t want to. 

Funnily enough, my answer is that I would probably want to play music, and video games, and watch all the anime. Which is pretty close to what I do now. If I actually had money I’d have the family and security and even more musical toys, but eh, if I don’t look on the bright side it’s easy to fall into the pit of despair. Maybe one day those things will come.

So I have been playing the music. Lots of it. Last year I launched this blog and a YouTube channel to document my progress. I can’t say it was a resounding success, but I definitely learned a lot along the way. It was a step back toward being “productive” which is such a deeply ingrained mindset that it’s hard to ignore. I don’t work and I still get to eat, but the fragility of the situation is hard to ignore. My parents won’t be around to take care of me forever. 

If I had to work, I’d want to be a musician. If that’s the case, I should start preparing for that now. And so I blog. And make videos. And have decided to try be social and start streaming… right now I’m only playing in a few discord channels I’m comfortable in, but soon enough I’ll make the jump to Twitch. 

I’d kind of rather just stay on Youtube, but apparently you need 50 subscribers to start streaming, and I didn’t manage to find that many in all of last year. But, I didn’t really care about that either. I feel like I would recognize the face (or ukulele!) of about half of my subscribers, and that feels better to me than a big number.  You get what you ask for.

I started an account on bluesky today. Guess I’m really asking for it…

On one hand:

“If you fail to plan, plan to fail”

on the other:

“If you don’t care where you’re going, it doesn’t matter what road you take.”

Upon reflection, it became very clear to me that I like practicing and performing music more than recording and blogging about the process. So, instead of doing weekly updates like last time, I just learned and performed a new set:

These are all songs from 2020-2025 that I picked out of a massive playlist of “hits” so I could get a better sense of what modern popular music is like. I’ll post the setlist timestamps and charts at the end of this post (they’re also in the video description). When I say jpop here I actually mean anisong, but I didn’t want to go through that whole explanation lol.

This performance isn’t as clean, but I had a much more enjoyable and stress-free experience. I’m sure the right way to grow the audience would be to break each song into its own video and drip feed them to the algorithms, but ugh. Editing and uploading and spamming feeds is not my idea of fun. For now, fun matters more.

I also realized that I’ve put off telling my full story a little too long. I’ve added it to the About Me section on the About page, and will hopefully summarize it for the next video for the channel.

In the time that I’ve just been chilling and doing my own thing, I’ve started to form a new idea of the direction to take this project, so I’ve started to write the plan out for that. Please look forward to it.

I’ve also been making steady progress with the voice lessons and playing jazz. That’s been a lot of fun, but it also takes up a lot of brain power. Hopefully next up is a proper jazz set. These songs are taking a lot more effort to learn though.

Oh, I also acquired a new Fanner electric ukulele, which I posted a bit about on the channel and did a mini blog of the experience over on the Ukulele Underground forums. I really like it, though I think I still prefer the Sparrow overall.

Speaking of UU, I have been participating in their weekly song challenges which I mostly post as unlisted videos, though they all can be viewed on this public playlist of challenge songs.

So, that’s the update for now. I’m hoping soon I’ll have my plan together and can start working toward that bigger goal again. And I hope you’ll join me on this journey as well.

Charts for the Modern Pop set songs: https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/playl…

Timestamps

0:00 Intro

1:03 Too Sweet by Hozier

4:26 Blinding Lights by The Weeknd

7:40 Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter

11:09 Play with Fire by Nico Santos

14:10 Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish

18:08 Lose Control by Teddy Swims

22:33 A bar song (Tipsy) by Shaboozey

25:36 I like the way you kiss me by Artemas

28:13 Austin by Dasha

30:46 August by Taylor Swift

34:27 Die With a Smile by Bruno Mars (feat Lady Gaga)

38:19 Stick Season by Noah Kahan

41:31 I Had Some Help by Post Malone

44:20 Mood by 24KGoldn

47:05 Heat Waves by Glass Animals

50:42 Good Luck Babe by Chappell Roan

54:31 Ghost in the Machine by SZA

A goal without a plan is but a dream. Dream’s are fine, but they as free and plentiful as the stars. We can dream as much as we like. There’s nothing wrong with chasing a dream, holding to a dream, or letting go of one at any time. After all, they are just the flickers of imagination that fill our head at night.

An issue only arises when we start wanting to make our dreams a reality. For most, dreams are challenges that lie beyond the reach of ordinary effort – if it were easy we’d just get it already. I have found that when I want to get from here to there in the most effective way possible, a plan is an indispensable tool.

A plan begins with a goal. What are we trying to achieve? We identify the conditions for success. Then we look at all the obstacles in the way, and then how to overcome those. Without being explicitly written out, its easy for things to slip between the cracks. After all, the goal is a challenge because we are reaching for something our grasp.

When we put the plan in motion, we get feedback so that we can better choose how to spend our limited time and energy to get to where we want to be. It’s important to have the solid description of what was tried so we know what works to repeat, and what to change to do better next time.

Of course, I’m writing all this now because I have no plan. And I’m doing this instead of writing a plan because I don’t know what my goal is. I find myself in a post-sprint exhaustion wherein I’ve accomplished my initial goal and am uncertain of the direction I want to go from here.

In truth I wanted to have the plan written out before starting this blog so I could hit the ground running and not look back. But I kept putting that off to the point where I decided it would probably serve me to just jump in and play it by ear.

That balance of rigidity to flexibility is always a difficult thing to maintain. Sometimes just going for it works out. Done is always better than perfect. Reality always trumps fantasy. Now I have a blog, instead of just vague dreams of a blog.

And so here I am caught in between breaths not knowing which direction to take. There’s nothing wrong with just doing whatever feels right, but it’s hard to maintain the momentum to overcome difficult challenges when there’s no shining light at the end of the tunnel. This week’s offering is exactly that: a half-assed interpretation of a song I’d like to play, but was not willing to put in the effort to do it properly.

Doing it “properly” means learning how and why this song that I like works, and brings me a step closer to understanding how the musician I admire created it. Instead, I just churn out what sounds “close enough” to me and is fun and easy for me to play. I like it enough to share, but it doesn’t push me closer to any specific goal.

Here’s the real song:

Right now I just have a general goal at getting better at playing ukulele, and any playing can be considered a step in the right direction. But its a stark contrast to having a set of repertoire to polish up to “performance ready.” I felt the improvement, and felt the accomplishment for the work I did over the past few months, but where to go from here is unclear.

I have a thing where I try continuously have to realign my ideas of “what I want” with “what I actually do.” For example: I think and say that “I want to be a better ukulele player” and so I practice daily. But the way that I practice by default is not in a way that moves me toward the direction of the “better ukulele player” that I want to be. Objectively, these actions reflect that I “just want to have fun making noise” instead of becoming a “better player.”

At the start of the year I set a goal to polish up a set that I could take to play by a pool. I made a plan to focus on three songs a week, followed through on the plan, and feel like I now have a set that I could play in public. It was freaking hard. I never put in that kind of work before to become a better player, and without a hard challenge I’m slipping back into my default practice habits.

But that’s the kind of “better player” I want to be. I want to be able to proudly play in public. Maybe? Maybe not, since I’m not doing it. I need to get out of my house and try it out more, but my physical condition makes it an somewhat risky activity. There’s a rather high chance that I will wind up with nausea and a harsh migraine that will last for several days if I dare to push my physical limits.

There’s a lot of music I’m interested in being able to play too. I still have all the anime music instrumentals I want to learn to play. I’ve picked up some new modern pop songs and some new older pop songs to extend the performance set. There’s a handful of jazz standards that are entering my repertoire. I’ve even managed to play an hour’s worth of instrumentals, albeit at a lower level of polish than performance set.

Going outside to perform might be worth the risk. I can get it if I really want, but I must try, try, and try. If I really want to “get there” someday, I need another plan. I need to find where “there” is. Then I can try to find the right path to travel. Just, where is it that I want to go? What is worth putting all the effort and energy into?

Why not just chill and not worry about it and watch more isekai?

First thing first, I totally missed this song in the set because I got distracted by the dying battery. While I’m not as on point as I was last week, here’s the current state of Lovesong:

At the end of every great arc in anime there’s a come-down period. When the show is really great and it ends, some may experience post-anime depression where all that time engaged in an amazing adventure is suddenly replaced with… nothing.

Having made it through my initial experiment, I find myself in an uncertain position. I didn’t prepare the next step ahead. Do I wander around in a filler arc for a bit? Do I pick an arbitrary direction to start working toward? I’m not sure. One thing I am sure of is that I don’t want to do the same kind of sprint I just did again. I am exhausted. Taking a little time off for a break seems like a pretty valid choice too.

In fact, that’s what I did this week. Though its been on my mind, I haven’t been actively worrying about it too much. Naturally this leaves me with a lack of a solution when its time to update the blog again, but whatever. This is about my journey, so I’ll be real about it.

Instead of deciding what my next musical goal will be, I re-watched a season of Arifureta and dove into season 3 that just wrapped up. What an amazingly trash isekai. Op protag? Check. Horny harem? You bet. Self-aware chunni? Oh yeah. A great recipe to turn the brain off and not sweat the details of real life. Actually, I’m thinking of transcribing the ending theme for S2 because that song is actually pretty nice.

Here’s to a little vacation back in isekai land~

Here’s the end of the first chapter in this new story I’ve begun.

It started with a semi-new year’s resolution challenge to put together this blog and start a YouTube channel. Mainly it was to see if I could handle making weekly posts and content, and it was mostly successful. I managed to make the videos every week, but I did miss writing this blog and sharing the content once. Here’s the whole journey so far in a playlist. I’ll go deeper into what I’m thinking will come next further down the post, but first I’d like to review a bit about the journey.

So first of all, this whole endeavor was an experiment in doing the “thing,” you know, that thing that everyone tells you when you say you want to get better at making music:

1. Practice a set of repertoire daily.
2. Record yourself, critically review the recordings, and improve to the best of your ability.
3. Get lessons from an expert.

As I write I’m listening to my performance, and I’m mostly satisfied with the improvements. There’s a couple points where I drop the ball and space out on lyrics, but all in all I think it’s rather presentable. I think the progress is real. It was not always fun, and it was not always easy, but I surely think the overall quality of my performance has improved. The goal of the thing is to make better music after all, not to have fun or enjoyably pass the time. Don’t get me wrong, it was often fun and enjoyable, but it was definitely also work and stress.

Of course, it’s hard to be objective about improvement when you’ve been so close to the work for so long, so I definitely appreciate any feedback or constructive criticism. I think I’m happy enough with this to try go out and play it in public… unless one of you out there convinces me I need another few months in the woodshed!

There’s been a lot more distractions along the way than I expected. I’ve been participating in two different weekly song challenges (which have been mostly unlisted, but you should be able to see all my entries on this playlist here). Then there was the voice lessons and unitar study on the electric ukulele that added extra important musical things to focus on. And there’s been the whole challenge of learning to use my recording gear, both audio and video. It’s all progress, but not necessarily in the directions I had initially anticipated.

Actually this whole adventure has been a bit different from how I had initially envisioned it. Originally I didn’t think I wanted to be a singer at all. My first intention with this project was to transcribe instrumental anime songs for uke, hence the “isekai” moniker. I still want to get back to that, and I fully intend to pursue that soon enough. Key word intend. We’ll have to see if the body follows the brain this time around.

Actually the voice teacher just mentioned that it’s important to give the voice regular breaks, and instrumental sections or songs often actively serve this purpose. I had never thought of it that way, and mostly been just singing the instrumental lines… which I now know is not ideal thanks to some off-hand expert advice.

So getting some instrumentals solid, and actually learning good instrumental breaks is more than just about being a well rounded musician. It’s not just showing off. It’s a practical way to extend your vocal stamina. I definitely hope to give instrumentals more attention in this next phase.

Giving the throat breaks is also why you may notice I take little sips of water throughout the set this time. There’s a practical reason why singers do this, and it’s another new healthy habit I’m trying to pick up. I had always seen singers have water but never really knew why. And on my own I never really felt like I needed it. But then I rarely ever sang for over an hour at a time. Once the teacher gave me warm ups that flexed the muscles and pushed my range, it added an extra half hour of daily practice, and I started to actually feel the strain.

Compared to the first set, things are clearly much more refined. The vocals have definitely improved. Instrumental breaks are ok when they do exist. I think the audio and video quality has slightly but noticeably improved. I don’t think its good enough to coast yet, but it’s a good step forward. And everything is memorized! So now I can play with my eyes closed instead of fixed on the charts lol.

My voice is kind of shot by the end, but that’s also partly because I unexpectedly had to do my voice lesson on this day as well. I figured things like this happen in real life too, so might as well give it a go anyway – can’t always just change the date of your scheduled performance, right? So while I’m pretty sure I could do better, I just have to be ok with how it is. And really I am ok with it. For the most part. At the present moment.

The path forward

It became clear about halfway through this exercise that a single pass over these songs in this manner over these songs will not be sufficient to get them to where I want them to be. At the same time, I am… kind of sick of singing these same 21 songs over and over every day.

So I’ve decided that this is just going to be the foundation of my setlist for this year. I’ve put together a second set list of songs to consider that I’m mostly familiar with but would still need to memorize and work out instrumental nuance. I’ve also identified another set of songs released after 2020 to try pretend like I’m hip and modern. In truth I’m a total pop poser. I’ve mentioned it before, but left to my own devices I like to listen to much more eclectic, typically darker music. Haven’t quite figured out how to play Skinny Puppy on uke… yet…

I also have a fascination with jazz, and so I’d like to learn a set or two of standards, which hopefully will double as instrumental pieces. And as mentioned before, instrumentals were part of the goal from the start, so I’d like to have a set of those to pull from as well. So… that’s like another 80 songs to learn? Ah, such ambition!

Well, I am disabled and bedridden with no remedy in sight, so I do have a lot of time to kill. It’d be nice if I could figure out a way to get to a beach or pool to start gaining experience properly playing in public, but that’ll depend on my family and my physical condition.

While I can happily play ukulele all day, recording and blogging and posting is a much more difficult task for me to manage. Moving forward I’m thinking to really only focus on improving a single song per week to record. I’d also like to start doing more writing on anime and fingerstyle transcriptions, so I expect the more focused efforts should open up space for that. I’d like to start making and posting some tabs alongside learning the instrumentals as well, so. Hopefully. We’ll see.

Hopefully you’ll continue enjoying this journey with me, or at the very least appreciate this record of the struggle I’m leaving!

Wow, well, I missed a few days due to headaches and that threw off my schedule, and then it seems a week has already passed so I missed an entire update. I guess its a reminder of why I’m disabled and doing this low stakes musical project instead of traditional work where people expect you to be reliable and consistent. I’ve been mostly consistent with my practice and recording videos at least, but this extra layer of writing and posting and sharing with the world is a bit more of a challenge.

Anyway, here’s last weeks and this week’s videos. Looks like I even failed to make the week 6 video public, though I did share it with the Uke Tribe. Better late than never!

Week 6 progress

Blind Melon – No Rain

Song Choice

Its one of my favorite songs from the 90’s alt rock radio era, and I resonate with the lyrics pretty strongly. Even before becoming disabled, I always had a rather unique perspective on life that often left me feeling awkward and strange. And now my life really is pretty strange. Plus I really just want someone to always be there when I wake. Maybe some day.

Instrumentation

I know a lot of new players struggle with the E chord, and this song is a great one to practice it because the chorus is literally just switching between D and E. For me the major challenge was figuring out something interesting to do for the instrumental break, which I think I managed to simplify enough while keeping it interesting. It could always be better though.

Vocals

This song always makes me want to sing in a somewhat nasally voice, maybe in an imitation of the original? I’m not sure why or how I picked it up. I guess I like it because I keep doing it though. The original line is “read a book to stay awake” but I think replacing it with “isekai” is rather apt, and it does truly rip my life away sometimes.

The Killers – When You Were Young

Song Choice

I’m quite fond of The Killers, and felt like this song was probably the most appropriate to include on this list. The runner up was “Human,” which I do know how to play, but mastering it seemed more difficult so I went for the easier route. I can also play Mr. Brightside and Somebody Told Me, but they seemed a little too much for the context. And Smile Like You Mean It didn’t really seem to fit either. I’m down with the theme of this one, and its fun to sing too. It’s the closest nod I could make to the 00’s post-punk revival bands I like that I could think to squeeze in.

Instrumentation

This one was a little tricky just because of the rhythm and chords for the key that I’m singing it in. It’s also a rather unconventional song structure, but it mostly makes sense so it wasn’t that bad. The descending chord break is something I still don’t have complete accuracy with yet either, but luckily I landed it for this take. I decided to sing the synth line that follows most of the verses because… I couldn’t think of a way to play it. I also didn’t like the way that the chart I was using came out of the bridge, so I just came up with something that made more sense to me for that. It may not be how the recording works, but they’ve got a whole band to work with.

Vocals

In some ways, a song like this that doesn’t have a standard verse and chorus structure is a little easier to memorize than something like Lovesong by the Cure where each verse is altered by exactly only two words. I also feel the voice lessons have helped immensely in the progress that I have made. I definitely got much further than if I had been doing this solely on my own.

Crosby, Stills, and Nash – Love the one you’re with

Song Choice

This is another song I picked up from Uncle Wilmont down at Castaway Cafe. Like I mention in the video, I like the ambiguity of the lyrics. I also like how it suggests accepting the position you find yourself in, instead of wishing for something different, which is a very prescient message for someone disabled. Its really easy to get disheartened by focusing on what other people can do freely. No, I need to love what I got, because well, I do have a lot, and it could always be worse.

Instrumentation

That instrumental break was bugging me immensely for this entire month, but I think I figured out a decent enough way to play through it. Playing in a group that section really opens up to very fun solo time, but having to carry the rhythm through the break while playing solo is a real challenge. I’d like to have gotten even more intricate in the instrumentation, but alas, good enough has won out over perfect this time.

Vocals

Memorizing the order of verses was a little tricky on this one, as was getting good at hitting the initial pitch. Otherwise though, the main reason it took so long to get this one playable for me was that instrumental break. It’s a fun one to sing, and I’m pretty happy with the way I’ve sung it here.

Recording

It’s quiet for some reason, but since I didn’t write down my thoughts immediately after doing it, I honestly don’t remember what I was trying to do. So it goes.

Performance

Aside from the volume, I’m overall pretty happy with the progress. I made it through without dropping anything completely, and actually played the instrumental breaks. I’m feeling pretty good about the vocals, and even though I know I still have a long way to go, I think that the progress is sounding good.

Week 7 progress

Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel

Song Choice

This is yet another Uncle Wilmont special! I’m told this is actually a rather popular song, but I had never heard it before. It’s a bit outside of my usual musical preferences too, but it is a fun one to play. It’s kind of a very nice warm up song. It’s straightforward enough to play and sing, and the message is relatable enough even if you don’t recognize the song.

Instrumentation

There’s a couple sections where the original song features banjo picking, which I try to emulate, but actually struggle with while using a pick. And I normally play this with a pick and skip the plucking. However, I have learned that I need to not change between fingerstyle and pickstyle while doing videos, so whatever I start with is what I need to stick with. There’s a button on my flyrig that I need to press to boost or cut the signal if I want to swap between styles. I have more control with fingerstyle, but my nails don’t last so I prefer using a pick for most of the rhythm heavy rock stuff I do.

Actually, I tend to play all three of these songs pickstyle, but I guess I just wanted to be more accurate and not risk messing up, so I chose to use fingers for today’s recordings.

Vocals

This is a quintessential warm up or break song, one that doesn’t push the voice too much so I can recover and push on the harder ones. And this is another one I tend to try add a twang to just to mimic the original. I’m not sure how convincing I am it it to a native southerner, but I’m happy enough with my style at least.

Neil Young – Harvest Moon

Song Choice

Have I mentioned how influential Uncle Wilmont has been on my song choice for this setlist? Well, the idea was to make a set of songs to play by a poolside bar, and Castaway Cafe is literally a poolside restaurant that’s facing the ocean so. The songs are essentially safe battle-tested bets. These selections are a combination of the songs I liked, and what the audience of people who could afford to eat at a restaurant liked to hear. I had never actively listened to Neil Young before this song, though I did recognize his name from the annals of rock and roll.

Instrumentation

This is actually a pretty fun one to play on uke. This is one of the few songs I’m actually using a chart written for uke that described how to play that iconic riff. It seems that the notes that ring out at the start of each verse are typically harmonics, which can be done on a guitar or bari uke, but harmonics are also a lot easier when you can look down at your instrument to see exactly where to pluck. Unfortunately laying flat like I do makes that rather difficult, so I typically don’t worry much about harmonics where possible.

This was another song that kept getting pushed back because the instrumental break was important, and difficult for me to figure out what to do with. Also because I couldn’t really work on those sections during the whole unitar exercise. But I think it came together, and was mostly successful for this recording.

Vocals

I cracked a little here because I was trying to sing softly and in a high pitch, but overall the song is pretty straightforward. I like the change in tone during the bridge sections. I also like how the lyrics describe a kind of peculiar situation (“when we lovers”) which is a unique challenge to try and embody. Its an interesting challenge,

The Platters – My Prayer

Song Choice

This one was actually inspired by Fallout 4. I mean, classic music is timeless. It shouldn’t matter where I heard of it, just that I liked it and wanted to play it. This was intentionally chosen to push my vocal abilities. I felt like I still didn’t quite nail it, but it’s coming a long. I kind of like this as an ending song because its somber but hopeful. And hey, if you are also a Fallout enjoyer, even better!

Instrumentation

I missed a chord. I had one job, and I blew it! So it goes. This one has been hard to memorize because of its somewhat unconventional structure. I think its the only song on this setlist that actually uses a diminished chord as well… and that’s the one I missed. Go figure. I want to play more jazz, but never felt my vocal chops were up to the task. Maybe now after the lessons settle in a bit I’ll think about trying out some proper standards soon.

Vocals

As mentioned earlier, this one was supposed to be a challenge and I didn’t quite nail it. Maybe a C grade. This was always kind of a stretch goal. But I do think I have improved quite a bit from the first attempt at the start of this journey. Hopefully. Actually I have yet to listen to my progress side by side with the original. Guess that will be part of next week’s adventure.

Recording

I boosted the level a bit on my uke and on the mixer, and I think it came out well. Last week I had tried recording some of my baritone uke and it came out super quiet, so I decided to double check my volume levels this time.

Performance

I think it sounds good. And I think it could sound better. But overall, I’m satisfied with the production this week. I’m a little bummed about missing last week, and subsequently being stretched a little thin by doing two performance reviews on the same day. Always better late than never though. Missed notes aside, the music is pretty okay, but the process of sharing needs work.