Isekai Ukulele

Category: Reality

Writings about my real life challenges, perspectives, plans, and lessons learned.

  • The Big List of AniSong

    The plan is coming along, slowly but surely. I’m typically the time to prefer to Aim, Fire, Repeat, but I recognize that sometimes Fire, Scramble, Aim can lead to success. That’s how I started this project, and it was a good way to test my capacity. I’ve learned a lot about myself since it started. But it’s not how I want to continue, so I’m taking the time I need to put together what I feel is the best way for me to ensure my long term success.

    This means a lot of thinking, and drafting up a written plan execute. While I do this, I naturally like to listen to music. During a break I happened to watch Project A-ko, and really liked a song, so I thought I’d add the ending theme to my anime songs playlist. One thing led to another, and the playlist ballooned from a bit over an hour to over six hours long.

    Here it is for your listening pleasure:

    Click the dots to play on Spotify, find the YouTube playlist here and full track list below



    The rules were simple:

    1. I must have actually watched the anime, and preferably liked it.
    2. Multiple entries from an artist or series should be minimized.
    3. I should like the song, to the point of being willing to create an instrumental arrangement.

    Very few songs broke rule one – none the first half, but there were a couple songs I liked much more than the show itself (*stares at domestic girlfriend*). How much I liked the show did play a big part in the selection. I was able to keep most duplicates down to two, though Creepy Nuts managed to sneak a third banger in. Finally I’ve said before that this project was initially intended to be about anime song instrumentals, and this is basically the pool of music I was thinking of drawing from. If you have any requests, I will consider giving them priority, though I am currently in another one-string training arc so it may take some time. No guarantees.

    Actually, I could probably add another couple hours of music if I tried – especially if I go out of my way to watch some popular things I just happen to not have seen, and ease the dupe rules for the popular (and long running) shounen’s. I don’t watch a lot of anime movies, so there’s another source of quite a lot I could easily draw from. In fact I’ve probably only seen three or four Miyazaki films ever, and those could easily add an hour of awesome music alone. And there’s the vast sea of mediocre isekai whose songs I might want to revisit someday.

    But what, six hours isn’t long enough?!

    I also like that I get to share some of the music of some maybe more obscure shows that I really enjoy. And if anyone out there is already familiar, maybe it’s nice to hear that someone else likes what you like.

    I ran into the wall while making this where I added something I liked but later forgot what show the song was from, then couldn’t look it up because Spotify won’t let you copy the Japanese to search. So, you may have to count, but in case you hear something you enjoy and want to check out the series, I’ve prepared a written list of the shows each song is from. I’ve also mirrored the list on YouTube so you can watch the actual title sequences too. YT quality isn’t as consistent though, and I don’t pay for premium so I get ads and issues with play-in-picture mode. The plus side is these are mostly the 1:30 min tv edits which I’d base any instrumentals on, and not everyone is on Spotify anyway. You can contact me on YT or discord if you have any questions or find mistakes.

    After the anime name, “op” means opening, “ed” means ending, and “ost” means original soundtrack. A number indicates which season, if there is none, it should be the first (or only) theme. I may have messed up some of the romanji, but hopefully you can find whatever you’re looking for.

    Track: Anime title op/ed/ost – Song name by Artist

    1. Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt ed – Fallen Angel by Mitsunori Ikeda feat Aimee B
    2. Call of the night ed – Yofukashino uta by Creepy Nuts 
    3. Ya boy kongming op – chitty chitty bang bang by queendom 
    4. Oshi no ko op – idol by yoasobi
    5. Spy x Family op2 – Souvenir by Bump of Chicken 
    6. Revolutionary girl utena – Rondo Revolution by Shoko Nakagawa 
    7. Neon Genesis Evangelion – A Cruel angels thesis by Yoko Takahashi
    8. Darling in the Franxx op – Kiss of Death by Mika Nakashima
    9. Rising of the Shield Hero op – Rise by Madkid
    10. Hunter x Hunter op – Departure! by Masaroshi Ono
    11. Humanity has declined op – Real World by Nano.ripe
    12. Erased op – Re: re: by Asian Kung Fu Generation
    13. Gintama op – Pray by Tommy Heavenly6
    14. Nana op – Rose by Anna Tsuchiya 
    15. Non non biyori op – Nanairo Biyori by nano.Ripe
    16. Non non biyori ost – Ren-chan and a sunny road by Hiromi Mizutani 
    17. Serial Experiments Lain – Duvet by boa
    18. Bakemonogatari op2 – Kaerimichi (Road Home) by Emiri Kato 
    19. Bakemonogatari op4 – Ren’ai Circulation by Kana Hanazawa
    20. Red ranger in another world ed – Explosive Heart by Uchida Aya
    21. Is the order a rabbit? Op2 – No Points! by petit rabbit’s
    22. Is the order a rabbit? Ed2 – Tokimeki poporon by Chimame-tai
    23. Haiyore Nyaruko-San W op – Love is the servant of chaos by ushirokarahaiyoritai G
    24. March comes in like a lion op2 – Goodbye Bystander by YUKI
    25. Keep your hands off eziouken op – Easy Breezy by chelmico 
    26. So I’m a spider, so what? ed – Ganbare! Kumoko-san by Aoi Yuuki
    27. Welcome to the NHK ed – Dance baby human by Otsuki Kenji and Kitsutaka Fumihiko 
    28. Cowboy Bebop ed – The real folk blues by Mai Yamane 
    29. Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure: phantom blood op – Jojo soon chido sadame by Hiroaki Tommy Tominaga
    30. Cromartie High (mechazawa’s humming song) – Ningen Nante by Takuro Yoshida
    31. (YT only) Cromartie High School op – Jun by Takuro Yoshida
    32. Ranma ½ op – (Ya) jajauma ni sasenaide by Etsuko Nishio
    33. Fushigi Yuugi op – itooshi hito tame ni by Satou Akemi 
    34. Dragon Ball op – makefushigi adventure by Hiroki Takahashi
    35. Project A-Ko ed – Follow your dream by Valerie Stevenson
    36. Zeta gundam ed – Believe by Mami Ayukawa
    37. Armored trooper votoms op – Honoo no Sadame by TETSU
    38. Bubblegum Crisis op – Konia wa Hurricane by Kinuko Ohmori
    39. Outlaw star ed – Hiro no Tsuki by Akino Arai
    40. Hakumei to Mitochi op – chima by urar 
    41. Laid back camp op3 – Laid back journey by Kimi no ne
    42. My deer friend shikanoko op – shikario days by Deer Club 
    43. Let this grieving soul retire ed – Scream by pmaru sama
    44. Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear ed – anone by Yuna
    45. Catch me at the ballpark ed – Shake! Don’t shake! by ruriko, aona, and sara 
    46. Food for the souls ed – Miso soup and butter by Reira Ushio
    47. Heaven’s design team op – Give it up? by kuroneko 
    48. Shimoneta: A boring world where dirty jokes don’t exist ed – Inner Urge by Sumire Uesaka
    49. Go go loser ranger op – Preview of Me by Tatsuya Kitani
    50. Excel Saga op – Ai (chuuseishin) by Excel Girls
    51. Gunslinger girl op – The light before we land by The Delgados
    52. Escaflowne op – Yubiwa by Maaya Sakamoto
    53. Kino’s Journey op – all the way by mikuni shimokawa
    54. Domestic Girlfriend op – Kawaki to Ameku by Minami
    55. Your lie in April ed – wacci by  kirameki
    56. Love, chunnibyo, and other delusions op – sparkling daydream by zaq
    57. Chobits op – Let me be with you by Round Table feat nino
    58. Konosuba op2 – tomorrow by machico
    59. Witch Hunter Robin op – Shell by Bana
    60. Ergo proxy op – kiri by Monoral
    61. To your eternity op – Pink Blood by Hikaru Utada 
    62. Mushishi op – The sore feet song by Ally Kerr 
    63. Samurai Champloo op – Battlecry by Nujabes feat Shing02
    64. Mashle op – Bling-bang-bang-born by Creepy Nuts 
    65. Dan Da Dan op – Otonoke by Creepy Nuts
    66. Shangri-la Frontier op2 – Danger, Danger by FZMZ, icy
    67. Negative positive angler ed – Shonen Yokkyu by kuroneko
    68. Pseudo Harem ed – Ad lib by Nanakura Rin
    69. Apocalypse Hotel op – Skirt by aiko 
    70. Apocalypse hotel ost – Welcome to hotel “Gingaru” by Yoshiaki Fujisawa
    71. Baccano! op – Guns and Roses by Super Soul Bros
    72. Campfire Cooking in another world with my absurd skill op – Luxury Spoon by Van de Shop
    73. Delicious in Dungeon op2 – unmei by sumika
    74. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid op – Rhapsody of Blue Sky by fhana 
    75. Space dandy op – Viva namida by Yasuyuki okamura
    76. Kaguya-sama love is war op – Daddy daddy do by Masayuki Suzuki 
    77. Cowboy bebop op – Tank! by Seatbelts 
    78. Birdy the Mighty Decode ed – Let’s go together by Afromania 
    79. Great Teacher Onizuka op – Driver’s high by L’arc en Ciel
    80. Tsukimichi -moonlit fantasy- op – gambling by syudou
    81. The melancholy of haruhi suzumiya ost – god knows by Aya hirano
    82. Ninja and assassin under one roof op – Yarenno? Endless by Kana Hanazawa
    83. Re:zero ed1 – Styx Helix by Myth and Roid
    84. Overlord III op – Voracity by Myth and Roid
    85. Dorohedoro op – Welcome to Chaos by (k)now_name
    86. Bocchi the rock op – seishun complex by kessoku band 
    87. Demon Slayer op – guruenge by LiSA
    88. Sword art online op – crossing field by LiSA
    89. Code Geass op – Colors by Flow
    90. Naruto op4 – Go by Flow
    91. Ping pong the animation – Tadahitori by bakudan Johnny 
    92. Death note op – the World by nightmare 
    93. Bleach op – Asterisk by Orange Range 
    94. One piece op – We are! by Hiroshi Kitadani
    95. That time I got reincarnated as a slime op – nameless story by Takuma Tereshima
    96. Spice and wolf op – Tabi no Tochuu by Natsumi Kiyoura
    97. Made in abyss op – Deep in Abyss by Miyu Tomita
    98. Mushoku Tensei – Tabibito no Uta by Yuiko Ohara 
    99. .hack//sign ed – yasashii yoake by see-saw 
    100. .hack//sign op – obsession by see-saw
    101. Ghost in the shell op – the birth of a cyborg by Kenji Kawai
    102. Texhnolyze op – guardian angel by Juno reactor 
    103. From Bureaucrat to villainess: Dad’s been reincarnated ed – Matsuken Samba by Inoue Kazuhiku and MAO
    104. Pokémon op – Pokémon Theme (Gotta catch em all!) by Jason Paige

  • Thoughts on the voice lessons so far

    I asked the teacher and was recommended to stick to the warm up exercises using the piano instead of trying to learn to do them on the ukulele, so that’s what I will do. I did want to record a bit of my journey with the vocals too though, so I’ll try to document some of my main takeaways here. Be aware that the advice I’m getting from my teacher is tailored to me and my situation, so it may or may not be relevant to your journey. 

    If you are interested in taking singing seriously though, I can highly recommend investing in some private lessons (after reading Singing for Dummies and trying to implement the ideas on your own for a bit first). It’s expensive, but I would be so much further along if I had had these three lessons I’ve taken so far 5 years ago. This are my thoughts and takeaways after about one month of lessons.

    So, the first big idea was that the voice is a unique instrument and that it needs to be treated as such. Like most wind instruments, there is a point of resonance that sounds the “fullest” because all the air is moving through the instrument in just the right way to create that effect. 

    The voice is no different. If we pay attention, we can choose where the sound “rests” when coming out of our mouth. We can move it forward and make it nasal-y, or backward to be more open. So my first big idea was to move my tone to a point where it sounds naturally full. 

    And to keep it there. In fact, I was instructed to pay attention to the way that I speak to develop the habit of placing my voice in the pocket by default. Now, I don’t speak much in general since I spend most of my time alone in bed in my room, but it’s certainly a new exercise to try to be away and maintain control in every single conversation. It makes perfect sense though. Being a proper good singer is an entire lifestyle choice. 

    Next, a lot of the issues I have are actually very similar to what I faced in the unitar exercises: paying attention to the attack, release, and tone of my notes. With singing there’s several unique layers of challenge. Of course we need to hit the right note, but we also need to use the right consonant and vowel sounds, with the right dynamic, and the appropriate attack for the music. And follow that by holding the pitch with the right tone for the proper duration. Then end the note on time in the way that sounds best. 

    So, how do we get there? Vocal exercises. The captain of the ship Serious who facilitated the unitar exercise could tell immediately that I did not do any proper vocal warm ups or training. And my voice teacher has quickly honed in that the best thing for me to do is expand the set of exercises that I go through daily to work on these fundamental aspects of singing. 

    We’re partially working off the Bel Canto Method, but not in the exact numerical order of the method file I was provided. So far I’ve been assigned two note scales, three note scales, chromatic half steps, major arpeggios, and three-count tones. Mostly on an “ah” vowel, sometimes also on “ee.” 

    Also lip trills while humming to practice moving air a higher speeds. In hindsight it shouldn’t be surprising how physical the activity is, but apparently singing very much a practical athletic endeavor.

    I’m paying close attention to how I start my notes, how I hold them, and how I end them. Honestly it’s pretty mentally taxing. I’m trying to apply these lessons to the songs I’ve been singing, and I feel like my brain doesn’t have enough bandwidth to properly compute. But I trust that with time and practice things will improve. It hasn’t even been a month of lessons yet, and I already feel like I’m poised to make great strides in this field. 

    At the same time I’m also seeing just how far this field goes. I mean, obviously it’s a long and well explored discipline, but I naively believed that I was maybe getting halfway to decent just by doing whatever felt right. If you noticed, I’m more of a book learner than a youtube learner, and actually mostly prefer to try to figure things out on my own. But taking a closer look with an actual expert, it’s clear that I’m more like halfway to halfway decent. A little bit of tailored expert guidance surely goes a long way. 

    The road ahead seems long, but also like a fun and rewarding journey. I never really thought I had the ambition to be a good singer, but it seems I have grown to enjoy it and actually do want to get good. Having a good teacher is giving me hope that it may be possible. The motto of this year rings true as ever: you can get it if you really want, but you must try, try and try, try and try… You’ll succeed at last! 

  • Week 3 Progress Update

    The voice lesson went well! I learned almost as much in a half hour with a pro as I did from reading the entire Singing for Dummies book. It did cost almost 3 times as much for the single session as the whole book as well though, so if you’re considering investing in expert guidance, I strongly recommend going in with a good knowledge of your weaknesses and what you want to work on. And be prepared to follow through with all the advice you receive. There are no shortcuts, but every once in a while a simple sentence from a master can change your whole trajectory. It’s kind of like that thing with good luck though – you can’t really create luck, but with diligence you can put yourself in a position to take advantage of the opportunity when it arises. 

    The first thing I learned was that there’s a subtle change I need to make to the way I’m singing. Its a matter of “knowing my instrument” and identifying how to make it sound its best. Apparently there’s a natural point of resonance that we can target to make the notes come out stronger. Its probably only subtle to my untrained ear – the teacher picked up on it instantly. Hopefully this will help me with that “wispiness” in my tone that I could never quite get rid of. 

    The second thing I discovered was that singing with a grand piano is a completely different experience than singing with uke. It becomes much clearer when you are on or off pitch. Almost immediately I realized that I need to stop trying to do vocal ornaments and focus on really nailing the pitches. Combining this with the previous lesson of refining my tone, my singing bandwidth is already starting to feel taxed. 

    But wait, there’s more! The final big takeaway that the teacher spotted instantly was my breath control. I had read about it in the book, and I thought I was doing it, but I really wasn’t doing it properly at all. Taking the uke out of my hands and singing along to someone else playing the chords made it possible for me to really pay attention to my breathing. We noticed that I never really exhale excess air at the end of phrases, And of course the poorly timed breaths became super apparent when I had nothing to focus on but my vocals. 

    As a user on the UU forums mentioned, it’s probably a good idea to treat the voice as a completely separate instrument to improve alongside the ukulele. I definitely agree. There is enough nuance to singing that if you want to do it well, there needs to be some dedication to the craft. And that sounds like a good plan to me – I need something to do when my fingers get tired from playing all day long! Some say learning how art is made can ruin the magic, but personally, as I learn more about just how difficult it is to make good sounding music, I only find myself with greater awe and appreciation of the artists I look up to. 

    Back to the topic of a master’s advice completely changing your course: a professional musician on the Uke Tribe discord gave us a workshop on the wonderful world of the Unitar on the condition that we would commit to going down to one string on our primary uke until thoroughly working the exercise. The value of doing this was so apparent that I eagerly complied. I’ve been playing for about 10 years now, it’s time to properly learn the notes of the fretboard and go past the 12th fret! 

    This also means I’m supposed to put all my time into working the one string and not cheat by using my other 4-stringed ukes. As a compromise, I’ve been doing my daily singing while only playing on one string… and holy cow is it hard. This also means I haven’t been able to work on the instrumental parts that are typically a large weakness. So for this week I tried picking a few songs that mostly required lyric and chord memorization more than instrumental development. And of course songs that would be nice to try incorporate the new lessons in singing into. 

    Count On Me – Bruno Mars

    There’s no denying the talent of Bruno Mars, and I appreciate that he’s from Hawaii too. I picked this little tune over some of his other major hits because it resonates with me more. It’s relatively simple and straightforward, but it’s nice. Cozy. Memorable. The kind of song that when I first heard it I said “oh, that’s cute!” Then I looked it up and decided to learn it. I’m hoping that’s the kind of response my audience has when I sing it too. I think it’s a good one for uke, and it’d be a particularly nice song to sing to your child or to woo a lover. Not that I have either. But if I did, this would probably be a staple in our house. 

    The progression has more than four chords, but it’s pretty consistent so once you get the order down it’s not too bad. I was able to find and play the roots on one string to practice while memorizing the lyrics and focusing on the vocals. Stripping back and focusing on the essentials is the name of the game this week, so I chose not to even try the very memorable high-note ornament he uses toward the end of the song. Someday I may, but for now I’m just trying to get through with solid pitches and accurate lyrics. 

    One thing I did want to do for this song was add in a travis picking style strum to form a bass line, and to use the movable shape for Em (4432) to create something a little different from usual. But, that would take practicing with 4 strings. So for now I’m just using the open Em and letting it be a little less tight than it ideally would be. Just another “someday I may” get it right.  

    Hey There Delilah – Plain White Tees

    I was reminded that I knew how to play this song in a recent Uke Tribe Open Mic, but the original key was a little bit too high for me so I had to relearn the chords along with remembering the correct order of the lyrics again. I’m told I should change up the key for sequential songs, but I was struggling so much on one string I just had to default to a familiar progression.

    I think this song was popular when I was in college, and so I assume it will be recognizable by my target audience of millennials on vacation in Hawaii. I think it translates nicely to low-g ukulele, and is definitely a challenge for the vocals. There’s no hiding in that chorus! The point of practice is to get better at doing things you couldn’t do before, and I’d like to be able to sing refrains like this with confidence. So, on the set list it goes. 

    It helps that it’s a quaint message too. It came from a time before online relationships were the norm, and when long distance relationships were much harder to maintain. Not that I really know if it’s any easier these days, but now that everyone has a good camera and zoom, I’m sure you can make it work if you really wanted to. Back then there really was a worry about the distance, and if you got lonely maybe you could text, but sitting in front of your computer with laggy low-resolution webcams was not a compelling substitute for a heartfelt song. It also encapsulates the mythos that one can “make it” with music. After all, they did make a successful hit with that guitar. I think it’s something most musical aspirants at least dream about at some point. I did too. Wouldn’t it be nice. 

    Yeah, I’d surely like to have the girl, and to hit those high notes. But I’ll stay on uke thanks very much. 

    The Impression That I Get – Mighty Mighty Bosstones

    I try to only keep half of an eye on what’s happening out there in the real world, and it seems to me like the standard empathetic impulse has been continually degrading. Being born and raised and living in a relatively small community on a relatively small island makes it highly likely that you will encounter the same people throughout your life. This means that if you’re a jerk, people will remember you. So there’s mostly a sort of default level of respect most people afford to each other. Word travels quickly here, and if you’re too unfriendly you stop getting invited to parties. Now that you can be anonymous on the internet there’s a whole sense of “I’m never going to see this person again so I’ll say anything I want” which sort of baffles me. I mean, I get it, but I don’t really understand what life is like with that mindset. 

    When the fires took out the heart of Lahaina town, there was not much I could do but watch on in horror. Then thank my lucky stars we survived. So this song has quite a bit of a personal relevance for me. I know lots of people who were affected, and I know it isn’t good. But I still didn’t face the fire directly myself, so all I have is this impression. Now that I see something similar going on in California on a much grander scale, my heart goes out to them. It’s an awful feeling to see your community destroyed, to lose all the landmarks of your youth, and to be left with literally nothing but ashes. And it’s hard to empathize with such a grand tragedy. But I think it’s important to at least make the effort to sympathize. 

    And this doesn’t only apply to victims of natural disasters. We can rarely fully empathize with the lives of others, but we can recognize that they are having a human experience just as we are, and should be treated with a certain amount of dignity by default. People are the way they are for reasons. Treating others as you would like to be treated seems like a good policy to me. 

    Ok I’ll get off my soapbox now. Back to the jumpin’ ska tune. Since this one is a lot about rhythm, again my main work this week was on memorizing the lyrics, forms, and chord progression. Again I mostly just practiced by playing the roots on one string, and picking the rhythm of the strumming to settle on when to use upbeats. Just like with the Jack Johnson song I skipped the unique intro because I lack the skills to emulate it. It’s challenge enough for me to sing the horn parts and get the words correct. Oh, and to sing it with feeling. Man, there’s so much to work on. I’m really thinking a second pass over everything is probably going to be necessary to get to where i want to be. Maybe even a third. Who knows. 

    In other news, lately I’ve been kind of obsessed with Chet Baker and Wolfgang Lackerschmid’s Ballads for Two. Something about the ethereal vibraphone and soulful trumpet really does it for me. I’d love to play around with something similar with uke solo’s over atmospheric synths. One day, after I conquer the unitar. 

    This week in anime I’m continuing to catch up on the fall season that just finished. I hate waiting for weekly episodes so I just wait till the season ends and binge. I needed to not look at my fretboard while running scales, so I wound up watching a bunch of shows while I practiced. 

    “The Do Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor” was actually objectively pretty decent, if you can ignore the MASSIVE ELEPHANT THEY KEEP POKING throughout. I don’t care if there’s lore reasons, your emperor just can’t be so excited that his bride is under 14. I guess it’s some consolation that in reality it’s an adult woman voice acting as a 16-year old who was time warped back into her 10 year old body to marry a 19 year old dignitary. Ugh. Nope that’s not any better. The story would have been just fine, if not superior, if everyone was of legal age from the start. It wasn’t as bad/good as Onimai, but I’d say maybe similarly discomforting. Oh Japan.

    “Loner Life in Another World” was basically Mary Sue: The Isekai. By episode 2 he was no longer a loner, and all his “junk skills” turned out to be crazy OP and everybody loves our whiny reluctant isekai hero and everything always turns out well for him because he’s just so “ingenious.” The show was so aggressively average I was somewhat impressed. They have to like, intentionally avoid being too unique or interesting and actually be actively annoying to hit 5/10 so hard. I actually do kind of like it for that, but I would not go as far as to call it remotely good. The premise sounded like it had promise. Unfortunately, they did not deliver.   

     “Let this Grieving Soul Retire” was like a wish.com Eminence in the Shadow. It was actually a pretty fun not-isekai fantasy romp that I enjoyed. It never quite hits the same highs as Eminence… no, it doesn’t even come close to the peaks of Eminence, but it’s still a good time nevertheless. At least this whiny reluctant hero is actually weak, and the ensuing hijinks are definitely more entertaining than annoying. That ending song kind of grew on me as an earworm too. Maybe it’s that scream. Or the way they did interesting transitions into it. Or the booty shorts? Idk. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next season. 

    Finally the dark horse of this week was “Kinokoinu: Mushroom Pup.” The UU weekly challenge theme was “animal farm” so they wanted a song related to animals and I thought I might find a quirky opening or closing theme to learn. Alas, I was hit with a heart wrenching story of overcoming grief and breaking out of depression after everyone you love has died. With the help of your very own magical mushroom dog mascot character, of course. If you find yourself listless after losing a pet or a parent, it might be a comforting watch. Otherwise on its own I felt it was kind of a downer. Sadly, unconditionally loving magical mushroom dogs don’t seem to pop out of nowhere to comfort us in real life very often. 

    I didn’t get a cute song out of that show, but defaulted to one of the few songs featuring animals I already knew. Here’s my submission to the UU weekly song challenge as a bonus for making it this far: 

  • Trouble in Paradise

    TL;DR I’m dumb. The buzzing was caused by me touching my phone while it was charging. Seems like touching a charging cable electrifies you in a way that can’t be felt, but can be picked up by a sensitive device like the Sparrow. 100% user error. Problem has been solved and the uke still plays like a dream.

    So, above is the short version. It was entirely my inexperience with electric ukes that caused this non-problem. But since I am documenting this experience, I would be remiss to admit that this did cause me several days of frustration!

    It started when I was noodling around practicing my F scales in the woodshed with a couple of the gang tuning in. I’ve been learning more about overdrives and amps and was playing with a high-gain effects patch with tons of spacy reverb to explore lush layers of sound. It was really good fun, but toward the end I started noticing that horrifying sound of static popping from a failing instrument cable.

    Here’s a sample of the style (made after the problem was solved)to listen to while reading my tale of being a total steel-string magnetic coil instrument noob:

    Since I was playing live, the only thing to do was stay as still as possible and hope it wouldn’t be too intrusive. But of course playing moves the instrument around, so I couldn’t avoid the static attack. It was only in the woodshed though, so nobody cares if you drop the ball, but its never fun to have that kind of thing interrupt your playing.

    So right after we wrapped up I tried plugging the chord into one of my acoustic-electrics to see if it was the cable that was messed up. There was no issue with that. Yikes. It might not be so obvious in this initial short because this was recorded just with my phone mic so I could talk and describe the problem, but a little further down is another example of me recreating the issue in a much clearer manner while recording with my line-in signal.

    (Both shorts are unlisted and should only be visible within the context of this post.)

    The next day I opened up the back panel (with a little effort – the back was really hard to take off initially! It did come off eventually) to take a look at the wiring inside. I’m am admittedly not savvy when it comes to things like this, but I can at least identify crossed wires or things that look out of place. I’ll say I am well versed in the tried-and-true “poke it and see if that is the problem” method. Well, the wiring looked pretty meticulously and clean. There seemed to be no issues with the internal construction.

    It was actually pretty cool to look inside and see the hollow-ness of my uke. Sorry, hard not to get distracted by the craftsmanship. Anyway, I noticed that I could cause the popping by touching the little foil strip that was next to the input jack. I’ve since learned that this is electromagnetic shielding, but before diving into this issue I didn’t really understand why the base and back plate were covered by such nice shiny and obviously carefully placed foil.

    Since poking that point caused some static, and putting pressure on the back plate seemed to be a trigger for the issue. I decided to try put a piece of tape on top to break the connection to the foil on the shielding plate.

    This seemed to mostly clear up the issue. Mostly. The static and popping was still there, just a lesser amount. And that’s really no good if I’m trying to create lush walls of sound. But was late so I went to sleep and decided to try work on it in the morning.

    To my surprise, in the morning things had changed. Instead of static popping, my sound signal was cutting out completely in a classic display of a faulty instrument cable. Was it the cable after all? I redid the check with an acoustic-electric, and it was still fine. But still not ok in the electric. Very strange.

    So I swapped out the cable, and… the complete signal loss stopped, but the static popping remained. My running theory for this is that because the Sparrow is about 1/2 the thickness of my acoustic ukes, it presses up against my bed in a different manner than the acoustics, causing problems with it that my acoustics might avoid. I’ve ordered a right-angle cable for the electric uke that should be better.

    Ok, so fresh cable in, problem still persists. Next I thought that because I’m laying in bed, I maybe I could be putting an unusual pressure on the back plate that caused the block of the Tone knob to hit the foil and cause some sort of loop. So I put tape on top of that rectangle too. No change. I was out of ideas, so it was time to ask the Uke Tribe if they had any ideas. So I grabbed my phone and made another video to show what was happening.

    Ironically, I unplugged my phone from charging to use the camera kit and capture the line in tone… and the buzzing stopped! D’oh! This video was captured by touching the charging cable even when the phone wasn’t plugged in, which I quickly discovered was a thing once I identified the culprit.

    So in short: using the phone by itself is fine. Touching the charging cable by itself is not fine. Using the phone while it is charging is also not okay. But otherwise, there is no problem. I took off the tape that was interrupting the shielding contact, and it played again like the day I got it.

    I certainly didn’t anticipate that my entire body would become slightly charged by just touching this cable. Thinking about it further, I suspect most people who are sitting or standing while playing probably have their phone on a desk or at arms length somehow so they may rarely have the charging cable in contact with their body while playing. And since my acoustic-electrics are all piezo-based, the extra charge never caused any problems.

    So in the end it kind of was a special issue caused by my unique situation. But if you ever hear a buzz when you put your charging phone down on your lap… there is a supremely simple fix to the problem. Don’t touch that wire while playing! It could happen to you!

    If you are new to the electric instrument game like me, maybe my experience here can save you some headache. Let’s have fun rocking our ukes, not troubleshooting random static!

  • Blues is the path to Jazz

    I wasn’t really ready to start this project, so a lot of it will be slowly built out live. But now that the ball is rolling, nothing to do but chase after it. It all started when I randomly clicked on a Reddit post promoting the Ukulele Tribe Discord. That was apparently formed after some drama on the Ukulele Underground forums, but I haven’t dug too far into that and frankly don’t care much for drama. Anyway, I joined both groups, and wanted to share my electric uke journey with them, and so pulled the trigger on making my own little corner of the internet. 

    As it happens, a new friend from the discord who is an actual professional musician has been giving me some great advice on different ways to improve, so that’s been taking up an unexpected amount of time. But I’m spending the time to act on the advice because it will be so clearly useful to me. It’s really not anything super unheard of before – focus when you practice, learn the notes on your fretboard, listen to music that defines the style you want to play. 

    When I mentioned I wanted to play jazz, he suggested that I start by getting really familiar with blues. Well, to tell the truth, I’ve never been super interested in blues music. I love all the complexity inherent in jazz and have listened to quite a lot of that, but my musical tastes have always been a bit eclectic. My favorite genres are shoegaze, goth rock, punk, emo, hardcore, ska, industrial, idm, some edm, a range of jazz styles (bebop, big band, neo and electro-swing, gypsy, modal, smooth, swing), ambient and experimental, classical, and of course, anime songs. 

    Notably missing from this list are blues and pop. Actually I have a fondness for 80’s, 90’s and early 00’s music, but a lot of early rock and classic pop eludes me. I don’t mind most of it, but I don’t usually choose to listen to a lot of the more well known artists of the past half century. When I want to perform, I usually feel a need to go out of my way to find songs that I hope other people have heard. And since I’m starting this project to put myself and my music in front of people, 

    So I put together a playlist of songs I think that I would like to perform, and I think that people would like to hear. The advice was to work on 3 songs at a time and polish them up to become performance ready, so that will be the project for the tenor and singing for the foreseeable future. These aren’t really songs that I would choose to polish for the sake of singing to myself, but I like them enough to put the work in to present it to the world. I would really like to do more of my eclectic favorites, but maybe that can wait until I have more of an audience. 

    The next piece of advice was that if I want to play jazz, I should listen to more blues and learn to play it. Makes sense, if I want to play a certain genre, I should learn about its roots and develop a sense of how it got to be what it is. And so begins a journey to learn the blues. I was actually surprised, the original blues are a lot more raw and soulful than I had expected. I am quite liking it too actually. 

    And learning to love the 12-bar blues is looking to be more exciting than I had expected too. Tonight I spent a couple hours just noodling a scale over the progression while learning where the notes on my fretboard are. Imagine that, nearly 10 years in and I never took the time to properly learn my fretboard notes before. I mean, for the majority of what I play, I only needed to know my chords and to be able to sing in tune. That was until I got bit by the baritone bug earlier this year and developed a taste for fingerstyle. And developed aspirations to actually be able to solo during the instrumental breaks, and maybe one day play solo jazz ukulele. 

    Here’s a little taste of my 12-bar blues noodling:

    Apparently a generic 12-bar blues progression in F is copyrighted, but for now they seem to be allowing me to post the backing track, just in case anyone feels like some noodly practice of their own:

    Well, it’s up for now. And yes, that’s a Digitone 2. I need to do a whole rundown my setup now that this channel is live, so stay tuned. I still think some better should music come first though.

  • Hello World!

    And so begins the tale of Isekai Ukulele!

    I’ve been disabled for nearly a decade now, and haven’t been able to be very productive with my time. Even now its a constant challenge to put useful effort forward beyond just taking care of my every day needs. But I’ve had this idea for a creative project for several months now, and a series of unexpected events has led to the start of this journey a little sooner than expected. So initially I’ll be doing a little retroactive stuff like this, but soon enough I hope to keep it live!