Category: Tenor

Well, I lost two days to a migraine because that’s what happens to me when I’m not careful with my time. That’s why I’m disabled and doing this instead of working a real job like a normal person. I got a wish granted by the monkey’s paw: all the time in the world to do whatever I want, as long as I don’t get out of bed or get too intensely focused for too long. 

It’s also why I watch so much anime. For some reason seeing real healthy beautiful people acting out imaginary problems just rubs me the wrong way, so I’m not as big of a fan of live action stuff. If you can tell by the name, I’m a real big fan of the isekai genre because oh it would be so lovely to be reborn in a new world with a working body (and preferably a cheat skill). Anyway, during this episode I made it through Pseudo Harem, which was actually pretty sweet. Romance is also usually not my thing since I’m an eternally lonely hikki-neet living with his parents irl, but I can appreciate a good story. And anime relationships are usually so wild and contrived (just talk to each other dammit!!!) but every once in a while it’s nice to get hit with the saccharine feels. I liked it enough I’m actually thinking about adding one of the op or ed songs to the transcription list. Maybe someday. Before that though, I have a long list of very well known songs I’ve been wanting to transcribe for fingerstyle, so I’ve got a lot of songs lined up already. 

I was actually able to make some progress in transcribing one of the most important songs to get right, but it needs a little bit more time in the oven before I’m ready to share it. And while I was working on it I was blindsided by a fantastic suggestion of a method to practice playing in a key from the Uke Tribe Discord. Instead of following through with my plans, I spent several hours just running around the fretboard in the key of F! Well, it was really fun, and I got so engrossed by it because the value of doing it was so obvious. 

This week’s discord challenge was also to record a Christmas tune, and the Ukulele Underground Forum had a Christmas song thread as well, so that’s what I’m featuring today:

 

These are actually some kinda new songs to me, my mom learned to dance hula to them from her classes, so we want to put on a little show when the whole family is around next week. We’ll see if we actually perform them, but I think the songs are interesting and fun enough to share. I wanted to do a whole Christmas set (two actually) but losing days to pain always kinda kills my motivation so… maybe next year. The songs will surely be more polished by then too, so your ears can thank me then! 

Spoiler alert: I just suck. Perfect example of why I call myself “intermediate” level. I can make it through my songs, but it’s not always great the first time. I don’t think it’s super awful, but I do think it could be much, much, MUCH better. It’s actually pretty difficult to jump between tenor and baritone scale, at least for where I’m at right now. I have less than a year of experience with baritone, and most of that has been focused on fingerstyle, so I’m really exploring new waters here. I thought it would be natural for me to swap back to tenor, but well, here we are. You can judge for yourself: 

Truth be told, I would not play these songs this way on my acoustic uke. I just used the same effects as I did with the electric to emphasize the difference between the two instruments. Ideally you would sculpt your effects to really take advantage of your magnetic or piezo pickup. Having only had the electric for a week, I’ve just been using what I already had set up for my acoustic-electric. So in that regard, these effects should probably sound a bit more appropriate in this context, as they were mostly initially designed for this ukulele. 

Regardless, I don’t really like to drown my acoustic ukes in effects like this, so I would probably just play it on my basic “acoustic” setting which actually has a bit of delay and reverb to help thicken up the sound. It’s hard for me to use proper acoustic microphones because I’m stuck in bed and it’s kind of a nightmare to manage that, a vocal mic, and a camera all at the same time. And because I don’t use a DAW, I can’t really do noise reduction or add non-destructive efx in post. Just gotta do it live!  

Actually, recording a stripped down set like that is probably tomorrow’s project, hence this being part 1. I was having so much fun it seems I’ve overextended myself and have a major migraine coming on, so I’m going to have to put any more music work aside for the time being.